Today is the gaokao (高考) when parents across China send their senior high school students off to take the most important exam of their lives by offering such helpful, encouraging words as, “If you do badly, your mother will die in a pauper’s grave.”
In this episode of Barbarians at the Gates, Edward Wong of the New York Times joins David and me to discuss Ed's new book, At the Edge of Empire. We discuss frontiers, what the Qing Dynasty means for China, and the different generational perspectives on China's recent past.