#101 When (True) Crime Pays
50:46 Share

Hello everyone, I am with LJ, editor of the World of Chinese magazine, which commissions Middle Earth. Hi Aladdin. So LJ, what are the exclusive stories that you guys have worked on this issue 104? We focus on how urban Chinese residents are reconnecting with nature. So they are lacking nature now? Absolutely. They discovered that there is a serious lack of nature education among urban kids right now. It has a negative impact on them, but there is also a strong effort to change the situation.

In a related story, we explored how a well-designed zoo in Nanjing has attracted large group of followers and how it has inspired them to care more about nature and wildlife.

And so in this issue, what are the others' articles? Yeah, we also took a cruise ship down the Yangtze River, traced the history of game consoles in China, and uncovered why Hunan Cuisine in particular is taking China by storm right now. So dear listeners, if you want to know more and support the podcast, go to theworldofchinese.com and order your latest copy. It seems that we can only rely on ourselves. The earth has made the last return to China.

This is not a safe place. I think the two of them are going to be able to get the woman's head.

Hi everyone and welcome to Middle Earth, your source for insight into China cultural industry. Listen on to those who are making a living by creating and distributing art or content in the world's second biggest cultural market. I'm your host Aladin Fahre, founder of China Compass Production. So if you need any location scouting for our next project in China, film translation service or find a co-producer, you should reach out. Also, if you are a Chinese speaker and you don't mind my broken Chinese, don't hesitate to check out my Bilibili channel Aladin Shuo Dianing. Link in the podcast description.

If there is one format that podcasters all over the world should thanks, it would surely be true crimes as they sure boosted the podcast industry. But then what about China? According to the World of Chinese magazine, in the article "Can China Detective Novel Finally Make Crime Pay?" by Jesse Yong, we can already see that in literature there were already stories back a long time ago about judge looking to solve murder case or that Sherlock Holmes was translated in Chinese at the end of the Qing dynasty.

A bit like our last episode about AI, it would be difficult to give a concrete snapshot, but recently movies like The 8 Suspects, which concerns a bank robber in the 90s, No More Bets About Lonely Skamer or Jong-Imo's latest movie Article 20 shows that crime-related content are enjoyed as anywhere else and they are making good box office. Also the trailer Lost in the Stars.

got to the fourth place in the 2023 Chinese box office. But let's be honest, I don't think we have each year a true detective TV show coming out of China, but a lot of things are happening in the movie industry realm at least. And some TV shows also were quite remarkable in the last year. So today with me, three guests.

So first, Ayi, hello. I was born in the south of China, in a central province called Jiangxi. I was born in a county town, and I worked as a policeman for five years, and then as a journalist for nine years. In 2013, I officially became a professional writer.

Because as a policeman, I always got involved in some criminal cases. So many real stories were used as examples. Also, some of his books have been translated in English and French and a dozen languages. So we'll surely put a link in the podcast description. Next, well, not really next to us because today's recording is made in Beijing, Australia and the US. So yeah, it's quite an experience.

interesting on the logistics. So next, Eric Chong Han, hello. Good morning everyone and thank you Aladdin for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here alongside YP and Ayi. My name is Eric Chong Wan Yan. I'm a content creator on YouTube and Bilibili. My focus is on video analysis ranging from crime and interrogation videos to more everyday situations like dating, job interviews and popular short videos from the internet.

my niche is psychology, particularly body language analysis. And next to you in the chat box but on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Wapi, hello. Hi, I'm Wapi. So this is my pen name and I'm the founder and the main writer of the WeChat official account Mergarden, Moya Huayuan in Chinese. So I had also been a journalist for several years and

Then I got my PhD degree in Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research focused on crime and security guards in urban space in China. Then after graduation, I devote all my time in

making the content for Mergarden. Well, thank you guys. So today we'll mainly talk about the type of true crime content that my guests are writing and creating, who is the audience for such books, videos, and podcasts, and also their business model. And as usual, we'll finish this panel conversation with a podcast usual quiz where one of our guests will win a prize.

I think the first question would simply be like, I'm quite wondering what do your peers, maybe your family, your close friends, you know, people that you work with, like, do they think in China that, you know, writing true crime story and producing video and writing articles and writing book about that, like, do they think it's a bit...

Okay, so my family and friends, I think they received this very well. But I think it's a bit of a different story.

I did block some of them from my account because I think some content was so cruel and had some violent elements. So I don't really want my cousin or someone to read this. But I don't think it's a very big problem for me. When I was writing a crime story, I like to redo the act in my house when I was writing.

For example, when I was writing about murder, I would gesture the killing in my house with a pen in my hand. My girlfriend at the time was very scared, so I restrained myself and went somewhere else. Because when you're writing, there are some places that you have to feel in the real place.

I think the question is also about the fact that when you guys start creating something... So, for example, I worked on this documentary about a blind man who climbed Mount Everest a few years ago. And I guess when you pitch that project, everyone's like, oh, wow, such an impressive story that is really uplifting and things like that. But I was wondering, kind of, when you guys started doing your video and your books on more serious and dark matter, like...

What was kind of the reaction of your close friends and the public? And also maybe because maybe at that time, like, was there a lot of people that were doing the same thing or were you trying something completely new? I'm hoping that the listeners could have some context. Like when you started doing that, was there a lot of other people doing true crime story or were you one of the pioneer? I think there are already some of them starting to write articles about true crimes, but

I don't know when Eric started to write, started to do this, but I think when I started to write the first article on Moya Huayuan in 2017. So for the WeChat official account, it starts I think 2010 or something. So it developed

to the peak in 2014. But when I joined it in 2017, I think it's not a, it's already not a good time for that business. And I already found many authors write this kind of themes. But most of them don't have many followers at that time, even now.

It seems not a very popular topic. And as you said, maybe in Chinese culture there is a taboo on this. So people kind of think that's not a very popular topic to really talk about in social life.

Regarding true crime stories, I think young people really enjoy reading such stories. When I wrote this crime-themed novel myself, it was because I had the convenience of doing so. I had worked as a policeman for several years, so I had mastered some cases and understood the mentality of some criminals. So it was easy for me to write those crime novels.

But later, I found that even if they're not policemen and do not have a legal background, most of the authors are male. It is easy for them to write crime stories when they embark on the path of literary creation. Basically, male writers born in the 70s and 80s have written crime stories in their novels.

I have also worked for the Beijing News and I found that there is a regular column in the newspaper called China News Community News, which mainly reports on crimes.

If we're talking about one incident at a time, and it does not contain any violence, pornography, or anything related to the case, the effect of its dissemination will be very poor. So overall, I think crime themes account for a relatively large proportion in China literature. It is a path-dependent theme for authors to follow. Because after you write a crime story, you can easily gain the reader's care and attention.

And then it is easy for you to be selected by novel anthologies and novel monthly magazines. And it's also easy for you to be adapted for television and movies. Eric, would you have any reaction to what the two other guests have said so far? I kind of disagree. I think crime and criminal stories is very popular across China and, you know, across all generations. It's not about what you do, it's about how you do it.

And if you are focused on sex and violence, I think it's not a good way to do it. I actually got into this during the pandemic. I started from 2020. That was the time I pretty much just stayed at home and I watched, and I watched like,

like watching loads of YouTube videos and I came across this channel called JCS Criminology. You know, I was surprised by the number of views they were getting. I mean, I started from interrogation videos. So interrogation videos, you know, they're generally super long, like hours, tens of hours. And honestly, they're not fun to watch at all.

Traditionally, we do see interrogation footage sometimes in crime documentaries, but it's normally just like a 10-second clip of the confession, never the whole thing. JCS was the first channel I know that shared the whole thing. They will show like the 30 minutes of the interrogation footage of two people, you know, just talking, nothing else, just talking.

But to make it engaging, they did a great job on editing. They cut up these hours long sessions into something digestible for the viewers and adding very professional commentary along the way so the viewers understand the dynamics I play. So it was such an eye opener for me. So I figured, you know, since I know something about this, why not just give it a go?

That's basically how I got started. Then I'm curious, especially for the two creators on the platform, can you guys share a little bit who are your audience actually? Because I do know that me when I upload my own video on Bilibili and WeChat video, like it's pretty funny. They give you such a small analysis of where those people live and what age they are. You even on Bilibili, you have like the hashtag that people usually click on those kind of things.

What do you know is your typical listeners and reader? The majority of them lives in bigger cities like Shanghai and Beijing and I think many of them in Guangdong province. They're mostly in their 20s and 30s. More than 80% of them are female and we can also see that more than half of them use iPhones.

rather than an Android. I can see that the followers who like to read articles, because our articles are usually very long and it's about cases happening in other countries, so they have some other language information. So the readers have to be well educated.

So they can read such a long story. Because you also publish books now. It's not just you didn't do just true crime as, you know, reporting true crimes. You're also, like, writing. So I don't know, like, what happened when you...

do like a meet and greet with people buying books or do you do like fan events, things like that? Every time I publish a book, there will be some events I will attend in person. So I think most of the audience who come to the event are girls and many college students or we say white collars. I think the most ageing

Yeah, following us in the 30s. Okay, so Eric, does this description of YP audience fit yours or maybe it's a bit different? Or it's exactly the same? I think it's quite different. I don't know if...

Because they write books and I make videos. They are readers and my are more like viewers. Yeah, but you know, WAPI also, if I may stop you, sorry, but also WAPI also makes a video on Xia Hongshu, maybe a shorter video, if I remember. You do a video like a few minutes, but you, Eric, on Bilibili, you make those almost hour-long things. Yeah, we just started the video last year and very occasionally. But Xia Hongshu being definitely the

the one platform for a female consumer. And you can all know about it, dear listener of the Middle-Earth podcast. It was episode 49, if I'm not mistaken, when we did like a one full episode about Xia Hongshu. That's fine. Just in terms of audience demographics, because I post videos on B2B and YouTube, the website will tell me exactly where they are, how old they are.

Generally, to me, it's about people from 25 to 35. They account for, I would say, more than 80% of my audience. And in terms of where they are, on Bilibili, I know Guangdong is about 15%. That's already the highest across all of China. Other provinces, not even close. Because I remember Jiangsu is second. It's about 7%.

but just to me you know personally speaking for some reasons most of my viewers are from south part of china i never you know crunch the exact numbers but i'll say 70 of my viewers is from south part of china

I don't know why, you know, I don't know why this is the case. I mean, I always heard that people from Guangdong, I mean, for those who don't know, because Guangdong is also the most populous province with 100 million people. So I guess also like, you know, of course, if you have fans in Qinghai and Gansu, like just a few million people, that's going to be hard to have a lot of them. But I always heard that people from Guangdong are a little bit more...

superstitious, Mishin, I don't know. I'm not sure if that's the case. To me, I think, because I'm from North, I'm from Shaanxi, people around me from North, I think they prefer shorter videos, like those on Douyin or TikTok. And I make long videos, so

I don't know if that makes the difference. Because websites, companies, apps, they all have their own algorithms, right? So my personal experience might be biased, but I do feel there is a difference in terms of the geographic distribution of influencers on different platforms. Because I think there's more influencers from the north on Douyin, TikTok, shorter videos, and more from the south on Bilibili, like

long video platform okay maybe everyone in the north we all have to you know do the 996 every single day that might be the case yeah but joke aside because that's very interesting the fact that you have fans on Bilibili and YouTube so I'm wondering like the kind of age gap and gender ratio is it the same as Bilibili or is it completely different

I'll say it's the same, pretty much the same. Male, female, about 70 to 30. So, you know, yeah, on my side, there are just more male, like 70% of my viewers are male. And age-wise, I think it's the same.

Okay, well, maybe people of a certain gender prefer to watch a host of the same gender, maybe. And now to move on to the content itself. First, all the stories that you write, they're all based in China, right? All the stories I write are about China. And most of them are about county towns and the countryside. Because I lived in a county town during my teenage years.

But I wrote a short novel myself, which is about what I should do next. This is the background. A story in the city, it is also about a middle school student from a county town. After he came to live in the city, he could not adapt to the life there, so he had no choice but to embark on the path of killing. And my stories are about China's urban and rural stories.

And also out of curiosity, of all the years that you've been writing those stories and all the cases, because you work mainly based on former cases, are the kind of stories you've been evolving? And I'm not really asking about your writing, but also the kind of stories happening in China. Do you see a change of trend? From my perspective,

I feel like people in the 90s, maybe things were a little bit more edgy in the streets. But now I feel like when they do a movie in China, it's all about... And it's crime, cruel crime related, then it would just be like domestic violence, like stars in their eyes, or it's about like those online scamming. So it feels like, I guess like you're...

Do your story also follow those kind of trends? Or do you always put them in a certain timeline? All my stories are about China's urban and rural stories. I haven't written anything similar. But I have written the same theme over and over.

The same that I like to write about when a person's identity is torn apart. For example, a rural person falls in love with a city person. In the process, his love is definitely a tragedy, and they have to break up. In this process, some criminal cases will occur.

I like to write about such cases. But then moving on to Wapi, could you describe a little bit some of your content and video? Because I feel what's interesting is that you talk about like story happening in China, but also a lot about like stories happening internationally.

to Chinese people, but outside of China? And also, I feel as you answer, can you also talk a little bit about how you do the research work and find the elements to do your research? Because it's not so much about creating the story, it's also about sourcing all the elements to deliver the story. So all the true crime stories on Mergaden came from all around the world. So the majority of them

happens in Western countries and East Asian countries. So like Japan, Korea, and China. So the reason we decided to write articles in these countries is because the readers, they are more interested in

crimes happening in these countries. People are more interested in information related to them. So either like you said, it happened in China or it happened in China abroad. But

We don't really write many articles about the case in China because we cannot find enough information to write in detail. Mostly we rely on some court documents and

news reports, books, and also sometimes there's online information. So what's interesting is that you are heavily dependent on the online available sources that are on the internet. Like for writing a few articles on WeChat or doing a video, you can't go all the way to start making phone calls to the sheriff's office in Iowa or something like that. Your work heavily relies on available online sources.

Yes, because if we write some cases happening in Western countries like in the US, you can get all the documents online and also some videos like what Eric did. They can do some analysis on the investigation and some interrogation videos. But because of lack of enough information, that's why it's hard for us to write some cases in China.

So that's why we choose to write many cases in US and Canada and sometimes Australia. I agree with Wapi. A lot of information is not allowed here. So the possibility of writing a non-fiction work like Truman Kabat-Zinn in China is very low because you cannot interview the criminal and you cannot interview him in prison as an author. It is not possible.

If you go to interview the people around the crime scene, you might be able to obtain some information like a reporter, but you may also encounter great obstacles.

So, yeah, my question was, I would imagine, but tell me if I'm wrong, but I would imagine that your audience in China would be more interested to know about what happened to an unfortunate incident, accident or murder to a Chinese citizen in the US, Canada or France rather than a local American. Would that assessment be correct? Yeah.

Yeah, I think there will be more interest in that. But if the case happens to other citizens, it's very interesting. They will also read it. And so regarding those online sources and how to source the story, Eric, could you also share about how you do the same process? It's pretty much the same thing with WAPI because in the US there's a sunshine law. So

they have the police and they have to release the court materials once it goes to court so everything every details about this case will be released to the public you can find them online if you want to and that pretty much covers everything you know police reports memos and interrogation videos evidence pretty much everything but in china it's a more

We don't have first-hand information. We rely on media and we basically, what we do our research is based on what media is telling us. I guess that's the difference. For sure. I mean, that being said, I don't know for each European countries, but at least in France, we would never see such kind of suspect video, something that lasts four hours, like the cops, they would never release such kind of things.

And if that happens, I guess it's only because someone internally has leaked it to the public. But you still manage to create video. As you said, you don't do just true crime. You do body analysis and psychology. So I'm wondering, first, what's the ratio of your video between China, North America, the rest of the world? And then what's...

when you talk about Chinese topic, when you talk about topics happening in China, then what are those more focused on? - In the first two years, I would say China about, you know, about one third and the USA and other countries about two thirds. Now it's actually changed, I would say probably closer to 50/50. When I first started, I focused a lot

topics like police activities, crime and interrogations, which were mostly based on English footage. But over time I realized my audience is primarily Chinese or at least Mandarin speaking. So that I started incorporating footage from Chinese sources. I figured they might find content that's directly relatable to them, probably even more interesting. But it wasn't a change. I wasn't moving away from true crime. I'm just saying I was expanding to a broader range of topics.

And another reason for this was to kind of establish my own brand. Because in the beginning, I wasn't sure what viewers liked. So I just started from, you know, with those cases that already had the highest views on YouTube. But, you know, later some critics said I was just simply translating Western YouTubers' work into Chinese, which by the way is not true, but I did want to shake up the image. So the obvious thing to do is to create content that no Western YouTubers has covered before.

I just checked.

Eric has 570,000 fans on Bilibili, which is quite impressive. So many online writers in China, including those I know, can monitor their readers' data in real time.

But in my writing, it seems that I'm writing against the trend. I'm gambling that someone will buy what I write. Under this situation, I actually support going online to write in a very lingering and cruel competitive way. But because I've always written this kind of literature by submitting articles to the magazines, accepting commissions, and working with a publishing house, I've become dependent on this model.

It's probably a bit like those employees working in state-owned enterprises who cannot accept being laid off because of this lifestyle. It's struggling in the market. So I've always envied those online literature and the process of creating directly on the Internet, including making short videos like Douyin.

Because all my creations are separated from this market. If I want to obtain some data, I have to find the publisher to ask those numbers. So, in my model, I can only pay attention to what Kafka wrote or what Proust wrote back in the era. Why did they receive such high evaluation back then?

They use the honor or something they received from a third party to evaluate themselves and the possibilities they might achieve in the future. So, people like us may have a lot of fantasies in our minds. There is no data to support these beliefs.

I am relatively lucky. I have always had an editor, so I can detect my writing and maintain it, because I have that help. As long as there are editors of literature magazines, both domestic and foreign, and editors of publishing houses who actively contacted me, my creation continues.

If the knocks on the door and the ringing on the phone stopped one day, it would mean that my creation was over. It should be that our incomes were declining.

and our overall reading pattern had changed. I feel that this change can be seen for myself. The time I spend on reading has been reduced to half, and I'm also used to watching short videos, receiving information in this way. I used to sell about 30,000 copies of a book on average.

Now it's about 10,000 copies. And it's not that the quality of my work has declined, nor the reader's taste. I

I think it's just a change in the reading method of readers that has brought about the overall sharp decline in the circulation of paper books. Now there are a lot of data reports on the Internet saying that publishing companies are in the strategic adjustment. Recently there is a publishing company called New Classics, Xinjingdian, a public company. They want to shrink a lot of publishing projects.

Maybe around Yuhua or these head writers continue to do a lot of projects, but in total, they have begun to shrink. They even put the money in somewhere else, not in publishing, to make money. And for those who are interested, I would definitely advise the listener to tune in to episode 92 and episode 95, where we talk about the publishing industry and also the web novels. Yeah, it's like all of this...

rather classical industry is kind of changing here in China. Wapi, I think you could be the next one to talk about your business model. Because if I may spoil the being, like you started writing and then you switched, then you focused a bit more on your official account, Gong Zhong Hao, and now you can, and now I guess maybe it's a bit easier for you to be published. Yeah, when I started doing Gong Zhong Hao in,

In 2017, I wasn't hoping to make money from it. I just do it out of interest. Later, when I devote all my time into it, I really had to have income to support it. And now we have many authors to write articles for the account and we pay fees to them.

So revenue of our account mainly comes from three sources. First, advertising. The second one is subscription fees like we some articles needs to be

be paid to read. Some readers will pay to read our articles. And the third one is book sales. Like I said, that's not a big portion of it. I personally also write novels and some of them has been, has sold a film and television adaptation rights fees. So,

That kind of make up some, you know, some like publishing fees. Yeah, and this is exactly what we talk about in our episode 95 is like on the web novels at the end of the day. Now, what everyone hopes is to sell their IP or to have like a film and TV company basically working with them. What about you, Eric? Because like for those who don't know, like the...

pay-per-click on Bilibili is pretty low. Like on YouTube, you get roughly $1 for 1000 views, but on Bilibili, it's like ¥1 for 1000 views. So yeah, I'm just wondering, is it also your passion project or do you manage to build some kind of business model thanks to it? I actually do a lot of things. Before COVID and after COVID, it's very different.

After the pandemic, my professional life has diversified significantly. Both my YouTube and Bilibili channels generate revenue based on view count, like you mentioned. I also included embedded advertising in my videos, which makes up a significant portion of my income.

Beyond video production, I offer body language coaching and consulting services primarily to business people, occasionally to actors as well. Lately, actually, I've been advising many video game companies. It's a lot of fun. And at the same time, I'm involved in knowledge-based monetization. It's a very...

It's a concept that is very popular in China right now. It basically means you sell, you're paying for knowledge. You can provide educational content or some information, expertise, this kind of thing in exchange for a fee. And I also just want to weigh in because I understand Ayi represents the classical way of he writes books.

and Wapi is kind of like in the middle. She writes books, she also makes videos, and I only make videos. It's more like the new generation way. Just to me, writing books, my reading habit also changed from 10 years ago, and today it's very different. 10 years ago, I can read a book. I would read the entire book. But now, even if I buy the book, I won't read the whole thing.

I think how to get people to read the whole book is very different. You know, even to me, I make videos. A lot of people don't even watch videos. They just play it when they drive and they just listen to it. Even that, I still have to think how to get audience attention, you know, from the start to finish. So that's why

When I make videos, a lot of my videos are actually reaction videos. You know, just like other reaction videos you see on YouTube. I will have the interrogation footage on one side and my face on the other. And I will comment on it like a sports announcer during like a basketball or football game. And I will explain the interrogation tactics, strategy in being used, the suspects, or these days we say interviewees body language.

and sometimes provide a criminal psychology breakdown. I did my video this way because I was inspired by reaction videos and sports announcers. Again, maybe that question won't be in the final cut, but I'm just wondering. So Wapi, Eric, both of you mentioned you do ads. So kind of in an ironic way, I'm wondering who are the people making ads for you? Is it like...

Life insurance or is it like a security feature kind of stuff? Like who are the people who are advertising on your channels? Like is it related to crime or is it maybe a bit random? Like you said, there are some life insurance ads and also maybe because the majority of our followers are female. So there are some skincare products.

It's kind of random. Sometimes there's a hairdryer or things like that. They want to have more people to see their products, to see their brand. So they will find us to promote, but it's not really related to the contents of our account. It's the same. They don't advertise based on what you do. It's based on your personal IP, who you are.

So there are all kinds of companies who come to me. Okay, so it could be random. Very random, you know, very random. From, you know, massage, glasses, bigger companies like insurance company, home security, to people who are selling condoms. Yeah, these are all kinds of things.

That's interesting. We only have one advertiser at the middle of podcasts, and that is the world of Chinese. But joke aside, I wanted to ask you guys kind of a... I don't know if it's really a tough question, but the one thing that kind of puzzled me, I guess, in this whole true crime industry and...

creativity behind it. I'm sure you guys know about this cliche what we call the missing white woman. It's a coin that was termed some time ago when they realized that most of the media they would give so much more coverage if a white woman was missing in the US. So whether they were killed or something like that and like people of color or some men like they would get less coverage.

I'm wondering if at some point, like true crime on some extent, like what is the responsibility of us as content creators when we're like pushing those kind of narratives? Like, I'm wondering if sometimes we're not a little bit like maybe feeding the beast, pushing some stories on some point, and maybe we don't have enough time to focus on the whole stories happening. And maybe at the same time, also because maybe sometimes

the audience, that's what they want to watch. Because after all, I want to acknowledge that, I guess, like if you're a woman, wherever in the world, the world is...

less safe for you than if you're a man. So I'm just wondering, like this kind of conundrum between the fact that some content are more watched and listened when they talk about women going through horrible situations. As a content creator, what's like the line to draw between informing people and at the same time not being too much exploitive of some kind of topics? I noticed the same theory that usually the media will give most attention to

like the disappearance of white little girl then list to black sex worker female sex worker and that's what I read a few years ago. I think maybe that's because the the media knows what the readers are interested in so they care about the views, reads and so

They want to keep the readers updated on all the information they want to know. But for me, I'm personally interested in those code cases because I want to explore the answers to it while I spend time in writing the articles. Sometimes we have to kind of consider both.

One is what the readers expect from reading from you and the other is what cases is more meaningful to write these cases to let people know because if a case is just a random crime and just some violent crime maybe there are not much lessons you can generate from it.

It's also not a very good story, but for some cases it's meaningful for the readers to know how to solve problems, how to deal with intimate relations in families like this. So I think for us, like creators, we need to consider both.

Yeah, I agree. I think the missing white woman syndrome, that's what we call it, is a real thing. Like I said before, it's really about the way how you're doing it. And I think as a content creator, we do have the responsibility because once we post a video, there will be hundreds of thousands of people that are going to watch this. So if we only focus on sex, violence, missing white women, this kind of thing, it's just not a good message to send to the public.

So that's why I do all kinds of videos, not only crime, all kinds of videos. I focus more on emotion. I always find videos that feature strong emotions like crying, shouting, fighting. That will also resonate with the audience. It doesn't have to be violence and sex, that kind of thing.

When I do my videos because I think there's some kind of chemistry that works in a very strange way. When I analyze highly charged emotional moments from a very logical and psychological perspective, it creates like a very unique contrast that my audience seems to appreciate. If a content creator just

only focus on this that kind of thing i just i think you know you just too it's a sellout you know you're only doing things uh to please your audience and you don't have the responsibility i think that's not a good idea and but that's the thing eric like when you do a video and you're like okay this time i will try not i i've done that and that topic that has worked really well now i want to focus on another topic that might be a bit less uh

click baity but that I think is really important and then are the audience as responsive or is there like a drop in in the likes and in the end of you yeah of course because um I I I did a video before the Gabby potato like in that case it's a missing white girl and it was really popular

R1, how do you see this issue?

I can't say that I have many choices, but if I got to choose, I would always write crime stories or crime novels. It must be able to reflect the characteristics of a certain era, mainly the era in which we live. That is to say, the story I write must be different from the story that happened in the Qing dynasty and also different from the story what will happen in the future.

For example, I like to write about the 户口, household registration system. France doesn't have it, but China has urban and rural household registration.

However, this system in China has started to fade these days. For example, in Hangzhou, if you buy a house, you can get a Hangzhou hukou. But in Beijing, if you want to get a hukou, you may have to spend a lot of money to get one. In China, in the 1980s, 90s, and the beginning of the century, household registration was a major source of discrimination.

urban household registration mattered massively. It could influence your job hunting, marriage, every aspect of life. For those who didn't have urban household registration may have faced major discrimination. So this kind of story will not happen in North Korea, nor in New York, but only in China. In the next few decades, this system will definitely disappear in the future.

There is this story I wrote about a veteran because he has a rural household registration. He and his girlfriend's relationship was opposed by her family.

In the end, the girlfriend was forced to break up with him. It is like the racial caste system in India. A woman who is not a Brahmin cannot marry a man who is from a noble family. In this story, the girlfriend couldn't marry the veteran who doesn't have an urban hukou. After lots of struggle and fights, he ended up killing her.

This story just reflects the characteristics of the past few decades in China. My novels are very focused on this. You've been published abroad. Do you think that sometimes the international publisher, they would choose, pick and choose, and a bit cherry-picking some Chinese stories, and you're like, ah, this is kind of cliche. Like, yeah, it's one of Chinese story, but there is like so many stories.

This book I wrote when popular in the overseas markets also got translated into dozens of different languages, including French. More than 10 publishing houses was interested in the story I wrote because this was something they had never heard of before.

I was talking to a lady from a magazine about these days a lot of foreign publishers or journalists are no more interested in the old stories of the 1950s and 60s. I think foreigners may want to pay attention to some of the things that are happening in contemporary China. In my field of writing, the setting of my stories is the first decades of the 21st century, and most of my stories take place between 2000 and 2010.

In my field of writing, the setting of my stories is the first decade of the 21st century, and most of all my stories take place between 2000 and 2010. Maybe I just pick the right period and just write for some of the foreign publishing companies who might want to know about it. But for the more recent publishers who know the young people better,

They are more likely to be interested in stories that happened between 2010 to 2024. But I wouldn't be able to write about that. All right. Well, thank you guys today for sharing all those interesting information. I learned a lot. Before we leave, we're going to have the quiz, which is going to be about true crime stories. And we'll see who is the most knowledgeable among our guests.

So because today Ayi doesn't speak English, so we're going to make this fair and square for everyone. So Limu Yuan has been on the call since the beginning of this recording and who has, you know, given some live translation to Ayi. So she's going to be the one to read the questions.

And so the way it works is that we're going to ask you three questions. We'll have a backup question. And each time you get the right answer, you get a point. And the person with the most points, obviously, will win the quiz. And the winner of the quiz will win the latest copy of the World of Chinese magazine. So Mu, you will be the one saying the question. Mu will read these questions. And he will also listen to who says their name. Okay, so Mu, I will let you go for the first questions. Okay.

Okay, great. We're starting. The first question is... Question number one. Let's go back to history a little bit. Who is the oldest Chinese historical character that went on solving crimes? He may be not the most famous, but he's definitely the oldest. I know there's a guy called Xi Yuan Chen Lu. Or Xi Yuan what Lu? Song Ci? Yes, yes. Not Song Ci.

Eric. Yeah, congratulations, Eric. You win the first points. Yeah, that's Dear Andie. And he was also featured in TV and movie series. Question two. Can you tell me the name of the movie which is about a star, like a movie star, that got kidnapped in Beijing and that they made a movie about it? That's a real story that really happened in the early 2010s, if I recall. Ah Yi.

解救吴先生。 对,我们写过这个案子,忘记吴克福的名字。

So yes, the movie is called Saving Mr. Wu, and the name of the star is Wu Rufu. He stars in the film, actually, but not as the victim, but as one of the cops. Okay, question three. Let's play Guess the Number. In the year 2020, can you guess how many murders were recorded in China? Okay, San Wan. I don't know, 10,000? I would say 200,000.

200 000? Yeah. Okay, well this is interesting because I think WAPI has just won the points. Okay, so we have one point for each contestant. This is quite rare. So now, fortunately, that's why we have a backup question. And question number four, our backup question: Can you tell me what mainland Chinese thriller/police movie has the highest score on Doban?

Yes, yes, it is. It is actually coca-cili. Okay, well, thank you guys so much for this. So first of all, congratulations, Ayi, for winning the quiz. Good thing you're in the office of the World of Chinese so that we can give you your winning prize just right now. It had to be the former policeman to win the quiz regarding true crime. Thank you so much, guys, for coming today. So on that note, we'll wrap up the show. Glad to have you until the end also, dear listeners.

I guess you like that show. And if you do, you can help the Middle Earth Podcast to grow by recommending us to your friends. Let me remind you that the Middle Earth Podcast is part of TWOC, the World of Chinese Podcast Network. If you want to know more behind the headlines, go to theworldofchinese.com and order your latest copy. Also, if you are impressed by this show guest and need to find a re-interviewee for your next documentary piece or use a researcher in China, you can give us a call. Today's episode was produced and edited by Aladin Fahre. Voice over and translation by Mu. Music by Sean Calvin.

and distributed by the World of Chinese Podcast Network. Hope to see you next time. Bye bye.

不会。 Looks like our listeners are still doing their dishes. We're really committed to their workout. For sure. Since we're still here, if you want to learn more about Chinese society, culture, and language, you should head to theworldofchinese.com and follow us on WeChat, TikTok, and Instagram, where you'll discover an impressive collection of award-winning in-depth stories and fun, informative videos, as well as amazing podcasts. Of course. Well, until the next issue then.