WNYC | RADIOLAB
The WUBI EFFECT
When we think of China today, we think of a technological superpower. From Huawei and 5G to TikTok and viral social media, China matches the United States stride for stride in the world of computing. However, China’s technological renaissance almost didn’t happen. And for one very basic reason: the Chinese language, with its more than 70,000 characters, couldn’t fit on a keyboard.
Today, we tell the story of Professor Wang Yongmin, a hard-headed computer programmer who solved this puzzle and laid the foundation for the China we know today.
MIXTAPE: DAKOU
Through the 1980s, the vast majority of people in China had never heard Western music – save for John Denver, the Carpenters, and a few other artists on the hand-picked list of songs sanctioned by the Communist Party. But in the late ’90s, a mysterious man named Professor Ye made a discovery at a plastic recycling centre in Heping.
In episode 1 of Mixtape, we talk to Chinese historians, music critics, and the musicians who took the damaged plastic scraps of Western music, changed the musical landscape of China, and reimagined rock ‘n’ roll.
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What’s it like to have a “problematic” name? Yang Yang’s here for solidarity.