5.24.15: Renting Foreigners To Sell Real Estate, The Great Cricket Rivalry, NH Poet Laureate

With thousands of empty luxury apartments in China’s new cities, desperate measures are being taken to lure buyers. On today’s show, we’ll explore the booming business of renting foreigners as props to give these ghostly city centers an air of international glamour.   

Then we hit the pitch for an inside look at the world’s greatest sports rivalry, between the Pakistan and Indian cricket teams, and what it reveals about the complicated relationship between the nations.

Listen to the full show

David Borenstein is a film and television director based in Copenhagen. He’s working on a feature documentary called Chinese Dreamlandwhich follows the principals of a company attempting to present  expensive, empty apartment buildings as glamorous destinations for China’s new rich. 

Ken Shulman is a journalist and host of “Away Games”, a new television series and educational platform that looks at lives, conflicts, and cultures through the lens of sport.

The show’s first episode details the intense cricket rivalry between India and Pakistan. You can watch full episodes at this link: Away Games

Virginia speaks with NH Poet Laureate Alice Fogel about her new collection of poetry, Interval: Poems Based on Bach's 'Goldberg Variations'.

The great pyramid of Giza in Egypt is an incredible structure – in part, because it was built thousands of years ago, before cranes, trucks, and other examples of modern construction equipment. And despite the draw of the pyramids for spiritual seekers, the oldest and largest one was not made by mystics – but was the deliberate product of very talented engineers.  Roman Mars of the podcast "99% Invisible" explores how practicality played a role in creating one of history’s most ambitious buildings.

You can listen to this story again at PRX.org.

Kyle Wiens is the founder of iFixit, an online community that creates and shares free repair guides. He’s also a contributor to Wired magazine, where he recently penned a scathing op-ed entitled “We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy The Very Idea Of Ownership.”