“I feel like I have spent my whole life in a Chinese-language classroom …”

Fran Martin talks to me about growing up in Melbourne as a child of practicing psychoanalysts, how she came to study Chinese in school, how as a teenager she wound up in Beijing in 1989 living through the student protests and the aftermath of the June 4 crackdown, how she later became involved in Taiwan’s feminist and LGBTQ scenes, and why she spent the last few years hanging out with young Chinese women studying in Melbourne.

Find out more about Fran's new book Dreams of Flight mentioned in the episode.

Host: Helen Leung

Recorded on March 17/18, 2022 in Vancouver/Melbourne