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Life, Love, and Loss in China: Hazza Harding’s story of resilience

Welcome to the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we’ll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends that can help us better understand what’s happening in China’s politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I’m Kaiser Guo, coming to you from my home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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I first noticed the name Hazza Harding popping up on my Twitter feed, someone with an unmistakably Aussie name and a very memorable one at that. One that happens to be the full name of one of the most prominent Sinologists of the last half century, a political scientist whose work I really admire. I noted that this Hazza Harding character had retweeted or liked or commented positively on things I’d written, variously on Twitter, posts on podcasts, different essays, and so forth.

I pieced together that he’d worked for Chinese state media. It’s right there in his Twitter bio, as the former host of Guangdong Today, and had lived in China for several of the years that I was there, though our paths, sadly, had never actually crossed. Then, one day on a whim, I clicked into his substack, and I found myself reading this deeply personal, heartfelt essay that resonated with me in so many ways. It was called “Ten Lessons from an Australian Who Lived, Loved, and Lost in China.” If you want to hit pause right now and go read that, I encourage you to do so. You can find the link right there in the show notes.

Let me take a quick aside here to profess my love for substack. I mean, it’s essentially perfected the lost art of the blog, something that thrived a couple of decades ago before social media fragmented it and swallowed it completely whole. Substack makes it feel all fresh again, not just bringing back that sense of individual voice, but making it so much more convenient, so much better for discovery, for engagement. And aesthetically, just so much better than the old blogs of years past. Some of the best writing out there today is, in my opinion, happening on substack.

Anyway, this essay of Hazza’s was a perfect example of that. It’s raw. It’s unguarded. But it’s deeply reflective and quite wise. It’s not just about China or even just about his own story, though. That’s quite a story, as you’ll hear. It’s about the process of making sense of the world, of identity, of grief, coming of age, of the struggle to hold on to what we believe in while also allowing ourselves to evolve.

Like me, Hazza lived in China for a good, long stretch. And like me, there were times where he felt like he’d been chewed up and spat out by the place. But it didn’t leave either of us, I think, embittered, or at least not permanently so. So like me, he was involved in media. He was also a performer, and we’ll talk about that too. And like me, he’s trying to navigate between some very extreme views out there in the discourse on China in the countries where we live, me in the U.S., Hazza in Australia.

So I knew instantly that I wanted to have a conversation with him about this essay of his. And so he joins me today from Brisbane. Hazza Harding, a very warm welcome to Seneca.

G’day, Kaiser. Thank you very much for having me. It’s a very special moment, actually, because I can remember when I was back in Guangzhou and I was sitting at my desk at my previous employer. I don’t like to mention the name specifically too much anymore just because it sometimes can cause some people some grief.

And just listening to your podcast and listening to the guests that you would have on your show and all of the content that you put out at the time. It was just so refreshing. And it was like a breath of fresh air. If I was stressed and I was having a bad day where things were piling up and it was becoming a little bit overwhelming, I would just sit down and listen to you or read something that you’d written.

And I don’t want to be too much of a fanboy at the moment. But…

No, no, no. Go on. Tell me more.

But…

Hey, no, no. Hey, thanks. That’s so super kind.

Well…

That’s so super kind of you. And, you know, I think that, you know, in this crazy world, we do need sane voices, calm voices. And, you know, Twitter has just gone a little bit crazy. I still use it a little bit every now and then just to check in on different people. But I found something really useful is to turn on notifications for specific people. And I’ve turned them on for about six people. And so, you are one of those people. I won’t say who the other five people are.

But it’s just nice because when I get a notification that someone I respect or look up to has posted something to Twitter, I can click on that. And it brings up a nice feed of just the people that I really care about, their opinions and their thoughts.

That’s a good idea. I think I’m going to do that.

Yeah.

And so, yeah. So, I have to admit, I’m a little bit nervous talking to you today because I haven’t done anything like this in a couple of years. And, yeah, I’m pinching myself at the moment.

Ah, you’re an old professional. You’re a broadcast guy. I mean, you were on TV, for God’s sakes. This is nothing, right?

Anyway.

Yeah. Well, let’s jump in. I mean, that’s very, very kind of you. But, you know, for those listeners who did not take my advice and hit pause and read that essay, maybe we should just start with the major plot points of your personal story. What initially drew you to China? How did your experiences in China unfold from that starting point?

Well, it’s actually a very long story. I went to a school in Queensland called Westmoreton Anglican College. From grades one through six, we studied Mandarin Chinese. Oh, wow.

But, obviously, we learned very basic Mandarin. By the end of those six years, I could basically say, “Mom, Dad, my favorite food is,” and “water pong,” you know, those sorts of things.

And so, I had to take up a sixth subject. I didn’t pick math back up. I asked if I could join the Chinese class. I didn’t ask the head of school or anything like that. I just asked my teacher in math class if I could go to the toilet. And then I walked to the classroom where I knew the Chinese class was, and I knocked on the door and asked the teacher, I said, “If I wanted to join this class, would you let me join?” And then she said, “Yeah, fine, if you can make it happen.”

Fantastic. I found a way to make it happen.

So, in grade 11, I joined Chinese class and I was sitting up the back of the class, sort of starting from scratch while everyone else was already in their third year textbook and I’m starting from scratch up the back again. From there, I went to study Chinese at university, but along the way, I went to Beijing when I was 14 years old for a school trip.

And it was actually very lucky that I got to go on that trip because I was one year too young to go on the trip, but a friend of mine and I really wanted to go. Somehow, I convinced the organizer of the trip to allow me to go if I could get parental permission. I got that. So, at 14 years old, I was in Beijing for the first time, and it was just so different from what I was expecting.

Well, clearly you already possessed the main qualification for living in China, which is the ability to get around bureaucratic obstacles.

Yes, yes, yes, I’m very persistent, and I was definitely persistent before I went to China. But after living in China, especially for about 12 years, I am certainly a very persistent person now. And I think that’s something that China teaches you.

Yeah, absolutely. Just because there are constant challenges, small challenges that put a little bit of a road bump in your way, and you’ve got to find a way to navigate around those.

So, you went in, what, 2010 or 2009? Is that about when you went?

So, the first time I went, I think it was three or four years before the Olympics, which was around 2004.

Oh, okay. That was when you were 14.

Right.

Yeah, when did you actually move there?

Okay, so after that, I had been back to China three or four times, maybe one month here and then. I had some great Chinese friends at school who were international students, and one Christmas summer holiday, they invited me over, and I went over to China and stayed with their family for a couple of weeks. I had slowly exposed myself more and more to China, but I ended up moving there in 2011.

Oh, okay. 2011. And that was just after I’d graduated from university, and I’d been doing a little bit of singing online and posting cover songs. I was over there for a holiday just to explore if there were any opportunities, and there was a manager who contacted me via Weibo who was offering to be my manager.

And, you know, as someone who’s 20-something, like it was pretty exciting. So, I went over for a seven-day holiday, and then that turned into a 12-year stint in China.

As a singer first.

As a singer first, yeah. So, just to give us an idea, do you do pop or are there other genres you do?

So, I’m not a professional singer. It’s all self-taught, and I do pop. Mainly, I do covers of Chinese pop songs, but I do have some original Chinese songs that I’ve written as well.

But back when I was in university, I found covering Chinese songs to be the best way to learn Chinese and memorize vocabulary. If I memorized the song and the lyrics and what those lyrics meant, then I could sort of draw on them when I needed them. But the only problem with that is…

You don’t learn the tones.

Yeah, lyrics can be very poetic. I always had feedback from my Chinese teachers that a lot of the things I would say were very abstract because I’d be drawing on these lyrics from Chinese ballads about love and breakups.

I’m trying to imagine what that analogy would be for some guy in English who only spoke in terms of… I actually wrote a little short story once where there was a character like that. I couldn’t sustain it, but the conceit was that his English was basically learned entirely from lyrics to bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Who, The Beatles. Everything he said would be like, “People are strange when you’re a stranger.”

Well, that’s me, and that’s me except I was listening to The Flowers and Jay Cho and JJ Lin. And actually, it all kicked off because when I was sitting in Chinese class in grade 11, when I just joined the class, or maybe it was grade 12, there were a couple of Hong Kong students in the class because they considered learning Mandarin Chinese as an easy way to get a high grade.

Because they could argue that their first language was Cantonese, and so they’re also learners of Mandarin. We became very good friends, but at first, they kind of teased me a little bit. One day, they handed me a pair of headphones and just said, “Can you listen to this song and try and sing it as you’re listening to it?”

Because apparently that was a game played on a very popular talk show in Hong Kong at that time. They played “Black Humor” by Jay Cho, which is a very difficult song to sing. I was trying to sing it as I was listening to it, and they were laughing at me. I just thought, “I’m going to show you. I’m going to come to class tomorrow, and I’m going to know how to sing this song, and I’m going to prove to you that you shouldn’t underestimate people.”

So I went home and spent all night learning the lyrics to that song, to the point where I could manage to sing it. The next day in class, I said, “Hey, can I just have a listen to that song again?” I put the headphones on, started singing, and the look on their faces was just priceless. It gave me a sense of satisfaction that you were teasing me yesterday, but now you’re surprised that I can actually sing the song.

That’s amazing. That’s so funny.

Oh my God. So, you go there. I mean, your seven-day planned holiday turns into 12 years, but along the way, like me, your career changes quite a bit, right?

Yeah. I started off also doing music when I first moved to China, and then very quickly got into internet stuff and into media.

Let’s hear about your transition into working for state-run media.

Yeah, well, looking back, I kind of did things in reverse because I had built a bit of a following online on Weibo and Renren Wang.

I remember Renren.

Yeah.

Old school websites.

And then, so when I went to Guangzhou first… Well, actually, I went to Beijing and the airline lost my luggage. It was the middle of winter, and I’m an Australian. I was wearing thongs and a T-shirt on my flight over here.

I got out in Beijing and was frozen. The airline said it would take a couple of days to get my luggage. So I looked at a map of China and said, “Where can I go that’s warmer than this?” The most southern large city was Guangzhou. So I said, “I’m going there just so I can be warm.”

Then, I went to Guangzhou, and after a couple of days, a producer from Guangdong Television sent me a message on Weibo and said, “Oh, you’re in Guangzhou. Would you like to be a guest on my show? We can talk about your singing.” I went and did that.

After we finished recording the show, the producer said, “Would you like to come and speak to our manager or our leader?” I went and spoke to them. They said, “We just watched you on screen and thought you did a pretty good job. We’re looking for foreign hosts at the moment. We’re launching this international channel, and would you be interested?”

I kind of just pretended that I wasn’t all that interested. But really, I was thinking, “This is an amazing opportunity. I’ve got to say yes.”

So, I agreed. Then, I came back to Australia for probably a week or two weeks just to pack some things. Then, I moved over. Initially, I was working part-time for the TV station and mainly focusing on music. Yeah, it just slowly transitioned into doing both. Then towards the end, more of the state media work.

Yeah, which, you know, I look back and think, “Gee, I wish I had done more singing because that’s what I actually enjoy doing the most.” I have actually been doing a little bit of singing on Red Note recently.

Oh, and we’ll have to check that out. We’ll make sure to put some links in there to your Red Note, your Xiaohongshu profile. I’m sure a lot of your old stuff still lives on YouTube or something, yeah?

Yeah, you can find some of my songs on Apple Music, Spotify. If you’re in China, they’re on QQ Music.

Oh, fantastic. So, like, stuff you recorded in studios, actually proper?

Yeah.

Nice, nice. So, I have a couple of original songs. I actually had a couple of songs that made it onto music charts in China, which is…

Oh my Lord.

Yeah, so I had two songs that… One song that went to number one on the Guangzhou new music charts. That was in about 2012. Another song that went to number three. One more song that reached number 12, sort of more on a national music chart.

That is the music chart for about 56 radio stations.

Oh, fantastic.

We’re going to have to listen to some of that at the end, you know, in lieu of my usual instrumental outro.

Fantastic. That’s great. I can’t wait to hear this.

But, you know, let’s move along. Your essay only just glancingly talks about your career in music and dives mostly into a less happy experience. A lot of people who immerse themselves deeply into another culture, and China is just one of them, experience this sense of limbo of not feeling fully at home anywhere.

You describe falling in and out of love with China multiple times. That’s also really relatable for me. I think a lot of people who live in any country end up with a love-hate relationship, right? What were some of the pivotal moments when you felt maybe closest to China and when you felt maybe most alienated?

I can answer the most alienated question first because that probably springs to mind a lot quicker. That’s an unfortunate characteristic of humans that that’s the case.

But yeah, it is true. It is really sad because as you were asking me that question, I instantly knew the answer to when I felt alienated. But when I felt closest to China, I’m going to have to think about that.

The first example of feeling a little bit alienated was I just moved into a new apartment in Tianhe district of Guangzhou. Downstairs there was a bar, and they had a sign on the door that said, “Foreigners are not welcome.”

It was in Chinese and in English. I thought, this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this in China.

Yeah, that’s very unusual.

I made a little bit of a scene about it, posted it on Weibo and called 12345. I might have made a little bit of a video about it at the time or something like that.

Within a couple of weeks, the sign was gone. The local authorities sent me a message apologizing about it. I thought, great response. But that was the start for me of just noticing a bit of a shift in China.

Then it was the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia that really just gobsmacked me. Before then, I felt very aligned to what I thought was the mainstream idea or concept in China: that war was bad. Any form of violence and fighting, there is no excuse or justification.

But then suddenly there were justifications for Russia. It wasn’t instant. For the first couple of days, the people around me were just as shell-shocked as I was by what I was seeing. But then slowly, people started to say things like, “Well, if we don’t support Russia, who’s going to support us against the U.S.?”

For the first time in a long time, I felt like China was taking a side in a military conflict, and it just went against every grain in my body.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had the same experience. I really had to wrestle with it. I would butt heads with a lot of people on this issue. It depends on who you’re hanging out with, though, because I don’t know a single one of the think tankers, the more academic or analytical types that I hung out with, who are like that.

But a lot of ordinary friends of mine were saying just that sort of thing, in fact, in exactly the same words: “If we don’t hang with Russia, who’s going to help us when the chips are down?”

Right.

Yeah.

And then, you know, I copped a bit of flack during that time as well because I didn’t hold back in showing that I did not like at all what I was seeing from Russia and support for Ukraine. Sometimes in more subtle ways than others can, depending on the context and the situation.

But yeah, it just became really clear. Obviously, there are other things as well. I think being in Guangzhou, it really was a different world from the rest of China in a lot of respects. I only started truly understanding that after I left China.

During COVID in Guangzhou, the discrimination against non-Chinese people was quite palpable.

Yeah, and I think maybe in Guangzhou, that was more of a problem than in other areas in China. I think it’s because Guangzhou has such a large population of foreign nationals.

If I’m not wrong, it has the highest population of non-Chinese residents in all of China.

Usually, people think of Beijing and Shanghai because there are lots of Western expats in those cities.

Right, but they’re not thinking about sub-Saharan Africans or the people from the Middle East.

Exactly.

So, Guangzhou is very diverse, and I think there is a segment of the population in every society that does not like outsiders. When things get difficult and people are feeling scared, I think those discriminatory behaviors can come out.

I have a few different stories. One time when I was accosted on the street by a tall, strong Northeastern guy, he grabbed onto my arm and he wouldn’t let me go. He demanded to see my ID and asked if I was a spy.

This was just on the street in downtown Guangzhou. It was moments like those where you feel a little heartbroken because of all the time you’ve spent trying to immerse yourself in a different culture and learn the language and trying to build bridges. Then suddenly you feel like you’re the enemy, and that can be a little bit confronting.

Oh, absolutely.

For me, that was… it was the embassy bombing in ‘99. That was the Cadillac event. I mean, I ended up taking a beer mug to the jaw in a rooftop bar brawl on account of mainly because I don’t have one of these, he said, pulling out his Sin Fin Jung and showing it to me and then whacking me with a beer mug. But yeah, I mean, I didn’t hold back. What was it like for you though? You were working in state media at this time. I mean, both when you moved presumably into this apartment and you had this encounter with the sign that said basically, no foreigners allowed. And during the hyper nationalism around Ukraine. And even before that, when you were working during the early years of the COVID lockdown, what was it like for you as somebody in state media? Were you ever put in a position where you had to say things that you really just felt, you had to take a shower afterward, that you felt like you were saying things you simply didn’t believe?

I have to give credit to the people that I worked with because I was never intimidated or forced into saying anything that I personally did not believe was accurate. Actually, I don’t like to go into too many specifics about former colleagues, but just for example, probably in 2020 or 2021, I can’t remember. Those years blur. Yeah, I know. It’s all a blur. And I think orders had come down that our department had to make a documentary about Xinjiang, and they wanted a foreign host to do it. And they just did not even ask me if I was interested. They just knew that that would be something that I would not touch. So they found somebody on social media and asked them to go into it.

I think also, I do have to give my former colleagues quite a bit of credit because throughout the whole saga of COVID, I think that reporters and journalists in Guangdong were as responsible as they could be within the limits that you find yourself constrained under in media in China, especially during COVID. And I do honestly believe that before COVID, Guangdong was still kind of holding on to this thread of freedom to tell its own story in its own way. And sometimes that meant airing things that Beijing was not happy about, the world knowing about.

I always had respect for journalists who work under challenging conditions. I learned from those journalists how to do the job when things are tough, and things just kept getting more and more difficult. People kept finding new innovative ways to get the required message out there. I would pay attention to media output from Beijing and other cities like Shanghai, etc.

You could definitely tell that there was a bit of a difference between the information that people in Guangdong were being provided with and people in other areas of China were. I believe that that’s a hangover of the effect that Hong Kong media had on Guangdong because Guangdong media always had to compete with Hong Kong media. Right, right. Especially in terms of Cantonese channels, because people found ways to watch Hong Kong television, and the censors would try to press that button and play the ads. So you couldn’t see certain news stories, but people still heard them.

So, Guangdong television was always competing with TVB for audiences in Guangdong. Obviously, when it comes to news and current affairs programs, they had to give a little bit more wiggle room in Guangdong just to be able to compete. Yeah, I’m sure your explanation is the correct one. I think that really has, I’ve certainly heard that before from other people that it’s definitely shaped the way that media is.

I mean, you look at even newspapers that were used to be some of the most liberal papers, before 2012, 2013 were all in Guangzhou or many of them were, you know, Southern Weekend. And, and it’s another reason why I think that being based in Guangzhou for most of my time in China, I feel like I saw a China that maybe was a little bit different, especially being in media circles. You know, if I was in media in Beijing, I’m sure my job would have been very different.

There would have been things that I just would not have been allowed to do in Beijing that I was permitted to do in Guangzhou. Being a producer of programs and even sometimes, I guess you’d use the word censorship, but I would say review. I was reviewing programs; there are three levels of reviewing programs. A couple of the programs that I worked on, I was the second reviewer. I hope saying that doesn’t get anyone in trouble, but I don’t imagine that that could be a possibility in Shanghai or Beijing.

It was probably because I think Guangzhou continued to move in a more liberal direction while the rest of China started becoming a bit more ideological. There was a disconnect for a little while. For a long time, I didn’t realize that China was changing because Guangzhou hadn’t changed that much yet. During the pandemic, it just hit. Also, after the protests in Hong Kong, I think that really was a huge blow to the psyche of people in Guangzhou because honestly, I felt for a long time, people in Guangzhou looked at Beijing and thought, the craziness happening there, it’s never going to make its way here.

We are more pragmatic than that. We just care about business, making money. You can deal with the politics. When Hong Kong was suppressed so much, I think people in Guangzhou felt like, okay, if that can happen in Hong Kong, it can certainly happen here. Now we really need to start being careful with what we do and what we say and how we go about things. That was really sad for me to see because I guess personally, I would identify as being more liberal than the other way.

It was just sad to see a place that had been so full of optimism and positive change nonstop just suddenly slam on the brakes and kind of go into hibernation a little bit. It’s interesting though that what you’ve already recounted would be enough to turn a lot of people very pessimistic and very dark on China. That is not how you present it at all. In your public persona, I don’t see you taking positions that are sort of gratuitously critical of China.

We haven’t even talked about the darkest thing that happened to you while you were in China. That, of course, I mean, is something very deeply personal and something that you write about. I was really struck by how directly you were able to write about this. That is your marriage and the devastating loss of your husband, Wayne, who died at such a young age of a heart attack. So talk about how your love story shaped your experience of China, and how did China maybe shape your love story as well?

Well, I think just going back to what you said just now, I refuse to be anyone’s enemy. That’s just how I go about life. I don’t want to be anyone’s enemy. I don’t want to be China’s enemy. I don’t want to be Russia’s enemy. I don’t want to be the United States’ enemy. But I can be critical of all these places when they do things that I don’t agree with, but I just don’t want to allow it to engulf me and turn me into somebody that just feels anger constantly and outrage constantly.

There was a period after my husband died that I felt that because grief is just such a powerful and unpredictable force. It’s so hard to know how you are going to react or deal with grief until it happens to you. Wayne was just such an incredible human being. He had studied in Australia for 10 years. He was a translator. He studied translation in Australia and then got a master’s degree. Then he sat the test to get the accreditation. I can’t even go and sit that test because you actually have to study the master’s degree to be eligible to sit the test.

He and I just connected because he had been in Australia for 10 years. I had been in China for a significant amount of time at that point. We just understood each other because we were both in between two worlds and we were both navigating being outsiders in those worlds or feeling as though they were outsiders or with a foot in the door but halfway out the door at the same time.

I know the condition well. At the time, I was not interested in a relationship or dating or anything. I had probably spent about a year going to the gym, going to the gym four days a week, focusing on work, and just eating healthily. Sounds like you did want to meet someone. Well, I mean, I guess long-term I did. I was in the mindset that I needed to love myself first before I could get into a relationship where someone else would love me in return genuinely.

I was back home in Australia for a trip either during Chinese New Year or the National Day holiday. My sister was living down in New South Wales. I’m in Queensland, which is more of a Northern state, and she was in New South Wales, which is down South. We went on a road trip to go and see her. As we drove past Sydney, I was on Tinder, and he was on Tinder, and we matched. We started chatting and realized, we both live in Guangzhou, but we’re here in Australia on a trip. So, yeah, let’s meet up when we go back to Guangzhou.

He asked me out a couple of times, probably three or four times. The first couple of times I said, no, I really have to go and do Zumba. I haven’t done my Zumba in a couple of weeks. I put on a few kilos, so I’ve got to go and do Zumba. Finally, he convinced me to go and have a drink after the gym one night, and then we just became very good friends. From there, we eventually got married. Then, he passed away at 34 from a heart attack.

I mean, what was it just? I still have a lot of questions because after he died, I was just basically excluded from everything. It took me about two years before I even saw a death certificate. For that whole time, I had been told that he died. I was excluded from going to the funeral by the family because as soon as I learned that he’d passed away, I was onto his family. I wanted to be there for the funeral and wanted to be involved. They told me, yes, we will invite you to the funeral, but then they called me at 11 PM the night before. The funeral was up in Dalian, and I was in Guangzhou. There were no flights, and the funeral was at 9 AM the next day.

So yeah, just being told that your husband is dead but just not seeing and not having any proof and then just being excluded. It was a really difficult time because that was during COVID as well. Was he away from you when he passed? Yeah. He had gone home for a week just to visit home, and he was a workaholic. He had been a little bit sick leading up to his death, but he was getting better. He was feeling really, really good. So he went home and was going to spend a week or two back home before he came back to Guangzhou to get back to work. He wasn’t out to his parents or. No, he wasn’t.

Oh my Lord. There was a period of two days where he didn’t answer my calls or respond to my messages. That wasn’t uncommon because his job was very intense. Sometimes there would be a period of 12, 24 hours where I wouldn’t get a message back or a call back. I had just finished hosting the news. I was walking across the pedestrian bridge opposite the TV station to get in a taxi and go home. One of his colleagues called me and said, is it true that Wayne’s died? I said, pardon, could you, what?

That was how I found out. It all just, and this was during COVID? No, this was December 2019, so just before COVID. But the grieving, which takes years, I mean, that already can be so isolating, and you were experiencing so much of it during this isolating time, you know, when COVID hit.

Plus, in the role that I was in with state media, I was a bit visible. While I was dealing with the grief and then the isolation of COVID, there was all this online abuse coming from all different directions because there were people in China that were saying that I was a CIA spy or a plant or I don’t know what. You were getting homophobic attacks too, maybe? A colonizer. No, because I wasn’t out. Okay, I see. I see.

That was out of respect for Wayne because he felt that he had quite a high profile job as well at the time. He was concerned that it would impact his work. I thought, we’re young; we’ve got time. Even if it takes five years or ten years before he feels comfortable to tell his family or come out to work or whatever it is. Close friends knew, but yeah, I wasn’t out. But there was a period where this rule came down where, you know, sissies couldn’t be on TV. I’m using quotation marks because that’s not a word that I would personally use.

There were some inappropriate messages and emails, and people sort of, yeah, I guess. It wasn’t just that side attacking you either. Right. You know, just in your role as somebody who worked in state media and as somebody who was popular for singing songs in Chinese. There’s a stigma attached to that for obvious but unfair reasons.

Yeah, you know, we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but I want to stay with this because you went through something incredibly difficult. I can’t even imagine. It’s hard for me to imagine that I’m looking at you now, even though it’s across many time zones, and you look great. You look happy and healthy. You say in your essay, what doesn’t kill you always makes you stronger, quoting Nietzsche, but you add, it just takes time. This time has clearly healed you a bit.

How did experiencing that kind of profound loss in a foreign country where you already have these issues that must have shaped your resilience but also your perspective on life? That’s what I really got out of your essay. You had these fantastic meditations on this. I was wondering if you could perhaps share some of that with our audience.

I hit rock bottom. I absolutely hit rock bottom. I lost faith in myself. I lost confidence in myself. I just thought, how could I get so many things wrong? How could I make all these decisions that got me into this situation where I’m just feeling like it was very tough? I’ll just say that. I think it was a little bit of a shock to the system because internally I was dealing with so much and just a lot of grief.

Seeing the way people were interacting with each other and the world, just how much animosity there was out there, how much anger, people were just not respectful with each other if they had different views. It all felt like, oh my gosh, this is how the world really is. I’ve been living in a bubble my whole life where I’ve mostly been happy and fell in love.

Before same-sex marriage was legalized in Australia, I would not have even considered going down this path in my life. It felt like a cruel joke because to get where I had gotten, I had surmounted so many challenges and road bumps along the way. It felt like, oh, it was so difficult to get here, and now this is the real challenge, and I’m just not up for it.

I mean, it’s bad enough, but one thing we haven’t even mentioned is how bad the Australia-China relationship was during that time. That must have affected your sense of belonging, your sense of identity too. This feels incredibly relatable to me too, obviously, for just substitute the U.S. for Australia.

Before that point, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. I felt like I was a bridge builder. I was connecting cultures, and I was not only learning about this whole other world, but also about myself and trying to make learning about China seem more accessible to Australian people. That’s why I like to do the singing because people are so impressed by someone that can sing in Chinese, and everyone always talks about how difficult it is to learn Chinese.

For so long, I just thought, I want more Australians to learn Chinese. We need more Australians to understand Asia and our place in the world, and we’re not living in the 1950s anymore. The world doesn’t revolve around Anglo-Saxons. Yes. I just thought I’ve made such a great decision in life because China is growing more and more prominent on the world stage. I’ve learned the language. I’ve immersed myself in the culture. Surely something great has to come from this.

You have no idea how much what you’re saying resonates with me. It’s like the story of my life, except obviously, I haven’t lost like you have. I’m filled with even more admiration for you for having navigated this. It’s just unbelievable. When the relationship did sever, yeah, when I’ve put myself on the couch and just thought about the dark days of the severe downturn in the U.S.-China relationship, going through a lot of it too, getting attacked from both sides as you have.

I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve come under attack from one side or the other, you know, Michael Berry, who translated Fung Fung’s books, New Yorker writer John, Pete Hessler. All these guests who are labeled as panda huggers. Obviously, there are more than two sides to get attacked from, but you know what I mean? You are somebody who, like me, has been attacked from both sides. There are people who find a kind of equanimity in this because they think, well, this means I’m doing something right.

When I’ve, I’d never used to be able to do that. I’m better at it now, but I had this sense, I’ve written about this before. I had the sense that maybe I was taking a little credit for things getting better when they were getting better. Because I devoted myself to this, it felt like my side was winning, and I maybe let my guard down, got a little complacent, and maybe even took a little credit. So maybe I was doing a little too much blaming of myself when obviously what I was trying to do was failing.

Did that happen to you at all, or is that something you recognize? I relate to that so much, absolutely. You just articulated exactly how I felt and how I feel when I look back on that time. I think I’m a highly critical person of myself. When I get external criticism, it adds on top of me just expecting 100% from myself all the time. If I only give 90%, I’m so hard on myself for that.

Plus, these external criticisms and what you just said about if nobody’s happy with what you’re doing, you must be doing something right. For a long time, I tried to convince myself of that as well. But then I got to the point where I was thinking, well, if nobody’s happy with what I’m saying or doing, I must be doing everything wrong. Do I need to reassess my life? Do I need to reassess my values and beliefs and morals? Or am I just an idiot that just has read the world totally wrong?

In your essay, you talk about, and it’s one of the most moving parts, you describe being dismissed or gaslit about your own experiences in China. These things that you personally experienced were suddenly devalued or invalidated somehow, and you lost the sense of self-trust. That’s got to be really, really hard. You’re talking about it right now about this faltering confidence.

It’s scary. It honestly is really scary because for the longest time, especially in China, I felt like I was navigating China quite well. I felt like I knew where all the red lines were. I felt like I could find a solution to almost any problem. But then suddenly I couldn’t. I guess I was just a little bit disillusioned by the willingness of people to dismiss anything that doesn’t align with their narrative.

You’re talking about people on both sides, especially when they know you personally. I’m actually quite a private person, so when I share details about my life with others, it’s because I’ve considered for quite a while, is this the right person to share this information with? Is it better just kept to myself? Then you would share some experiences with people, and they would just be like, oh, you must have misheard or you must have misunderstood the situation.

Some of these people were people that don’t even speak Chinese, telling me that I had misunderstood something that someone had shouted at me or misunderstood why a taxi driver sprayed disinfectant in my face and yelled at me for bringing COVID to China. There were just all these, and I was just sad because my initial response if I hear somebody sharing an experience like that is empathy.

How did you feel? What did somebody help you? Can I do anything rather than just like, oh, you know, America blames China for the virus, so it’s not weird or strange if the Chinese person blames you for the virus? In my mind, it’s just like, no, we’re all human beings. We need to respect and treat each other kindly. And you haven’t lost that though, have you? You haven’t lost that. No, I just refused to. I think I got to a point where I felt like I was losing it. And that was a bit of a wake-up call for me. I really needed to just sit down and say to myself, just give yourself some time. I sort of stepped away from the China space for a little bit, and I just needed some perspective because I did have a little bit of bitterness within me. I felt like I had dedicated so much of my life to China and trying to build bridges between Australia and China. In the end, it just didn’t really mean much to anyone.

I just felt, what is the world coming to? We don’t necessarily need to come to the same consensus, but we do need to make an effort to try and learn where other people are coming from. If you go straight to thinking that people are coming from a place of evil intent or that they’re trying to attack you, or they have a different opinion, so they’re implying that you’re not intelligent enough, it’s just so… I can’t even articulate how I feel about the whole situation. I just needed to step back and say, look, I’ve been through a lot, and I need to give myself some time to heal. I don’t want to let my trauma become someone else’s trauma, and I think the world needs to do more of that.

The world needs to do more self-reflection and look at their behavior, asking, why do I do this? Why do I go on Twitter every night at 11 PM and doom scroll, or curse at people? Why do I do that? Is it because I’ve had a bad day and I don’t have a healthy way to process that? I hope more people can do that because we’re not going to make any progress if we’re all enemies. Even in Australia and I can see, in the U.S., everyone is so divided at the moment.

Oh boy, tell me about it. Amen to absolutely everything you’re saying. All the lessons in your essay are very valuable, and I really encourage people to take a look at those. We’ve talked about a lot of them. One, though, that really spoke to me is you said the loudest voices rarely have anything useful to say, and I could not agree more.

What were some of the quiet, under-the-radar interactions that have taught you the most about China, about China and Australia, about being in the world? I just loved interacting with everyday people in China. That was like my oxygen while I was over there. From taxi drivers, the ones who aren’t spraying you with disinfectant anyway. The ones who weren’t spraying me with disinfectant, you know, like there were just so many kind moments.

Before WeChat and Alipay, I had forgotten my wallet, and a taxi driver just said, “No, give it to me next time you see me.” A couple of years later, he remembered me and said, “Hey, you’re the guy who sat in my taxi and forgot his wallet.” I said, “Oh, how much do I owe you?” He said, “Oh, I can’t remember.” Then we started talking about how it was fate that we ran into each other again. We went and had rice noodles on the side of the road that night after his shift had finished, my treat, obviously.

It was just so nice to be there sitting with someone. We didn’t want anything from each other, just good conversation, sharing our views on the world, our experiences, and how we grew up. That’s just one example of that happening during my time in China. It was my reason for living, to be honest. It was people who put politics aside and what makes people tick, what makes people happy, what makes people scared, what causes joy for people, and what brings happiness into people’s lives. I just love learning about that.

It doesn’t mean I need to emulate that; it just means that I’m aware that different things make different people happy and that different people place different priorities on certain things. That’s the nuance missing from a lot of the discourse.

Haza, you’ve rebuilt your life in remarkable ways. I mean, no spoilers, but you look like you’re headed toward a happy ending right now. What advice would you give? What can you tell us about that?

But also, as somebody who has just been in such depths of loss, who’s struggling to see a way forward, what kind of advice could you give? If you could go back and sit down with your younger self, that Haza who just arrived in China, what would you tell that person about ambition, about burnout, about finding balance, about what’s important?

Well, burnout, I definitely know what that word means. I would just say, be patient, give it time, give yourself time, and be more lenient with yourself. I was so accustomed to reflecting on myself that I always thought, how could I have avoided this situation in my life? What decisions could I have made differently? I blamed myself for so many things that were out of my control, and I really needed to become aware of that and give myself a break.

Things can feel very tough, like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. In those moments, if you just say to yourself, I’m going to give it some time. I’m not going to add any more pressure to myself. I’m going to start making small decisions that improve my life. For example, I used to be a smoker, a bit of shame to say that, but we lived in China. I quit smoking. Right? Yes, exactly. That happens to everyone.

Then I cut out drinking, and I cut out highly processed foods. Regular exercise helped me lose about 20 kilos in a year. It was about setting myself goals that I felt like I could achieve and then getting there and achieving them. Looking back, I thought, okay, well, a year’s passed, and I’ve made a lot of progress in this year. It may not be the kind of progress that I used to really treasure, like career advancement, but it’s my health, and it’s my wellbeing.

Another thing that really helped me was studying for a master’s degree in international relations. I wanted to listen and learn, soak up different perspectives because I had lived in the China world for so long. Just opening myself up to new perspectives, these new voices, and aiming for the highest marks I could get slowly started to build my confidence back.

Good, good, good. I’m all about school. I love school. I think if you’re in the depths of grief and you have hit rock bottom, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to get straight to a peak. You have a little baby heart. Little steps. You need to nurture. Yes, baby steps. Even if you just take this tiniest baby step each day, give yourself credit for that, and just learn how to love yourself again.

You’ve mentioned a bunch of your goals that you knocked down, which are great. Your near-term goals don’t involve China, but you do leave open the possibility of re-engagement. It would be a shame if someone like you took yourself permanently out of this conversation about China. I totally get wanting to back off from that highly toxic and painful space, but what’s it going to take to get you back in mentally, professionally, if not physically?

Maybe you’re not ready to go back, but I would hate to lose a valuable voice in this conversation. When I saw the influx of so-called TikTok refugees on Red Note, I just had to jump on and see what was happening. The beautiful interactions between people, the respect being shown, the kindness; it warmed my heart. I filmed a one-minute video of me speaking in Chinese, just almost in tears, happy about what I was seeing.

The response I got was so different from what I was used to. There was nothing like “stop stealing our Chinese girls.” When I was just not guilty of those messages, people were so kind. I thought, oh, I’ll post a couple of videos of singing covers of Chinese songs. I’ve almost done a 360. I’m back where I was when I was studying Chinese at university in Australia, posting covers of Chinese songs on the internet.

I haven’t closed the door entirely. I think I’ve just retreated slightly and I would be open to engagement with China when the right opportunity arises. I’ve done 12 years living in China and working for a Chinese state-owned company. My preference would be to be in China, working for an international company or an Australian company. Maybe in the future, I might try to go into diplomacy, and who knows, maybe I could be a diplomat one day stationed in China. That would be fantastic.

But also, just with the way things ended for me in China, I am not really a hundred percent certain about my status there. I have been given some advice that it would not be the best decision for me to go to China. I’m just kind of erring on the side of caution at the moment until I hear something different.

If I change, if I do, things will change. If it takes 10 or 20 years, I’ll be back in Guangzhou, singing karaoke.

No, that’s fantastic, man. I hope that I’m there with you one of these days. You end your essay on such a lovely note of gratitude for just the vastness of the world and all the new experiences and opportunities that are out there. Not everyone in the world gets to do a do-over like you are getting right now.

You’re back doing what you were doing right when you were out of college, recording songs again in Chinese and posting them on the internet. Older, wiser, having lived a lot more and learned a lot more. You’re in an enviable position right now. I’m 34 now, so I’m the age that Wayne was when he died. I don’t like giving myself arbitrary goals and forcing myself to stick to them, but early on I said to myself, I’m going to give myself five years. I feel like I need five years. It was the fifth anniversary of his death in December.

I think somehow I just looked at my life. I’m engaged again and planning to get married in 2026, so there’s a happy ending to this story. Hopefully, there are many more chapters to come in this story. Just thinking about getting married again in 2026, and my fiancé…

I totally forgot about your question.

No, no, it wasn’t really a question. I think that’s just a great note to end on. I was just talking about how you ended your essay on this note of gratitude. I want to express my gratitude to you for taking so much time to speak with me and speak so candidly about really difficult things I imagine to talk about. So, hey, I appreciate it.

I just want to say thank you to you because when you reached out to me, I did ponder a little bit about whether I would go on the podcast. I just thought, ah, quiet life, you know? If I just keep to myself, I won’t cause anyone any angst. Maybe I shouldn’t go on, but thank you for inviting me to come on and for giving me the opportunity. It’s been nice to talk about China again, especially with somebody who I can relate to on so many levels. I feel like our worldviews might be quite similar.

It has been a pleasure. The pleasure has been mine, but we’re not done yet. Let’s move on first to paying it forward. It’s this segment that I added at the beginning of the year. I ask guests to name-check somebody, usually a younger individual, a scholar or someone working in the China field who you think is just doing great work and is worthy of a little more attention. So, who do you have in mind?

James Lawrenson.

Oh yeah, I know James. UTS in Sydney. He is an amazing guy, just very knowledgeable on economics and China and the Australia-China relationship. He is quoted quite frequently by Australian media, but I think someone with his expertise should be heard more.

If you don’t mind, actually, apart from James, there is another person I would like to mention. It’s because they helped me a lot through the book that they wrote. The author is Nicole Webb. She’s an Australian who used to be a television host, and she wrote a book called China Blonde. During some of the most difficult times in China for me, I sat in my massage chair, reading her book.

It was just her recounting her experiences moving to China for the first time and living in China for the first time. As someone who had lived in China for so long, I forgot what it was like to experience China for the first time. You always think, oh, I wish I could just feel that again or know what it was like again. Her book was just that, and it was just so heartwarming and down to earth. It’s not a book that’s going to change the world in terms of new insights into China, but if you’re bogged down by negativity and too much politics, China Blonde… I’m blonde; I was in China; I read the book.

I will count that as your recommendation. I will count that, James Lawrenson, as you’re paying it forward, and this book, China Blonde, as your recommendation. I’ll check it out. Three great Aussies.

I’ve got a recommendation myself. It’s a Chinese television show called Xi Bei Sui Yue. The English translation is Into the Great Northwest, but Northwest Years might be a more literally accurate translation. It began running in November of last year on CCTV One. It can be streamed on ICE, but for those of you who are not in China, it’s also on YouTube.

It’s actually subtitled by some guy whose channel it’s on. Somebody named Chet Oseman. Let’s leave his politics aside. He seems to be a full-blown and unapologetic fan of the party and a communist himself. Ignoring the show’s obvious political intent, still, because it’s about Xi Jinping’s father, it’s still quite good, really, and certainly worth watching. Really good production values. Quite good acting, in what I’ve seen of it so far.

I will put a link to it in the show notes, or just search for it on YouTube. Search Into the Great Northwest, and you’ll find it there. It’s good. I’m only a couple of episodes in, but I have to say Chinese television has made huge strides. There’s a lot of quite good stuff. I have another show I’ll save for another recommendation because I’m just watching it right now and just finished two episodes, but it’s really good too. Another Chinese show, but next time.

Haza.

Next time. Once again, thank you so much. Tell the people where they can find your Substack again.

Oh, gee. I’m really not good with all of these things and remembering all my… But I think if you search Hazza, it should come up. I’m fairly new to Substack. I’ve only written two articles so far.

It’s just Substack.com slash Hazaharding. I think… I have a website as well. It’s Hazachina.com, and I’m trying to figure out how to embed Substack into the website.

Oh, it can be done. Hopefully, you can just ask on Substack. They’ll give you real clear directions. You know, their AI is there.

Oh, cool. Awesome. They’ll tell you how to do it.

Yeah. So you can redirect. I’ve done that now, so you can go to SenecaPodcast.com and get my Substack.

Hey, man, thanks. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.

I was just going to say, obviously, I’m preaching to the choir. I really would love it if more people were willing to support you and your program because I’m a paid subscriber. I just know how much your content helped me and kept me sane during some of my most difficult times. You provide a valuable service, and I think more people need to get behind it.

Thanks, man. Really appreciate it. I’ll just put that in there. I will keep that in there.

Thanks. Save me having to make the plug. We’ll talk to you again soon, Haza. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you.

You’ve been listening to the Seneca Podcast. The show is produced, recorded, engineered, edited, and mastered by me, Kai Zhe Guo. Support the show through Substack at www.sinecapodcast.com, where there is a growing offering of terrific original China-related writing and audio. Or email me at [email protected] if you’ve got ideas on how you can help out. Do not forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Enormous gratitude to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for East Asian Studies for supporting the show this year. Huge thank you to my guest, Haza Harding.

Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week. Take care.

作曲 李宗盛 那有一切憧憬 小心翼 战战靜靜 半日走劫 任性 就成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 可是 相爱 没那么容易 摆在彼此 太熬气 总以为 还会有 更好的出现呢 但谁又能够 当得起呢 原来我以为 你会是我的谁 一切的不完美 都能相依相尾 现实太卑微 一句话就摧毁 小小的种子 瞬间被戚碎 后来我以为 放下会很干脆 不信没有绝对 谁又错过了谁 回忆在几对 遗憾幻化成灰 你要的幸福 我未曾给 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 以为准备就绪 终成好的脾气 以为准备就绪 原来我以为 你会是我的谁 一切的不完美 都能想一想为 现实太卑微 一只花就摧毁 小小的种子 瞬间被击碎 后来我以为 放下会很干脆 故事没有绝对 谁又错过了谁 回忆在几对 以后繁华成灰 我以为 你好好的幸福 我未曾给 原来我以为 你会是我的谁 一切的不完美 都能想一想为 现实太卑微 一只花就摧毁 小小的种子 瞬间被击碎 后来我以为 放下会很干脆 故事没有绝对 谁又错过了谁 回忆在几对 遗憾幻化成灰 你要的幸福 我未曾给 不到最后 谁能猜到结尾 你会不会再来 谁又错过了谁 你会不会再来 谁又错过了谁 你会不会再来 谁又错过了谁 你会不会再来 谁又错过了谁

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This is an experimental rewrite

Welcome to the Sinica Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program, we’ll explore books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends that help us gain a deeper understanding of China’s politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth conversations designed to illuminate rather than inflame our conversations about China. I’m Kaiser Guo, speaking to you from my home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Sinica is supported this year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a national resource center focused on East Asia studies. While the Sinica Podcast will remain free, if you work for an organization that believes in what I’m doing, please consider providing your support. You can reach me at [email protected]. And listeners, please help support my work at www.Sinicapodcast.com.

Okay, I know this is starting to sound a bit like boilerplate, but really, listen this time. Help me out! Support my work! When you become a subscriber, you’ll get not just the podcast, but also the complete transcript of each show, along with essays I’ve written—seriously, I’ve been writing a lot—and you’ll access writings and podcasts from some of your favorite China-focused columnists and commentators. We offer content like the China Global South podcast, an absolute must-listen from Eric Kobus and Giraud. Don’t miss James Carter’s This Week in China’s History, Paul French’s Ultimate China Bookshelf, and Andrew Methvin’s excellent Sinica Chinese Phrase of the Week.

Additionally, check out Andy Rothman’s economics-focused column, China Perspectives from Sinology, which is his consultancy. Plus, our friends at Johns Hopkins SICE have a new series studying China in the absence of access, along with audio from their Getting China Right conference, presented by their Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs.

The name Hazza Harding first caught my eye on Twitter—it has a distinctly Aussie ring to it and is quite memorable. Intriguingly, it happens to be the full name of one of the most prominent Sinologists of the last half-century, a political scientist whose work I admire. I noticed that this Hazza Harding had retweeted, liked, or positively commented on various things I’d written on Twitter, podcasts, and essays.

Eventually, I realized that he had worked for Chinese state media, which he mentioned in his Twitter bio as being the former host of Guangdong Today. He had also lived in China during some of the years I was there, though our paths sadly never crossed. One day, on a whim, I clicked on his substack and found myself reading a deeply personal, heartfelt essay that resonated with me in so many ways. It was titled “Ten Lessons from an Australian Who Lived, Loved, and Lost in China.” I encourage you to hit pause now and go read that—there’s a link in the show notes.

Let me take a quick moment to share my admiration for Substack. It’s essentially revitalized the lost art of blogging—a form that thrived a couple of decades ago before social media fragmented and swallowed it whole. Substack makes it feel fresh again, not just reclaiming that sense of individual voice but also enhancing convenience for discovery and engagement. Aesthetically, it’s just so much better than the old blogs from years past. In my opinion, some of the best writing out there today is happening on Substack.

Anyway, Hazza’s essay is a perfect example of that quality. It’s raw, unguarded, and deeply reflective, filled with wisdom. While it’s not just about China or solely about his own journey—though that’s quite a story—it delves into the process of making sense of the world, identity, grief, coming of age, and the struggle to hold onto our beliefs while allowing ourselves to grow.

Like me, Hazza spent a lengthy period in China. At times, he also felt like he’d been chewed up and spit out by the place—but neither of us were left embittered, at least not permanently. He was involved in media and was also a performer, which we’ll discuss further. We’re both navigating through some very extreme views in the discourse surrounding China—me in the U.S. and Hazza in Australia.

Instantly, I knew I wanted to have a conversation with him about that essay. So, Hazza joins me today from Brisbane. Welcome to Sinica, Hazza Harding!

Hazza: G’day, Kaiser. Thank you very much for having me! This is a special moment—because I remember when I was back in Guangzhou, sitting at my desk at my last job—not mentioning any names because some might find that distressing.

Listening to your podcast and your guest discussions was refreshing—like a breath of fresh air. On those overwhelming days, I could just sit down, listen to you, or read something you’d written.

Kaiser: I don’t want you to feel like too much of a fanboy here…

Hazza: No, I get that!

Kaiser: Hey, it’s kind of you—thank you!

Hazza: Well, we need calm, sane voices in this crazy world. Twitter has gotten a bit wild. I check in on it occasionally, and I’ve found it useful to turn on notifications for a select few people—you’re one of them!

Kaiser: That’s a good idea. I might have to implement that strategy myself.

Hazza: Yeah!

Kaiser: Well, I have to admit, I’m a bit nervous talking to you today since it’s been a couple of years since I’ve done anything like this. I’m pinching myself right now.

Hazza: Come on, you’re a pro! You’re a broadcast person; you’ve been on TV!

Kaiser: Let’s dive in. That was very kind of you, Hazza. For the folks who didn’t pause the podcast to read your essay, let’s kick things off with your personal story. What drew you to China initially, and how did your experiences unfold from there?

Hazza: It’s a long story! I attended a school in Queensland called Westmoreton Anglican College. We studied Mandarin Chinese from grades one through six.

Wow!

Hazza: But we learned just basic Mandarin. By the end, I could say things like, “Mom, Dad, my favorite food is,” and “water pong”—you know, the basics.

Kaiser: So, you ended up taking a sixth subject and chose Chinese?

Hazza: Right! I didn’t pick math again; I went to my math class and asked my teacher if I could use the bathroom. Instead, I snuck into the Chinese class, knocked on the door, and asked the teacher if she’d let me join. She said, “Sure, if you can make it happen.”

Kaiser: Bold move!

Hazza: So, I found a way to make it happen. In grade 11, I joined the Chinese class, sitting at the back like a beginner while everyone else was ahead. Eventually, I studied Chinese at university. At 14, I even took a school trip to Beijing.

Kaiser: Lucky you! I hear that trip was quite the opportunity!

Hazza: Yes! I was one year too young to go, but I really wanted to. I convinced the trip organizer to let me go with parental permission.

Well, clearly you already had the main qualification for living in China: the ability to navigate bureaucratic obstacles!

Hazza: Absolutely! I was persistent before I went to China and even more so after living there for about 12 years. China teaches you a lot in that regard.

Kaiser: Indeed, there are constant small challenges that require you to find ways to navigate around them. So, what was your first visit? Was it around 2010 or 2009?

Hazza: The first trip was about three or four years before the Olympics, around 2004.

Kaiser: Got it. When did you actually move there?

Hazza: I returned to China three or four times after that, always for a month or so. I had great Chinese friends at school who invited me to spend one Christmas summer holiday with their family. My exposure to China grew until I eventually moved there in 2011.

Kaiser: So, 2011—that’s right after university! What were you doing?

Hazza: I was experimenting with singing online and posting cover songs. I initially went for a holiday to explore opportunities and ended up getting contacted by a manager on Weibo who wanted to work with me.

Kaiser: Talk about an exciting moment for a twenty-something!

Hazza: Yeah, that short trip turned into a 12-year stint in China, starting as a singer.

Kaiser: Awesome! What genre were you pursuing?

Hazza: I’m self-taught—not a professional singer. I do pop, mainly covering Chinese pop songs, but I’ve also written some original songs.

Kaiser: Covering songs as a learning tool—is that how you picked up Chinese?

Hazza: Exactly! Memorizing lyrics helped me remember vocabulary, but I didn’t quite grasp the tones.

Kaiser: Lyrics can be very poetic!

Hazza: Yes! My teachers often pointed out my language sounded abstract because I drew from lyrics about love and breakups.

Kaiser: I suppose it’s like a guy in English speaking entirely in metaphors drawn from classic rock lyrics.

Hazza: That was me, except I was listening to The Flowers, Jay Chou, and JJ Lin. When I first joined the Chinese class in grade 11 or 12, some Hong Kong students teased me, challenging me to sing the track “Black Humor” by Jay Chou. I was determined to prove them wrong, dedicating myself to learning the song.

Kaiser: That’s such a fun story!

Hazza: I came back the next day and impressed them!

Kaiser: Amazing! So, your planned seven-day holiday became a 12-year journey, and like me, your career saw quite a shift, right?

Hazza: Yes, I began with music but quickly moved into media.

Kaiser: Share your journey into state media!

Hazza: Looking back, I did things in reverse; I built a following online on Weibo and Renren Wang. When I first arrived in Guangzhou, my luggage got lost in Beijing’s freezing winter.

Kaiser: A rough start for sure!

Hazza: I needed warmth, so I moved south to Guangzhou. A producer from Guangdong Television contacted me via Weibo. After appearing on his show, I was offered a hosting position for an international channel they were launching.

Kaiser: That’s fantastic! What a golden opportunity!

Hazza: I initially pretended to be uninterested while thinking about how amazing an opportunity it was. I quickly agreed and later returned to Australia for a brief packing stint before moving.

Kaiser: So, you started part-time but transitioned to more media work?

Hazza: Yes, I wish I’d done more singing since it’s what I truly enjoy. Recently, I’ve been singing on Red Note.

Kaiser: Can we share links to your profiles?

Hazza: Absolutely! You can find my music on Apple Music, Spotify, and if you’re in China, on QQ Music.

Kaiser: That’s great! You must have recorded in proper studios?

Hazza: Yes!

Kaiser: Wow, I heard a couple of your songs even charted in China?

Hazza: Yes! One went to number one on the Guangzhou new music charts around 2012, and another reached number three.

Kaiser: Incredible!

Hazza: Thank you! We should listen to some of that at the end instead of my usual outro.

Kaiser: Great idea!

Hazza: But, let’s move ahead. Although your essay touches on your music career, it largely focuses on less happy experiences. Many people who deeply immerse themselves in another culture, like China, often feel a sense of limbo, not fully at home anywhere. You talk about falling in and out of love with China. Many people experience this love-hate dynamic. What pivotal moments made you feel closest to or most alienated from China? Hazza: I can answer the question about feeling alienated first, as that comes to mind much quicker. It’s unfortunate that this aspect of human nature exists.

It’s really sad because, as you were asking me, I instantly knew when I felt alienated. But when it comes to when I felt closest to China, I have to think about that a bit.

The first example that stands out is when I had just moved into a new apartment in the Tianhe district of Guangzhou. Right downstairs was a bar with a sign saying, “Foreigners are not welcome,” written in both Chinese and English. This was the first time I had ever encountered something like that in China.

Kaiser: Yeah, that’s quite unusual.

Hazza: I made a bit of a scene, posting about it on Weibo and even contacting 12345. I might have created a little video about it back then. Within a couple of weeks, the sign was gone, and the local authorities sent me a message apologizing. I thought, “Great response!” But that moment marked the beginning of a noticeable shift in China for me.

Then, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia completely shocked me. Prior to that, I thought the mainstream view in China was that war was inherently bad—there’s no excuse or justification for violence. But suddenly, there were justifications for Russia’s actions.

At first, the people around me were just as shell-shocked as I was, grappling with what was unfolding. But slowly, comments started to emerge like, “Well, if we don’t support Russia, who’s going to support us against the U.S.?” For the first time in a long while, I felt like China was taking a clear side in a military conflict, which went against everything I believed in.

Kaiser: I had a similar experience. I struggled with it too. I would often come to blows with people over this topic, though it depended on who I was with. I hadn’t met anyone from the more academic circles who held those views.

But many of my ordinary friends echoed those sentiments in the exact words: “If we don’t support Russia, who’s going to help us when the chips are down?”

Hazza: Right. And during that time, I caught a bit of flack for not holding back my thoughts on Russia’s actions and my support for Ukraine. I expressed my views in different contexts, mostly more subtly, but it was clear how I felt.

Being in Guangzhou felt like a unique situation in many respects. I didn’t truly grasp that until I left China.

Kaiser: Yes, the experience of living in Guangzhou during COVID brought the discrimination against non-Chinese people into sharp focus.

Hazza: Absolutely. It felt like the discrimination was more pronounced in Guangzhou compared to other areas because of the city’s large foreign population.

Kaiser: If I’m not mistaken, it has the highest population of non-Chinese residents in all of China.

Hazza: Exactly. People often think of Beijing and Shanghai because they associate those cities with Western expats, but they overlook sub-Saharan Africans or people from the Middle East.

Guangzhou is incredibly diverse, and there will always be segments of the population that harbor disdain for outsiders. When fear grips society, those discriminatory tendencies often surface.

I have a few stories. Once, I was approached on the street by a tall Northeastern guy who grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let me go. He demanded to see my ID and asked if I was a spy. This happened right in downtown Guangzhou. Moments like that left me heartbroken because I had spent so much time trying to immerse myself in another culture, learn the language, and build bridges. Suddenly, I felt like the enemy, which was hard to confront.

Kaiser: Oh, absolutely.

Hazza: For me, there was a particular incident that stuck with me. It was the embassy bombing in ‘99 that marked a turning point. I ended up in a rooftop bar brawl, getting hit in the face with a beer mug over a conflict about my status. But I didn’t hold back in my thoughts.

What was it like for you during these times? You were working in state media around then, both when you moved into that apartment and had that encounter with the “no foreigners allowed” sign, and during the height of hyper-nationalism around Ukraine. What was that like for you as someone in state media? Were you ever in situations where you had to say things you didn’t truly support, the kind that made you feel you needed to take a shower afterward?

Hazza: I have to credit the people I worked with because I was never pressured to say anything I personally believed was inaccurate. I prefer not to delve too deeply into the specifics of former colleagues, but for instance, in 2020 or 2021, our department was ordered to make a documentary about Xinjiang. They assumed I wouldn’t touch it and instead found someone else on social media for that purpose.

I also respect my former colleagues because, throughout the COVID saga, I believe that reporters and journalists in Guangdong acted as responsibly as possible within the tight constraints of Chinese media, especially during COVID. Before the pandemic, Guangdong still had some threads of freedom to tell its story, allowing for airing things that Beijing might not have wanted the world to know.

I learned from those reporters how to navigate complexities in journalism when things were difficult. As things changed, they continually found innovative ways to get their message across. While monitoring media output from Beijing or other cities, it was apparent that the information provided to people in Guangdong differed from that in other parts of China.

This difference lingered due to the influence of Hong Kong media. Guangdong media had to compete with it, prompting them to air more content that gave them a competitive edge, particularly in news and current affairs, compared to the more controlled narrative from Beijing.

Kaiser: Your explanation definitely resonates. Others have echoed similar sentiments. Living in Guangzhou provided insights into a different China, and I often feel that my experiences might differ greatly had I worked in media in Beijing.

If I had worked there, I wouldn’t have been able to do things I was allowed to do in Guangzhou. As a producer, I’d often review programs. There were layers of reviews for content, and several times, I was a second reviewer for programs. I doubt I could have logged that kind of experience in Beijing.

It seems Guangzhou continued moving in a more liberal direction, while the rest of China grew increasingly ideological. There was a disconnect for a while. For a long time, I didn’t realize China was changing because Guangzhou hadn’t transformed much yet. The pandemic hit hard, and after the protests in Hong Kong, it struck a blow to Guangzhou’s collective psyche. Many believed the craziness in Beijing wouldn’t reach them.

Suddenly, if that could happen in Hong Kong, it could certainly happen in Guangzhou too. This realization prompted people to become more cautious about their actions and words, which was heartbreaking for me. I identify more with liberal ideals than others, and seeing a place full of optimism and positive change slam to a halt was difficult to witness.

Hazza: It’s interesting that, despite everything I’ve recounted, many would expect me to be pessimistic about China. However, that’s not how I present myself publicly. We’ve yet to address one of the darkest chapters of my time in China, and that’s my personal loss—the early death of my husband, Wayne, from a heart attack at a young age. Talking about how my love story shaped my China experience and how China influenced our love story feels important.

Hazza: I want to clarify something first: I refuse to be anyone’s enemy. That’s my approach to life; I don’t want to be an enemy to any nation. I can be critical of countries when they do things I disagree with, but I won’t let it transform me into someone filled with anger or outrage.

After Wayne died, I found myself engulfed in a powerful and unpredictable grief that I didn’t know how to cope with at the time. Wayne was an incredible person who had studied in Australia for ten years and mastered translation. We bonded over our shared experiences of being outsiders—him in Australia and me in China—and navigating life between the two worlds.

For a long time, I wasn’t interested in dating. I focused on self-care and health, thinking I needed to love myself before seeking love elsewhere.

While visiting family in Australia, I matched with Wayne on Tinder, and we began chatting. We realized we both lived in Guangzhou but found ourselves in Australia at that moment. He pursued me, inviting me out a few times until, eventually, we became friends and later married. Tragically, he passed away from a heart attack at 34.

In the aftermath, I faced a struggle to find closure. It took nearly two years before I was shown a death certificate. His family excluded me from the funeral, calling at 11 PM the night before, while I was in Guangzhou, telling me the funeral was at 9 AM the next day in Dalian.

This experience, compounded by COVID, was incredibly isolating. Wayne had gone home to visit family for a week when he passed. He was getting better after being sick for some time, but he didn’t disclose his status to his parents or family.

Kaiser: It’s devastating to hear.

Hazza: When Wayne died, he had a demanding job, which often meant he wouldn’t respond to messages promptly. The day I found out was surreal. I had just finished hosting the news when one of his colleagues called to confirm Wayne’s death.

This was in December 2019, just before COVID, and while grieving, I faced online abuse, being labeled a spy or other derogatory terms. This was exacerbated by the closeted nature of our relationship, as Wayne wasn’t out to a lot of people.

When the mandate against “sissies” on TV came down, I navigated a complex social environment while increasing scrutiny around my visibility in the media.

Kaiser: You faced an incredible amount of hardship.

Hazza: Indeed. Even amidst everything, it was hard to manage anxiety over my public persona as someone who sang in Chinese.

Kaiser: You managed to come out strong, and even from this distance, you seem to be thriving. You embody resilience.

Hazza: Yes, but it took time. I hit rock bottom, lost confidence in myself, and questioned my decisions. It was a shock to face the world, especially with the animosity all around, revealing how I had lived in a happy bubble, fallen in love, and then had to confront a cruel reality.

When I think back, I remember how much I wanted more Australians to learn about China and understand its growing role in the world. I dedicated myself to bridging cultures, believing my journey would bear fruit.

Kaiser: Your experience resonates with me.

Hazza: Right, and when the Australia-China relationship deteriorated during that time, it affected my sense of belonging and identity. I felt like I was where I needed to be, connecting cultures and making discussions about China more relatable to Australians.

Kaiser: So many of us share these feelings, navigating our identities in this complex environment.

Hazza: Absolutely. After Wayne’s death, I found it tough. I often wrestled with guilt, questioning if I had truly done enough, leading to a feeling of inadequacy when faced with external criticism.

Kaiser: Your reflections about dismissals or gaslighting regarding your experiences are poignant.

Hazza: Yes, navigating that heightened insecurity was difficult, especially when people close to me would dismiss my experiences. It’s disheartening when you try to share your struggles only to be invalidated.

In my mind, I believe we need to empathize with each other, recognizing our shared humanity rather than allowing politics to sever our connections. I refuse to lose that perspective.

Kaiser: Your resilience stands out. I hope others can find inspiration from your journey. What advice would you offer someone just starting out or struggling?

Hazza: Burnout is certainly real. I would remind others to practice patience, give themselves time, and be lenient with themselves. I learned that it’s harmful to blame myself for things beyond my control.

It’s helpful to take small steps toward betterment, whether in health, mental clarity, or whatever feels achievable. I used to smoke and cut out drinking and processed foods, embracing regular exercise to aid my journey.

In retrospect, I didn’t prioritize self-health like I should have. I would focus more on career milestones. But the progress I made regarding my health over the past year has truly changed my outlook. Hazza: Another thing that really helped me was studying for a master’s degree in international relations. I wanted to listen and learn, soak up different perspectives because I had lived in the China world for so long. Just opening myself up to these new voices and aiming for the highest marks I could get slowly started to rebuild my confidence.

Kaiser: Good, good, good. I’m all about school. I love school. If you’re in the depths of grief and have hit rock bottom, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to leap straight to the top. You have a little baby heart; it needs nurturing. Yes, baby steps! Even if you just take the tiniest baby step each day, give yourself credit for that, and learn how to love yourself again.

Hazza: You’ve mentioned several of your goals that you’ve accomplished, which are fantastic. Your near-term goals don’t involve China, but you leave the door open for re-engagement. It would be a shame if someone like you stepped away permanently from this conversation about China. I totally understand wanting to back off from such a toxic and painful space, but what would it take for you to mentally, professionally, or even physically get back involved?

Kaiser: Maybe you’re not ready to go back yet, but I’d hate to lose your valuable voice in this discussion. When I saw the influx of so-called TikTok refugees on Red Note, I felt compelled to jump in and see what was happening. The beautiful interactions between people, the respect being shown, the kindness—it warmed my heart. I even filmed a one-minute video of me speaking in Chinese, moved almost to tears by what I was witnessing.

Hazza: The response I got was so different from what I was used to. There was none of the usual negativity, like “stop stealing our Chinese girls.” People were so kind. I thought, “Oh, I’ll post a couple of videos of singing covers of Chinese songs.” I’ve almost done a complete 360; I’m back to where I was when I was studying Chinese at university in Australia, posting covers of Chinese songs online.

Kaiser: That’s great! I’m glad to hear that you haven’t closed the door entirely. It sounds like you’ve just retreated slightly and would be open to re-engagement with China when the right opportunity arises. After 12 years of living in China and working for a Chinese state-owned company, I understand your preference would be to work for an international company or an Australian firm in China. Maybe in the future, you might consider a career in diplomacy. Sounds fantastic!

Hazza: Yes, with how things ended for me in China, I’m not fully certain about my status there. I’ve received some advice suggesting it wouldn’t be the best decision for me to return, so I’m erring on the side of caution until I hear something different.

Kaiser: If you change, everything could change. Even if it takes 10 or 20 years, I envision you back in Guangzhou, singing karaoke.

Hazza: I hope you’ll be there with me one day. You concluded your essay on such a lovely note of gratitude for the vastness of the world and all the new experiences and opportunities out there. Not everyone gets a do-over like the one you’re currently experiencing.

Kaiser: You’re back doing what you were right after college, recording songs in Chinese and posting them online. You’re older, wiser, and have lived so much more. Honestly, you’re in an enviable position right now.

Hazza: I’m currently 34, the same age Wayne was when he died. I don’t like setting arbitrary goals, but early on, I told myself, “I’ll give myself five years.” That anniversary of his death was in December.

Kaiser: Sounds like you’ve undertaken a reflective journey.

Hazza: Well, I engaged again and am planning to marry in 2026, so there’s a happy ending to this story. I hope there are many more chapters to come. Just thinking about getting married again in 2026… my fiancé…

Kaiser: I totally forgot about your question.

Hazza: No, no, it wasn’t really a question. That was just a great note to end on. You ended your essay with gratitude, and I would like to extend my gratitude to you for taking the time to speak with me. I know this must be challenging to discuss.

Kaiser: Thank you as well! When you reached out, I pondered whether I should go on the podcast. I thought about a quiet life, you know? If I just kept to myself, I wouldn’t cause anyone any angst. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk about China again, especially with someone with whom I relate on many levels. I feel like our worldviews might be overly similar.

Hazza: It has genuinely been a pleasure. But we’re not done yet! Let’s move on to paying it forward. This segment was introduced earlier this year, where I ask guests to name-drop someone—usually a younger individual, a scholar, or someone working in the China field—who you think is doing great work and deserves more attention. So, who do you have in mind?

Kaiser: James Lawrenson.

Hazza: Oh yeah, I know James! He’s at UTS in Sydney. He’s an amazing guy, very knowledgeable about economics and China, as well as the Australia-China relationship. He’s quoted frequently by Australian media, but I believe someone with his expertise should be heard more.

Kaiser: If you don’t mind, apart from James, I’d like to mention another person who helped me a lot through a book they wrote. The author is Nicole Webb. She’s an Australian who used to be a television host and wrote China Blonde. During some of my most difficult times in China, I found comfort reading her book.

Hazza: It’s relatable, recounting her experiences moving to China and those early days. As someone who has been in China for so long, I often reflect on what it was like to experience it for the first time. You find yourself wishing you could feel that sense of discovery again. Her book was heartwarming and down to earth. It might not be a groundbreaking read revealing new insights into China, but if you’re feeling bogged down by negativity or politics, China Blonde offers a comforting escape.

Kaiser: I’ll count that as your recommendation. James Lawrenson and China Blonde it is! I’ll check it out. Three great Aussies.

Hazza: I have a recommendation too! It’s a Chinese television show called Xi Bei Sui Yue. The English translation is Into the Great Northwest, but Northwest Years might be a more literal translation. It started running in November last year on CCTV One and can also be streamed on ICE. For those outside China, it’s available on YouTube.

Kaiser: Sounds interesting!

Hazza: It seems to be subtitled by a channel run by a guy named Chet Oseman. Let’s ignore his political views for now; he appears to be an unapologetic party fan. But despite the obvious political intent, it’s a worthwhile watch. The production values and acting are impressive.

Kaiser: I’ll put a link in the show notes, or folks can search for Into the Great Northwest on YouTube. Isn’t it amazing how Chinese television quality has improved recently?

Hazza: Absolutely! I have another show I want to recommend, but I’ll save that for next time since I just finished two episodes and want to share that.

Kaiser: Next time, then! Once again, thank you so much. Could you tell the listeners where they can find your Substack?

Hazza: Oh, gee, I’m not great at remembering all these details! But if you search “Hazza,” it should pop up. I’ve just started on Substack and have written only two articles so far.

Kaiser: It’s Substack.com/hazaharding, right?

Hazza: Yes, and I also have a website, Hazachina.com, where I’m trying to figure out how to embed Substack.

Kaiser: Oh, it can definitely be done! You can reach out to Substack for tech help.

Hazza: Cool! They will guide you.

Kaiser: So, you can redirect to that as I’ve done. You can visit SenecaPodcast.com for my Substack as well.

Hazza: Thanks! It’s been a pleasure to talk.

Kaiser: I truly wish more people would support you and your program. I’m a paid subscriber because I know how much your content has helped me through difficult times. You provide valuable insight, and more people should recognize that.

Hazza: Thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ll make sure to include that in tonight’s notes.

Kaiser: We’ll talk again soon, Hazza. Thank you!

Hazza: All right, thank you.

Kaiser: You’ve been listening to the Seneca Podcast. The show is produced, recorded, engineered, edited, and mastered by me, Kai Zhe Guo. Support the show through Substack at www.sinecapodcast.com, where there’s a growing collection of terrific original writing and audio focused on China. Or feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] if you have ideas on how to help out. Don’t forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Enormous gratitude to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for East Asian Studies for supporting the show this year. Huge thanks to my guest, Hazza Harding.

Thank you for listening, and we’ll see you next week. Take care! I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill that request as it appears to be in Chinese and does not contain any transcript that I can edit or rewrite for better readability. If there’s a specific request related to it, please let me know!