Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom

It is no small achievement to come to a foreign country, build your own business, and crown yourself CEO over a team that you have hired and built yourself. However, it is quite another accomplishment to be hired as the CEO of a local company as the only foreigner, having worked your way up from the very bottom of your industry, but that is precisely what Brad Burgess has done - and more - over the course of his successful career working in marketing and public relations in China.

This week there is no regular episode. To say that “real life got in the way” is a massive understatement, though accurate. But in this first Bonus Episode, I discuss the whys - very candidly - and also talk about what’s next.

This week the show guest is YOU. I've been wanting to record a solo catch-up episode anyway, to welcome new listeners and to let current ones know what I was working on for the show, and for a variety of reasons this was the perfect week to do it. But there’s a lot of news and information in this one, so I hope you’ll give it a listen.

This week’s episode features Los Angeles-based TV producer and red carpet host Coca Xie, which flips my show’s usual format on it’s head. I usually feature foreigners who have come to China to do something interesting, but now that we are a few months into the podcast I wanted to begin getting another kind of voice into the mix, namely: Chinese people who have taken their insights into things here and gone to another country in order to build a bridge to China from the other side of the sea. Every 10 episodes or so I will add one of these into the mix, and I can’t think of a better person to start with than Coca.   I have known Coca for just a few years, but in that short amount of time she has accomplished a great deal. She’s established herself in both New York and L.A. as a bilingual reporter and host for Chinese and China-centric entertainment shows and events, but as a producer, she’s building a platform that is the first of it’s kind and is uniquely positioned to connect the US and Chinese entertainment worlds like never before. She’s a genuinely nice person on top of being very smart about her industry, and there are lots of funny stories as well as sharp insights in this episode, so I hope you enjoy it.   To learn more about Coca or the show, please visit the links below. Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE wherever you get your podcasts, tell any friends you think would also like the show, and if you or a friend would be a great guest on the show, let me know!   Coca Xie - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littleleafyuko/?hl=en   Coca Xie - Weibo: http://weibo.com/littleleafyuko   "BFMK" site: https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/   Brendan Davis on Twitter: @VeritasInLux   Carl King (composer): http://carlkingdom.com   Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom/id1237037187?mt=2   CastBox: http://castbox.fm/u/4711710   Ximalaya: http://m.ximalaya.com/82109155/album/8651374

“I always sum up China in two words: cognitive dissonance.” - Jesse Appell    Boston native Jesse Appell has launched a successful business and speaks Chinese like a local, but that’s not all he’s accomplished during his time in Beijing. Jesse is one of only a handful of Westerners who is trained in the Chinese comedy art of xiangsheng, or crosstalk. It’s a discipline with a storied history here, and Jesse won a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to come study under a true master of the art, Ding Laoshi. But that was just the start of his career in China.   Jesse’s primary focus nowadays is on running the US-China Comedy Center here in Beijing. At the Center, they feature both single language and bilingual improv and standup comedy shows. Jesse founded the Center just about a year ago, but it’s already become a focal point for the growing comedy scene here. To give you an idea of what these shows are like, in the show notes I am including links to several examples of Jesse in action, which are subtitled and really funny regardless of your native language.   As a writer, Jesse has also been working hard to crack the elusive cross-cultural comedy code for movies. He has been developing a buddy picture that’s designed to truly appeal to both markets, and from what he says about it here, I think he might be onto something.    This episode gets very deep into the worlds of comedy, creativity, and filmmaking, so it’s  especially worth checking out if you work in those worlds, aspire to, or just enjoy them and want to learn more. But Jesse’s thoughts about the obstacles to true communication are keenly observed, and should be interesting to anyone trying to understand the other cultural better. I hope you enjoy it!   Lastly, another quick reminder that we are still a featured show on the Castbox.fm website and the Castbox podcast app! Castbox works in your web browser, iOS, and they have an especially nice new app for Android devices. Please check us out on Castbox, and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to us.    US-China Comedy Center: www.uschinacomedy.com   WeChat: Uschinacomedycenter   Weibo:  @艾杰西   Jesse Appell - Chinese standup (subtitled): https://youtu.be/UA2P-q9MxXk   "Chinese Mitch Hedberg" routine: http://m.youku.com/video/id_XNzU3ODkyNDgw.html    Xiangsheng overview: https://youtu.be/7QxW-KBE6EA   "BFMK" site: https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/   Brendan Davis on Twitter: @VeritasInLux   Carl King (composer): http://carlkingdom.com   Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom/id1237037187?mt=2   CastBox: http://castbox.fm/u/4711710   Ximalaya: http://m.ximalaya.com/82109155/album/8651374  

My guest this week is American actor Matt William Knowles. Matt's story is pretty incredible: he played football at Clemson and had a real shot at playing professionally, but had his NFL dreams crushed along with his knee during his senior year. A humble guy, he decided to take a break and help others while he healed himself, and he ended up teaching English in Guizhou Province in rural China. He mastered Mandarin, was discovered singing Chinese karaoke by a talent agent in a bar, and was launched on his path to becoming a TV star and film actor in China. Along the way, he became the first non-Asian to study acting at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, which is essentially the Harvard of filmmaking in China, only more selective.    Cut to 2017: having made a significant name for himself in China, Matt has relocated to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and master stage acting. Meanwhile, he looks forward to the 2018 release of Asura, a giant Chinese $100M USD fantasy movie that provided him with what looks to be his breakout role, starring as Rawa, a heroic demigod battling evil. The film looks awesome and will hopefully cross borders and bridge cultures in much the same way that Matt himself has been doing in his work and in his life. Enjoy!   One quick reminder that we are still a featured show on the Castbox.fm website and the Castbox podcast app! Castbox works in your web browser and they also have an iOS app, but they have an especially nice app for Android devices. Please check us out on Castbox, and SUBSCRIBE to the show wherever you listen to us. Thanks!   Matt William Knowles:
http://mattwilliam.com   "BFMK" Website: https://www.crazyinagoodway.com   Brendan Davis on Twitter: @VeritasInLux   Castbox: https://castbox.fm   "Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom" on Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom/id1237037187?mt=2   on Castbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/Big-Fish-in-the-Middle-Kingdom-id571573   Carl King (composer): http://carlkingdom.com

“And then suddenly, like 10 million people knew my telephone number, and it was a turning point for the brand, because when that show started to air China-wide, my phone didn’t stop ringing for two years.” - Dominic Johnson-Hill, Plastered 8

Dominic Johnson-Hill is a British punk-rock Renaissance man. He’s famous in China for many things but he is probably best known as being the man who single-handedly began the transformation of an almost 800 year old (!) hutong called Nan Luo Gu Xiang - dating back to the days of Kubla Khan - into becoming one of the busiest and most popular tourist and shopping / nightlife destinations in Beijing around the world. If you have ever visited Beijing or looked into it on travel websites, you’ve seen the area featured as a must-see. Dominic was the very first person to open a store there, and the rest is history.    He did this as the founder of iconic street wear brand Plastered 8, a truly “only in China” success story that you have to hear for yourself. I am an unofficial brand ambassador for Plastered myself, being a huge fan of their crazy and cool t-shirts (owning about 20 as of now), so I was excited to hear the tale of how he built the brand straight from the horse’s mouth. The story quoted above starts at about the 10-minute mark of the interview, but the whole thing is a wild ride that you have to hear for yourself. Among Dominic's other innovations and “media moments”, he has gotten worldwide press as being the creator of canned “Beijing Air”, but that only scratches the surface of his innovation and creativity. He has created a 30 square meter mural in the high-end Beijing art hotel The Opposite House, has been a TV host and presenter as well as frequent guest on talk and game shows here, he's a filmmaker who directs his own commercials, and much more.   This one is full of inspired and occasionally raunchy, hilarious content; if you’re highly sensitive you might wince a few times, but I grew up on Monty Python, Benny Hill, and other English humor, so I laughed throughout the talk. One note is that we did have a few Skype issues. I edited around them as well as possible, and as always I strive to make those edits seamless, but this week there are a small handful that you will probably hear. There are also a couple of places where the audio quality gets weird in general for maybe 5-10 seconds, but I don’t think it detracts from the comprehension of the stories being told, so I hope you can bear with those brief moments when they pop up.    Lastly, I’m excited to announce that starting this week, we are a featured show on the Castbox.fm website and the Castbox podcast app! Castbox works in your web browser and they also have an iOS app, but they have an especially nice app for Android devices. Please check us out on Castbox, and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to us. Enjoy!   "BFMK" Website: https://www.crazyinagoodway.com   Brendan Davis on Twitter: @VeritasInLux   Plastered 8: https://plasteredtshirts.com   about Dominic Johnson-Hill: http://plasteredtshirts.com/category/dominic/   Castbox: https://castbox.fm   "Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom" on Castbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/Big-Fish-in-the-Middle-Kingdom-id571573   Carl King (composer): ​​​​​​​http://carlkingdom.com

“Over the last 30 years, they (China) have raised more people out of poverty than ever before in the history of the human race, which is amazing. (Most of) the young people in China have such an optimistic view of the future because their life has gotten better every single year.” - Steve Barr

This week’s episode was recorded on location from the 2017 Shanghai Film Festival, but the guest is one of my best friends from L.A. Steve Barr is a writer, producer, and occasional actor who has worked and traveled extensively throughout and between the very different film industries in Los Angeles, China, and New Zealand. His recent credits in one or more of those capacities include Born to Dance, Chronesthesia, Hang Time, and the remake of Pete’s Dragon, in which he had a small but memorable supporting role.

In this interview, Steve discusses the unique challenges and opportunities inherent to the various filmmaking systems, and he explains his working process with a level of detail and candor that will be especially useful to anyone working in a creative industry such as film. He also shares lessons and thoughts that will particularly resonate with anyone who’s spent significant time in China, but which are applicable to travelers in foreign lands regardless.

We cover a lot of ground in this one. As we say in the interview, I want to give full disclosure upfront that Steve and I are not only long time friends, but that we are and have been business colleagues in all three countries, too. Steve was a part of my previous company based in L.A., we are currently partners in a film production company in New Zealand with our friend Andy Conlan, and the partners in my Beijing film company hired him to write the screenplay for an upcoming historical epic film of ours. Steve is now part of that company too, so there are a lot of interrelationships here. Still, we make a serious effort to not be overly self-serving, as the goal of discussing some of our projects past and present is not promotional, but educational and practical. Because we have lots of shared real-world examples to draw from in our discussion, it helps us to be much more real than if we stayed strictly theoretical.

The episode is now available on Apple Podcasts, on most of the popular Android / Google apps, on the Chinese service Ximalaya - please search it in your favorite of those places - and of course on the Podcast player here. Of course I’m biased, but I do think it’s a fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy it! Please tell a friend, subscribe, or send me feedback below as you like. 

"BFMK" Website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com

Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux

Steve Barr on Twitter:
@BarrSteve

Steve Barr writing website (with Casey Zilbert):
http://www.scwheelbarrow.com

Carl King (composer):
http://carlkingdom.com

This week’s show features none other than tech-world legend Steven Hoffman. He is the Founder and Captain of Founders Space, a top tech incubator / accelerator from Silicon Valley that has been very successful in establishing themselves in China and elsewhere around the world as well.   Steven is also the best-selling author of “Making Elephants Fly”, released first here in China, in Chinese only (!), but rolling out in English worldwide in the Fall. Silicon Valley is technically Steven's home, but he spends more than 50% of his time in China, and his perspective is one you will want to hear.   He is a highly in-demand keynote speaker and has appeared in front of many millions of people in live audiences and simulcasts online throughout China in just this last year alone, so it is a real treat for me to welcome him to the show.    In our chat, Steven shares solid, actionable advice for those seeking to create or advance their startup, what types of projects they look for at Founders Space, and other information that is invaluable to business people of all kinds. And of course we devote a lot of energy to China-specific questions, and get deeply into the answers, whether it’s discussing the unique opportunities here, what China is better at than their counterparts elsewhere and vice versa, and much much more. It is jam-packed with great information and I hope you enjoy it!   Steven’s resume is varied and extensive. Quoting from the Founders Space website a bit, for more context:   "Always innovating on his life, Steven Hoffman, known as Captain Hoff, has tried more professions than cats have lives, including serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, angel investor, mobile studio head, computer engineer, filmmaker, Hollywood TV exec, published author, coder, game designer, manga rewriter, animator and voice actor.   Hoffman was Chair of the Producers Guild Silicon Valley Chapter, Board of Governors of the New Media Council, and founding member of the Academy of Television’s Interactive Media Group.   After starting three venture-funded startups in Silicon Valley, Hoffman launched Founders Space with the mission to educate and accelerate entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. Founders Space has become one of the top startup accelerators in the world with over 50 partners in 22 countries. Hoffman has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and routinely works with the world’s largest global corporations and venture funds. He’s also an LP in August Capital."   "BFMK" Website: https://www.crazyinagoodway.com   Founders Space info: https://www.foundersspace.com   Steven Hoffman full bio: https://www.foundersspace.com/mentors/hoffman/   Carl King (composer): http://carlkingdom.com

“The West was built on American steel; China, on bamboo.” - Benjamin Saphiro

My guest for Episode #004 is Benjamin Saphiro. Ben is a poet and painter from the Midlands area of Birmingham, England. He is an intuitive and bold artist, and he brings a very thoughtful, grounded perspective to the creation of his work and to his life. We talk about everything from Abraham Maslow to metaphysics to Black Sabbath. It’s a wide-ranging chat that also somehow manages to go by very fast, too.    I first met Ben on a Beijing trip 9 months before I actually moved here. We have talked a lot before, and as a result we had a very personal, philosophical, and revealing talk here. We did this interview in person, at Ben's home, and his beautiful golden retriever Sandy kept us company, so if you hear something in the background that you can’t quite put your finger on, that’s probably her! It doesn’t interfere with the sound at all, and it made the interview feel very relaxed for us, so I hope that there will be more dogs or cats keeping me company in future episodes.    In this episode, we discuss the nature of identity and some of the ways that long-term travel and living away from your country of origin impacts your life and your work, among other things. So regardless of what YOU do for a living, or WHERE you are living, I think there’s lots to relate to. We were both in a particularly reflective mood when we recorded this, having enjoyed some drinks and a good catch-up conversation before we ever started recording, so I think that helped us to - occasionally - go deep. But it’s also very light and funny in places, and it’s an easy, fast listen, so I hope you’ll enjoy it.    Show Notes: "BFMK" Website: https://www.crazyinagoodway.com   Benjamin Saphiro:   http://www.bensaphiro.com   Carl King (composer): http://carlkingdom.com