Wednesday, April 9, 2025 | 3:00 PM EDT
NPR correspondent Emily Feng tells the stories of nearly two dozen people in China who define for themselves what it means to be Chinese. She profiles a Uyghur family; human rights lawyers fighting to defend civil liberties despite the dangers; a teacher from Inner Mongolia forced to make hard choices because of his support of his native language; and a Hong Kong fugitive trying to find a new home and live in freedom. In Let Only Red Flowers Bloom, she reveals dramatic stories of resistance and survival in a country that is increasingly closing itself off to the world. To understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there and how they interact with the Chinese state.
In an interview conducted on April 9, 2025, Emily Feng reflects on identity in China: what does it mean to be Chinese?
Speakers
Emily Feng
Emily Feng is a correspondent for NPR covering China, Taiwan, and beyond. She joined NPR in 2019. She traveled to big cities and small villages to report on social trends as well as economic and political news coming out of the Asia Pacific.
Ms. Feng’s reporting has allowed her nerd out over semiconductors and drones, travel to environmental wastelands and write about girl bands and art. She has filed stories from the bottom of a coal mine, the top of a mosque in Qinghai, and inside a cave where Chairman Mao once lived.
She was 2023 winner of the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize, awarded to a rising public media journalist 35 years of age or younger. She also received the 2022 Shorenstein Journalism Award for her overall reporting on the Asia Pacific.
A graduate of Duke University, Ms. Feng received dual degrees in Asian and Middle Eastern studies and public policy.
