Laowai Interviews Posts

Oct212011

Posted By
Ryan

Interview with Charles Custer, director of ‘Living With Dead Hearts’

Nearly a year ago I posted about a documentary film being made by ChinaGeek‘s founder (and one-time Lost Laowai contributor), Charlie Custer.

The film, now titled Living With Dead Hearts, explores the issue of kidnapped children in China and how it affects the parents, the children and the whole community. And it needs your help to finish being made.

Earlier this week on his blog Imagethief, Will Moss wrote a poignant and humorous post that couldn’t have summed up better why, as a new father, this issue touches me deeply. So rather than rehash that point here with half the quality of Will’s post, please go read it.

After you’ve done that, please take a moment to watch the following trailer for the film, read my interview below with Charlie and consider giving what you can to help this film be made.

Sep192011

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Lost Laowai

Mandarin Monday: Popup Chinese’s Brendan O’Kane lays down some learning know-how

Our Mandarin Monday interview for this week is none other than well-known blogger, podcast host and translator, Brendan O’Kane.

One of the original founders of Paper Republic, Brendan is a host of the Mandarin Chinese language learning podcast Popup Chinese, and teaches a course in Chinese-English literary translation at IES Abroad Beijing.

He also (and far too infrequently!) blogs at bokane.org (English) and 在北京找不着北 (Chinese). He lives in Beijing with his wife and two cats.

Sep122011

5Comments

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Lost Laowai

Mandarin Monday: Sinosplice’s John Pasden offers up some Chinese advice

For this week’s Mandarin Monday, we’ve hit up the juggernaut of Chinese learning, John Pasden.

John surely doesn’t need much introduction for anyone studying Chinese. In China for more than a decade, John’s been mastering the language for most of that time, including securing a masters in applied linguistics in Shanghai. He pens the popular Sinosplice blog, oversees academic content and serves as host at ChinesePod and founded AllSet Learning, a Shanghai-based consulting company that offers highly customized learning solutions for frustrated learners of Mandarin.

Sep072011

2Comments

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Lost Laowai

Mandarin Monday: ChineseHacks’ David Flynn doles out some learning insight

Wha?! Mandarin Monday on a Wednesday? What the hell is going on. Yeah, I screwed up and totally forgot. Hopefully a bit of mid-week mandarin is just as good though.

For the third installment in our weekly Mandarin Monday series that discusses Chinese learning we’ve hit up David Flynn. Dave is originally from the UK, he’s been living in Taiwan and learning Mandarin Chinese for the last five years. He founded and runs ChineseHacks.com a blog dedicated to effectively learning Chinese; and co-founded MandarinPoster.com, a handy learning tool for any student of Chinese.

Aug292011

2Comments

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Lost Laowai

Mandarin Monday: Sinoglot’s Kellen Parker shares some tips on learning

What follows is the second in our weekly Mandarin Monday series, that discusses Chinese learning. The series will deliver advice through interviews with long-time Mandarin learners, sharing resources and discussing learning techniques.

This week we speak to Kellen Parker, co-founder of Sinoglot, an organisation of Chinese linguistics researchers. Kellen is an American linguistics researcher who’s spent the last few years in Shanghai as a grad student, and currently resides in Seoul where he’s researching Mandarin use among Korea’s overseas Chinese population.

Aug222011

5Comments

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Lost Laowai

Mandarin Monday: ChinesePod’s John Biesnecker dishes up some language advice

This is the first in a new series of posts, called Mandarin Monday, that will discuss Chinese learning. The series will deliver advice through interviews with long-time Mandarin learners, sharing resources and discussing learning techniques.

Our first guest in the series is John Biesnecker. John is an American software developer who has been in China since 2003, and has been working on his Mandarin since 2001. He, his wife, and his son live in Shanghai, where he works at ChinesePod.

Jan132011

4Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Shangdown — Interview with Shanghai spaghetti western director Jakob Montrasio

When Shanghai-based expat Jakob Montrasio first told me he was directing a spaghetti western set in his adopted city, I’m sure I blinked uncomprehendingly. The movie, Shangdown: The Way of the Spur is an east-meets-west kung fu cowboy mashup.

This Bruce with boots (or Clint with a kick) premise for a film seemed strange and intriguing, so I decided to probe a bit further into what the movie was all about. My interview with Jakob is below. But first, how about a more official synopsis (and a trailer):

Oct252010

1Comment

Posted By
Ryan

‘Electric Voices and Stinky Tofu’ on your bookshelf

I first heard of MandMX.com back about a year and a half ago when they featured Lost Laowai in a comic of theirs. So when Magnus, the “M” of MandMX, contacted me to let me know they’d compiled their large collection of bilingual, China-themed comics into a new book, I was excited to get my hands on it.

Dubbed with the quirky moniker “Electric Voices and Stinky Tofu“, The book is an illustrated journey of ah-ha moments for any Westerner who’s spent time in China. Magnus, and his wife MingXing, have cartooned nearly every “China moment” I could think of — inking out what we all know from living here — China’s one wacky place.

I chatted with Magnus recently about the book and living in China. Here’s what he had to say:

May042010

4Comments

Posted By
Ryan

eXpo: offering some movement this May Fourth

One of my favourite Chinese sites, Neocha, has teamed up with the very talented producer Dave Liang, of The Shanghai Restoration Project, and created eXpo, a 10-track collection of Chinese electronic music that goes on sale today.

I generally accredit Neocha as the source of reversing my opinion about creativity in China. The site is a SNS for Chinese creatives of all disciplines, and while it’s all in Chinese, it does a great job of bridging out to the English speaking world with its NEXT player for streaming independent Chinese music, and the awesome NeochaEDGE blog that showcases the best of Chinese creativity where ever it may bloom.

I chatted with Neocha founder and CEO Sean Leow, as well as The Shanghai Restoration Project’s Dave Liang to get the skinny on the album, the Expo and the state of independent music in China. Here’s what they had to say:

Feb182010

6Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Jaiya’s Animal Rescue, hope for homeless animals in Shanghai

A before and after photo of a JAR rescued pup

During a conversation about the treatment of animals in China some time ago, I remember a friend saying, “what rights are animals going to have in a country that is still working out the rights of humans?” Anyone that’s ever been to a zoo in China knows just how true this is.

Fortunately, like all things in China, this is changing. Helping along that change in Shanghai is an altruistic group of volunteer animal rescuers called Jaiya’s Animal Rescue, or JAR for short. The nearly year-old organization was started by a woman named Julia and her husband Marvin, who was kind enough to answer some questions for this post.

Lost Laowai: Can you tell us a bit about why you started this organization? Who is Jaiya?

Marvin: My wife and I have always saved animals here in China wherever we were (different provinces). It was last year March 2009 that we both came up with the name in loving memory of our daughter ‘Jaiya Kristina’ who unfortunately died of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) on February 14th, 2009. We named the group JAR – Jaiya’s Animal Rescue.

We want to cooperate not only with foreigners, but also with the locals. We believe that with both foreign and local members working together to save animals in need (healing and finding them permanent homes), it is a good cause to be a part of.