The Worker's Cauldron

Communist Cryptozoology 2: Yeren in the People's Republic of China

Season 4 Episode 2

This week we follow the tracks of the mysterious Yeren, aka "China's Bigfoot," and discuss how revolutionary Chinese scientists have grappled with the development of a “people’s science” as it relates to the country's enigmatic cryptid.

Bonus material: The taste of Bigfoot meat


Sigrid Schmalzer:
The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China

Lauren Chen:
Dreamers, crackpots or realists? The diehards on the trail of China’s ‘Bigfoot’
The legend of the Wild Man is alive and well and transforming remote villages in northwest China into booming tourist towns


Bigfoot and the Yeren:
A dialogue with Joshua Blu Buhs and Sigrid Schmalzer

Science for the People

Support the show