Rough Translation

One man's mission to get hundreds of his fellow Venezuelans back home from Ecuador in a pandemic, even if it means walking all 1,300 miles. This story was originally reported for El Hilo, a new podcast from the makers of NPR's Radio Ambulante.

Ireland's "cocooning" policy during the coronavirus lockdown asked people over age 70 to stay at home and not to leave for any reason. Suddenly, neighbors and strangers leapt to help them with everything — if the cocooners would let them.

Resolving conflict through consensus is a very Dutch tradition. But how do you compromise when it comes to racism? This week on Rough Translation, the controversial Dutch character Black Pete, and how Black Lives Matter may have helped change the holiday season in the Netherlands forever.

Five personal stories from five continents on the global impact of George Floyd.

The French republic "lives with her face uncovered," say the posters. But now face masks are mandatory. We look back at why covering your face in France used to be a sign of bad citizenship, until it wasn't.

One hundred and eighty recovering COVID-19 patients. One Jerusalem hotel. Secular, religious, Arabs, Jews, old, young. Their phones are out, they're recording. And the rest of Israel is... tuning in.

Back in 2017, we brought you the story of a Chinese mom who hired an American surrogate to carry her baby. Each needed something from the other that was hard to admit. Their relationship became a crash course in transcontinental communication and the meaning of family. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, we check in with them.

Public shame is a powerful tool. But how useful is it when trying to curb a global pandemic? Shaming stories from South Korean chat rooms, a Pakistani street corner, and a Brooklyn grocery store.

She felt the urgency before her husband did. A story about the time lag between the arrival of the coronavirus in two different nations, and how that played out in a marriage

This week on Rough Translation, we check in with NPR international correspondents in China, Germany and Greece about the ways that culture shapes—and is reshaped by—responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A young Chinese exchange student in Taiwan with no history of activism posts a video criticizing China's president Xi Jinping on Twitter, then asks for asylum. His request for protection fuels a larger discussion about Taiwan's role as a haven for Chinese dissidents, and also raises questions about who he is as an individual and his motivations. Who is he, and can he be trusted?

This week, we present the latest episode of NPR's Throughline, a look at the life and complicated legacy of the assassinated Iranian military leader, Qassem Soleimani.

Please, take our survey! At a Ukrainian comedy competition founded by President Volodymyr Zelensky, can humor unite a divided country?

In the country on the other side of the impeachment hearings... A comedian runs for president of Ukraine and wins in a landslide, with a parliamentary majority to pass any law he wants. So now what? Our host, Gregory Warner, reports from Kyiv.

For our season finale, a listener's story: When a six-year-old boy adopts Tokyo as his new home, his American mom has to figure out where she belongs in her son's new life.If you want to share your story, email roughtranslation@npr.org

What happens when the employees of a French McDonald's take the corporate philosophy so deeply to heart, that it actually becomes a problem for the company? To listen to more Rough Translation, check out our previous episodes.

We visit a storytelling podcast from China that slips under the radar of China's government censors, and other international podcast stories about the search for love.

Two radically different ways of seeing race come into conflict in Brazil, provoking a national conversation about who is Black? And who is not Black enough? We revisit our first ever Rough Translation episode, with an update on how the election of an anti-affirmative action president is affecting the debate. If you want to see a photo of the medical school students: npr.org/roughtranslation

If you're the kind of person who thinks you can't be conned, that assumption may make it harder for you to recognize when you actually are being scammed. We speak with professional poker player and author Maria Konnikova about how con-artists get inside the stories we all tell ourselves, about ourselves. Then we go to an international multimillion dollar scam in Costa Rica, where a master of the con meets his match... the IT guy.

What if more evangelical Christians in the United States fought climate change with the same spirit they bring to the issue of abortion? In this episode, we go back to a surprisingly recent period when that nearly happened. We meet two evangelicals who made it their mission to bridge the divide between Christians and environmentalists. What happened, and why they say the best way to start conversations about the planet is with readings of the bible.For photos and links: www.npr.org/roughtranslationFollow us: twitter.com/roughly