discussion keeps the world turning.
This is You're tuned in to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yushan and Yushun.
Coming up, what do motorcycles, university campus rules, and letters from abroad all have in common?
Yushun's going to tell us in today's edition of The Full Circle.
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And now... Three stars, one connection.
This is the full circle.
Time once again for another edition of The Full Circle.
It's a segment where we take three stories from this week's roundtable shows that seem to have nothing to do with each other until we do a little digging and we find that common thread.
Yushin is steering the ship today, if you will.
So what's story number one?
Yeah.
So we are finding threats among topics from not only the week, but also the past month.
Oh, because we haven't done full circle in a while.
So the first one is from a Thursday, China's motorcycle breakthrough.
On May 17 2026, the Chinese motorcycle manufacturer Zhangxue Motorcycles or the brand's name is called ZXMoto achieved a significant milestone by winning two consecutive rounds in the World SSP category at the World Superbike Championship Czech Station in Prague.
That was such a huge story, not only for the motorcycle racing world because it was so unexpected, but I remember it from that story to the touching aspect of the founder of that company.
Yes.
Having his dream become realized.
And also I think it's the first time the Chinese motorcycle hits some sort of a record or historical record and get notified or noticed by the global motorcycle field for the first time.
Yeah, exactly.
It was the fifth victory of the season and today Chinese racing motorcycles feature highly localized supply chains, independent RD and also competing directly against established global brands like.
Yamaha and Ducati.
And what was once viewed as a follower is now beginning to challenge the leaders and was once a kind of affordable transportation, now is, I think, more of a lifestyle.
100 percent.
ZX Motors on the map for sure.
And Chinese motorcycles in general are quickly finding their place there as well.
All right.
So what was your second what is your second story today?
Second one is from a Tuesday.
It's about a debate on the university gate.
Yes, and these catalysts coming from Wuhan University in the city of Wuhan in central China, and that university announced on May, the 13th this year, it would officially cancel its public reservation systems, opening the doors to the public, and the students were like what the heck man?
We don't like this at all.
Yeah, we don't have enough space for the canteen or the field.
So the move sparked nationwide discussion, also about whether universities should function as open public spaces or protected academic environments, and each side has their own views.
Supporters argue that universities belong to the society and should not become isolated ivory towers, while critics worry about overcrowding, privacy concerns and disruptions to teaching and research.
Yeah, with fair reasons.
Previously.
The schools is a rather enclosed area for good reasons for protecting the, you know you never know who's passing by and who's, you know, entering the classroom for no reason for, you know, safety reasons.
Sure.
All right.
Story number three.
What's that about?
Yeah, it's about the letters across oceans.
That's called qiaopi.
Chao Pi, in short, they are a form of correspondence and remittance.
They are letters that combine a short note or family letter and some of the money transfer.
And they are sent by overseas Chinese through these private channels, mostly in Southeast Asia.
Yeah, I love that we did this story because it was just a glimpse into a particular type of culture from a particular part of the country.
And I was surprised to learn, I guess, ignorantly...
I assumed that all Chinese people would know about Chao Pi, and I was surprised to learn that that was not the case at all.
So that was the other reason I really liked doing that story.
Yeah, it is a very unique and specific culture, probably happened in that region.
And the thing is that the letters carried not only money, as we mentioned, but also homesickness.
Maybe stories, family disputes, and dreams for future generations.
And long before instant messaging, this kind of qiaopi became the emotional bridge connecting people separated by oceans.
Alright.
So we've got Chinese motorcycles hot on the racing scene, we've got the debate about who has the rights to hang out on a university campus and the cultural, beautiful story of of chao pi.
What's the connection?
I'm not seeing it myself just yet, but yushin's gonna tell us in today's full circle.
Yes, all three stories are, believe it or not, about distance.
And more importantly, they're about what people build when distance becomes unbearable.
So on the motorcycles.
For decades, the distance between China's motorcycle industry and the world's leading manufacturers felt enormous.
Japan had the reputation, Europe had the heritage, and China had the factories.
But for many years Chinese motorcycles were viewed as affordable transportation rather than objects of engineering excellence.
And that was the gap and the distance. not just a technological gap, a psychological one as well.
The assumption that some countries innovate while others simply follow.
But year after year, engineers kept building, and suppliers kept improving and manufacturers kept learning.
And now a Chinese motorcycle brand is winning races on the world stage.
And the distance hasn't disappeared entirely, but it has become small enough that people can finally imagine crossing it.
You've got double distance there, because you've got the distance in the market, the global market, but also the distance on the motorcycle track.
Both of those distances have been getting smaller.
Yeah, that's so smart.
And also, it's really amazing every time when we see small steps taken.
In this case, it's a closer distance achieved.
Yeah, pun intended.
But on the universities is another kind of distance.
It's not thousands of kilometers, just a few meters, the width of a campus gate.
Yet that gate represents something larger.
Because for years, many campuses became increasingly separated from the communities around them, partly because of the pandemic, partly because of the security concerns, maybe also because it simply became easier to manage when it's enclosed.
This distance is more figurative.
Yes.
But as the gates closed, another distance quietly grew, the distance between higher education and everyday society.
Now universities are trying to re-open it, not because openness is easy in fact, the recent controversies show exactly how difficult it is but because universities were never meant to exist, entirely apart from the world.
And knowledge only matters if it eventually leaves the classroom.
And opening a gate is one of the ways of shortening that journey.
Physically open the gate and figuratively cut the distance down.
Yes, that's quite the image.
But I believe in so many different ways the university can be a good place for just everybody to learn things from and also try the canteens.
That's one thing that I'm really proud of my uni for opening the gates still for alumni and also, like everybody, for just trying how good our canteen is serving.
Yeah.
And then on the Chao Pi, the letters.
The distance in the Chao Pi story is, I think, the easiest to see.
That's a literal distance.
Yeah.
An ocean, a continent, sometimes have a lifetime.
A young man leaves hometown.
Maybe a wife stays behind.
Maybe a mother waits for news.
Today we complain when someone leaves us on read or unread for six hours.
Back then a reply might take six months or never arrive at all.
That's true.
Yeah, yet somehow people kept writing.
Not because the system was efficient, it wasn't at all.
Not because success was also guaranteed, it wasn't.
They wrote because maintaining a connection mattered more than certainty.
Every Chao Pi letter was an attempt to defeat distance, not physically, maybe physically, but more importantly emotionally.
And that's why people still cry when they read them today, because the technology changed, But the feelings never did.
Xinyu, we talked about this on the show, Yushan, right?
The movie.
Dear You.
Dear You is the English title.
And Xinyu saw the film and she said, bring a box of tissues.
Maybe two boxes if you go to watch that movie.
And the way she described what's said.
The story that's told through the movie almost made me cry on the show.
Yeah.
That's something so personal that you can feel.
Brainy and the T-Shirts, that's what I'm going to do maybe tonight or tomorrow.
You're going to watch it, huh?
Yes.
Yes.
So here are the conclusions.
Three stories, three distances, but also three bridges.
China's motorcycle industry is narrowing the distance between itself and the world's best manufacturers.
Universities are trying to narrow the distance between campuses and the public, and Qiaopi writers spend generations narrowing the distance between families separated by oceans.
Different eras, different challenges, the same instinct.
Humans are remarkably good at building things.
Sometimes we build motorcycles, universities, or systems made entirely of paper, trust, and hope.
But the purpose is often the same, to reach someone on the other side.
The full circle, then, isn't really about motorcycles, universities, or old letters.
It's about a very old human habit.
Whenever distance appears, we start looking for a bridge.
And maybe the most fascinating thing about human beings is that we are never satisfied with the distance we inherit.
A mountain appears, and then we build a tunnel.
A river appears, we build a bridge.
An ocean appears, and we build ships.
And when the distance isn't physical at all, when it's cultural, emotional or social, we start building other things.
Stories, traditions, and communities.
Because in the end most human achievements aren't really about the thing itself.
There will always be another mountain, another border, another challenge, another thing that feels just out of reach.
But what matters is the willingness to keep moving toward it, the hope that the person the place, dream or future on the other side is still worth reaching.
It's a good point that you make.
All of those points are great points.
When we think about distance and how it applies in our daily lives.
We can talk about that too, because of the loneliness epidemic that people are dealing with now.
It's in the news all the time.
We're constantly surrounded by people, but yet we've never been lonelier, according to a lot of different reports, which is kind of ironic, isn't it?
Yeah, the internet is something people say they will connects everything.
Connects everything and makes people closer.
But sometimes when we think about it, it is also something that makes us further.
Because we started to do everything separately remotely online, not that kind of human to human connection, that interaction.
I'm not saying that online's bad.
It makes everything so much more easier and convenient.
But the thing is that it inevitably make people also away from each other.
Kind of a paradox, Yushan.
Right.
Because the thing that is meant to connect us ultimately puts a greater distance between us?
Well, maybe that's wrong.
Maybe that statement's not even true.
Do you agree with that or no?
Well, I do, because as technology becomes more and more advanced, we never know where we're heading.
Perhaps in the future, we only interact with AI and humanoid robots.
And that's how we're going to grow old as a fully very much satisfied individual.
So yeah still, I think time will tell us the real answer.
Yeah, i think on the on like personal distance that people feel these days, i put some thought into that because it is a paradox.
It doesn't make sense does, does it um?
But i think the mistake that we make is that we mistake contact for connection.
Just because you text a person, that's contact right.
Yeah, getting in touch.
But it doesn't mean connection and i think connection requires physical presence.
Yeah, Being in front of another person.
Sharing conversation.
Sharing a laugh.
Sharing a cry, maybe.
Or maybe just silence.
Because I think there's something powerful about shared silence between people too, that can help build a connection and a bond.
But that's like...
Some kind of existential, what's the meaning of us as human beings?
It's a different kind of level of thought.
Philosophically.
Yeah, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on that one.
But yeah, interesting to think about.
That's for sure.
All right, Yushan, thank you for today's Full Circle.
And that will do it for today's roundtable because that is all the time that we have for today.
For Yushan and Yushan, I am Steve.
We thank you for joining with us.
Enjoy your time and please do come back again.
