Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything: Art De Vivre (I of II)

June 10, 2015 6:42 AM

The voice of the ToE episode announcer revealed! (her name is Mathilde) and she joins our host for this two part series about the intersection between France and China and wine. The story of the red obsession of Wealthy Chinese has been told many times, but what is going to happen when China’s elusive emerging middle class gets wine fever? Can wine transmit cultural values? Can it transcend consumerism? In this installment Benjamen and Mathilde traverse France to discover this vino nouvelle vague.

Read Ben's post about the episode on Medium.

posted by Cash4Lead (3 comments total)

Only halfway through, but it's really interesting so far. I remember hearing Mathilde's name in the credits previously, but I had no idea she was his wife. She's charming.
posted by radioamy at 8:15 AM on June 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Agreed. I liked that this was a more outward-facing series of ToE than some of the previous ones. Ben's rhetorical predilections were hemmed in, and thus not as overbearing.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:31 AM on June 10, 2015

I thought the juxtaposition of the Chinese woman and her French fiance was a nice illustration of the different (stereotypical) mindsets of the two countries. I wonder if this couple will succeed in the long run - it sounds like they have such different definitions of success and don't want to accept the other's.

Also, did anyone else get a kick of hearing the French-residing Chinese people speaking English? I thought the accent was really charming.
posted by radioamy at 7:53 AM on June 12, 2015