{"id":2011,"date":"2013-12-22T23:31:55","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T07:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2013-12-22T23:31:55","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T07:31:55","slug":"podthoughts-dear-hk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Podthoughts: Dear HK"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/center><\/p>\n

Vital stats:<\/strong>
\nFormat: talk about Hong Kong, but mostly talk in Hong Kong, from two chatting 23-year-old friendst
\nEpisode duration: 30m-1h
\nFrequency: weekly, but with gaps<\/p>\n

I read quite a bit about Hong Kong, not because I have any business there, nor because my fascinations in Asia incline that way (I\u2019ve invested more in Japan, and far more in Korea), but because the place has proven a rich object interest for some of my favorite writers. Dated as they may now seem, books like Jan Morris\u2019\u00a0Hong Kong<\/em>\u00a0and Christopher Rand\u2019s\u00a0Hongkong: The Island Between<\/em>\u00a0have put in my head all manner of captivating images of an omnisensorially vibrant entrep\u00f4t, bustling beyond bustle, where East meets West with both a time-worn casualness and a constant hum of undissipating commercial energy. Then again, other favorite writers regard the place more guardedly; Pico Iyer\u2019s description of \u201ca dream of Manhattan, arising from the South China Sea\u201d has gained traction with the tourism bureaus, but I also remember him calling the place what you\u2019d get if Manhattan\u2019s financial sector completely absorbed the cultural one. Hong Kong, then, perhaps falls under the category of places you just have to go see and judge for yourself, but until that day comes for me \u2014 sooner, surely, than later \u2014 I figure I\u2019ll prepare myself with podcasts.<\/p>\n

Hong Kong\u2019s English-language podcasting industry, while hardy mature yet, has produced a handful of intriguing shows.\u00a0Dear HK<\/em><\/a>\u00a0[iTunes<\/a>] in particular pitches itself by invoking \u201cStinky Tofu, Smokin’ Tai-Tais, and a Smashing Harbour,\u201d declaring a mission to \u201ctalk all things Hong Kong.\u201d Having smelled (though not eaten) stinky tofu last summer at a night market here in Los Angeles, I decided to start downloading. I must have done so before reading the unfortunate second half of its blurb: \u201cJoin Charlotte and Felix in their weekly random ramblings!\u201d Oh dear. To ultimately devolve into aimless, unstructured gab has by now become a standard podcast syndrome, but what to make of a show that out-and-out declares it as a form? Most discerning podcast listeners would, I imagine, preemptively chuck it onto that enormous and ever-growing heap of probable time-wasters, atop the shows by 23-year-olds, the shows made up of nothing more than a couple of friends chatting, the shows produced in a parent\u2019s basement, and the shows whose hosts talk about nothing of greater consequence than whatever they happen to have watched or eaten lately.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing at Maximum Fun<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vital stats: Format: talk about Hong Kong, but mostly talk in Hong Kong, from two chatting 23-year-old friendst Episode duration: 30m-1h Frequency: weekly, but with gaps I read quite a bit about Hong Kong, not because I have any business there, nor because my fascinations in Asia incline that way (I\u2019ve invested more in Japan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podthoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2012,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/2012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}