Special Thanks to Dov Simens!
I just added a post to the show's Patreon page that I wanted to share with you here, too...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/18739543
BRENDAN DAVIS ON "FEI'S WORLD" PODCAST
Today the new episode of Fei Wu's podcast "Fei's World" was released, and it features me - "Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom" host Brendan Davis.
You can read Fei's excellent Show Notes and find the episode here: https://www.feisworld.com/blog/brendan-davis
In it, we discuss my unsettled childhood, spending my 20s as an aspiring pro rock guitarist, my years as a film and TV technician based out of Atlanta, Georgia, how 9-11 spurred my move to Los Angeles to commit to my creative filmmaking career, and ultimately, my interest in and eventual move to China.
Basically: If you REALLY want to know what makes me tick, this is a great starting point.
The episode also contains practical tips for happy expat living and lots of laughs, so it's not all "heavy", but it is by far the most personal, in-depth interview anyone has ever done with me, and I think Fei and her team did a great job putting it together with skill and sensitivity. It inspires me to up my game, and if you listen to it, I hope you enjoy.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM BEIJING!
I just posted a super short audio and video bonus episode showing you a couple of the holiday items that came my way in Beijing this year, including the "Christmas apple” (what? details below). We have ONE more regularly-scheduled episode coming up this year on Thursday, plus a big wrapup / retrospective of Season 1 of the podcast with a look ahead to Season 2 in 2018. Next year looks to hold some amazing new developments for me personally and professionally here on China, in both the podcasting and film worlds, and I can’t wait to give you a little preview of all that on New Year’s Eve.
But for now: have a great holiday if you get one, and I’ll see you again on Thursday!
"Christmas Apples":
the long version - http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-christmas-china-apple-20131225-story.html
the short version - https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Chinese-people-give-red-apples-for-Christmas-gifts
Holiday FUNDRAISING Drive - SUPPORT BFMK via PayPal or WeChat:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/donate/
Brendan Davis on WeChat:
BrendanDavis
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
BFMK website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Other links to LISTEN:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/podcast-links/
LIVE Event: "BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR FOR LIFE"
Bonus Episode, Nov 25, 2017 - “Becoming an Entrepreneur For Life” | Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO), Beijing Sanlitun chapter
Today I am happy to share another special LIVE episode with you, a panel presentation on the topic of "Becoming an Entrepreneur For Life”. The event was sponsored by the EO Beijing Sanlitun chapter, and was recorded from the naked HUB in Sanlitun.
For more information on the numerous speakers and sponsors, please search them using the information below. Enjoy!
Speakers:
Mike Wester (host) - Founder & CEO, True Run Media
Claudia Masueger - Founder & CEO, CHEERS Wines
Katherine Lui - Founder & Managing Partner, CanAsia Consulting
Christopher Dobbing - Founder & CEO, Cambridge Masks
Stacy Palestrant - Founder & CEO, Elite Scholars of China
AJ Warner - Co-Founder & Board Member, Touchdown!
Sponsors:
EO Beijing Sanlitun
naked HUB
Gung-Ho Pizza
CHEERS Wines
Awa Health
EO Beijing Sanlitun contact (AJ Warner):
email - ajwarner@touchdown.org.cn
WeChat - ajwarner
Entrepreneurs' Organization:
https://www.eonetwork.org
Ronald Paredes (“BFMK” logo):
WeChat, Instagram, Facebook - mundosanto
Brendan Davis on WeChat:
BrendanDavis
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
BFMK website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Other links to LISTEN:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/podcast-links/
SUPPORT BFMK via PayPal or WeChat:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/donate/
CORO URDANETA: Interior Architecture in China
#026 - Interior Architecture in China | Coro Urdaneta
My guest this week is architect Coro Urdaneta. Much like previous guest Ronald Paredes, Coro left the upheaval in Venezuela to seek a better life for herself. Her first stop was Miami in the US, but China was next, and in 6 short years Coro has established herself very well in Beijing with her work designing the interior architecture of Moka Bros, the Q-Mex Taqueria, La Social, Mosto, and many other local F&B standouts.
In “small world” news, I happened to meet her youngest brother Rafael last night while out and about. The expat community here in Beijing is very close-knit, and the more I dive into it, the smaller it becomes as well.
Links to contact Coro or me or to find out more about the show are below. Enjoy!
CoroMoto website:
coromotoad.com
Brendan Davis on WeChat:
BrendanDavis
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
BFMK website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Other links to LISTEN:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/podcast-links/
SUPPORT BFMK via PayPal or WeChat:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/donate/
DOMINIC JOHNSON-HILL: Building a Brand in Beijing
"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
#007 - Building a Brand in Beijing | Dominic Johnson-Hill
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" direct links -
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
STEVE BARR: Screenwriting and Producing in L.A., New Zealand, and Beijing
#006 - Screenwriting and Producing in L.A., New Zealand, and Beijing | Steve Barr
“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
JENNIFER HSIUNG: Comedy & Family
Jennifer Hsiung - Comedy & Family
This week’s guest is Jennifer Hsiung. Jennifer is a Canadian born to Taiwanese parents; she lives and works in Beijing as a TV anchor and reporter, a budding standup comedian, and - as she is 7 months pregnant at the time of posting this - is a very busy mother of “two and a half” kids.
Jennifer first came to China on a cultural exchange trip, but her big break after she moved to the mainland was when she became a sports reporter for CCTV during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. That opportunity led to many others as a reporter and news anchor, and Jennifer is now a host of the popular show “Culture Express” on CGTN, formerly CCTV English International, where she interviews prominent guests from the arts and entertainment world. She is also part of the growing standup comedy scene in China, which we discuss in detail.
This episode is as real as it is comedic. Jennifer brings a very interesting perspective to the show; as someone who is a foreigner from North America, but is of Asian ancestry, she has unique insights into both worlds that are worth hearing, and she has a way of making the truth funny that I think you’ll really enjoy.
If you DO enjoy it, please SUBSCRIBE to the show if you are new here, tell a friend or two about us, and check out the links below to get in touch or learn more!
"BFMK" Website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Jennifer Hsiung links:
https://www.facebook.com/JenExpress
https://www.youtube.com/user/pumpkinvive88
Weibo / WeChat: JenniferHsiung熊邦欣
Carl King (composer):
www.carlkingdom.com
Episode 001 is now LIVE!
In this first, short installment, I give an overview of what the show is all about, plus just enough backstory on me to give it all context:
Episode #001 - Welcome to BFMK | Brendan Davis
You can subscribe in iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom/id1237037187
or view it directly on the web HERE.
You can also search "Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom" in your favorite pod app, or you can always subscribe to the RSS feed here on this site, via the link at the bottom of the page.
New episodes coming every week at 11:11AM Saturdays, China Standard Time. Please SUBSCRIBE, leave feedback as you like, and see you then!
- B
FOUNDATIONS
How does where we are from and where we live and have traveled influence who we are?
The above photo of me was taken in early December, 2007 at sunrise in Carthage, Tunisia. The story behind it isn't as epic as the history of the place itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage), but it was a pretty profound experience for me all the same...
I was accompanying my great friend and then producing partner Blue Nelson on one leg of a particular long-term, record-setting-attempt road trip he's been on and off of in one way or another since 1998. This kicked off the North African leg. We'd previously been through Central and Southern Italy as well as the Southern European island nation of Malta together. This was the morning we woke up in Tunisia, having ferried over from Reggio, Italy 22 hours before, and it began a journey around the entirety of pre-Arab Spring Tunisia that took us down into the entrance of the Sahara Desert and back, with stops across the borders into both Algeria and Libya (past the old Star Wars sets, a movie his uncle helped produce...but that's HIS story to tell).
Blue, Brendan and Bigfoot. On location in the Angeles National Forest, CA, 200...3(?)
Scouting in Rome, Italy. 2007
Delivery "van" somewhere in Southern Italy, 2007
On the road outside Bizerte, Tunisia. 2007
Inside Blue's car at the Libyan border. Note Big Brother Leader (deceased) in the background. They wouldn't let us in but at least they let us leave. 2007
I say all this because I've had a lot of opportunity to reflect on the impact of travels and relocations in the slightly over 9 years since this trip. I woke up on January 1, 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand. The next day I travelled to Wellington, where I woke up January 3rd. On that day I meditated for an hour on the nature of my year just past, and was struck by the realization that in just the roughly 6 months previous I'd been in: Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand; Los Angeles, California, Seattle, Washington and Birmingham, Alabama in the US; various tiny towns in Inner Mongolia that I can't type properly in Roman characters; and in Gannan, Xi'An, Anyang, Erenhot, and Beijing, China.
Which of these things is not like the others? Getting to take part in a traditional celebration in Gansu, Gannan, China. July 17, 2016
Newspaper boardroom giving a talk, Xi'An, China. August 25, 2016
At the airport. Erenhot, China. August 30, 2016
Yakking about something at Sundance: Hong Kong. September 24, 2016
With a 2008 Olympic Torch at the SiMuWu company, which made it, in Anyang, China. November 28, 2016
With Steve Barr in Wellington (I think). Jan 2, 2017.
How did I get here - all of those "here"s - from whence I came? That'll take more than one blog post to explore, but the short version is that it was a combination of accident and effort. I'm going to brain-dump the outline below, without a lot of editing, and then will flesh out details in subsequent posts as I get around to it. :)
I was born in Augusta, Georgia in the Southern US. Mostly raised in and around the Atlanta area, and in Anniston, Alabama, where my maternal grandparents lived. They were the closest thing I had to a stabilizing influence in my young life so I adopted Anniston as my hometown of choice. I lived a few "interesting" years in Southwest Georgia, which will also merit it's own post. I spent one year of college in Birmingham, Alabama back before my mom lived there, which she does now, and I commuted an hour back "home" to Anniston most weekends to visit with my Grandmother, which was (in retrospect) probably why I am not dead or in jail as I type this. I had a sweet fake ID so I would go out and see my friend / guitar teacher Will (then "Bill") Owsley's bands playing in area clubs when I could - he gets a blog post too someday - but mostly I'd sit at home with "Ma" and do laundry, read or chat about things with her, and eat her amazing food. But after that one year in Birmingham, then a regrouping year back in Albany, Georgia at the then-junior college resurrecting my grades (I HATED my college in Birmingham, and avoided studying as much as possible in some creative ways, which is also it's own story), I finally moved to Athens, Georgia to attend the University of and get my life back on track. I lived in Athens for 8 years and have loads of stories and experiences involving the art and music scenes there that I will also dig into another time. For now, the key part of this narrative is that Athens and then Atlanta (where I moved next, the last stop before Los Angeles, and where I earned Bachelor's Degree in Film) are the two cities that most shaped me immediately prior to my move West.
As a Southern expat of 15 years now, I'm unqualified to talk about their values and virtues today. But when I was there, in addition to all the good and bad that are topics for still other discussions, there was a sense of fundamental community that I later had in Los Angeles, believe it or not, in the tight-knit concentric circles of the entertainment business, but which seems so far away from my 2017 perspective as an expat yet again, this time halfway around the world in Beijing.
First stop on the Beijing move: Tuanjiehu. June, 2016
Building a brand at Adamas Film HQ, Beijing, China. 2016
The plan is to be mostly here for ~5 years, give or take, with stops back home and at points elsewhere and in between as needed. The things that I'm building with friends and partners here are worth the tradeoffs, but those tradeoffs are real, and they are significant, starting with the ability to communicate fluently with close friends who share a somewhat similar frame of reference to me. It's why I spend any time at all on Facebook these days, even though the sorry state of affairs in our political system back home is hugely depressing. Still, it's the closest thing to a virtual town square I have, so for better or worse there I will be, for now.
Where have your travels taken you, and what are the lessons learned along the way that you think are universal? I'll have more thoughts on mine later. For now, I'd like to know yours. Please comment below, via the Contact form or any social sites I link this too if you want.
PROCESS
Now that the Chinese New Year / Spring Festival holidays are over and people are getting back to work, I have been reflecting on what they meant to me - an American - the way I spent them here myself in Beijing: alone, and far removed physically from the uncertainty and insanity consuming my own beloved country.
During the break, it’s been interesting to consider how exactly the various rituals of the celebration and the national homecoming here affected me personally, without my even taking direct part in them much this year.
It got me to thinking about Process, and how important it is for everyone to figure out for themselves what they need in order to do their best, in what context they ARE their best, and how to reconcile those personal needs with the needs of the collective, whose demands on our time don’t always sync up smoothly with our own agendas.
Speaking of that, re Chinese New Year 2017:
For me personally, on a practical level, it was great. I’m a pretty social and outward-facing guy when I need to be; maybe in another post I'll talk about how I overcame debilitating childhood shyness to become - twenty years later - very comfortable leading conversations in a professional environment or speaking to groups of people in public and private. But the flip side is that whenever I get the chance, I like to put the world on Airplane Mode and be as much of a hermit as humanly possible. At work I can play Type A with the best of them, but at home I’m all about soft lights on dimmers, reading, Chinese tea rituals, meditating with candles and incense burning in the background, etc. I basically tend towards being very very quiet unless there’s a great reason to get loud and rock out, which - as a recovering rock and roll guitar player - is always a possibility with me, too. But it’s not my default energy these days.
So the funny thing is that although I at times have a fairly big personality, naturally I'm more of an introvert than most people would probably imagine. I'm at home running a movie set or managing a high-stakes project with multiple stakeholders, but in terms of my personal, creative work, I don’t thrive in chaos. So enjoying a big, State-mandated break from all of the day-to-day craziness of Beijing and just being able to breathe - admittedly, with the help of a good air cleaner most days - and to move and live at my own pace for a hot minute was a real gift.
On a generative level it was pretty sweet also. Besides tending to the Western-facing aspects of our business here during the Eastern holidays, I got to spend a healthy chunk of brainpower working on some personal projects that needed time paid to them* (a concept I got from Carl Bressler, who I believe was likewise inspired by a friend of his) and also to catch up on some housekeeping issues like paying bills and sorting through tax records and such.
Creatively, in addition to starting this blog, I can now say that I’m in the home stretch of writing a TV pilot. I’ve had the basic premise for years and have been working on the story in one form or another for equally as long. It started as an idea for a short film, then quickly expanded to a feature once I got my head around the story better, and finally, after I’d lived with that version of it long enough I realized that it made the most sense to structure it as a series.
It’s far from done, but I think the shape of it is solid, I know my characters really well, and I have all of the scenes drafted; most of them are written to a state where I don’t want to punch the computer now, so in those aspects it's all good. Over the holidays I’ve mostly been playing with tone a lot, as I've struggled to say what I want to say in a form that I think people might enjoy and find compelling on a week to week basis. And I’m not done refining it yet but I’m also not hating where I’ve landed for now, so it's exciting to at least have the end of this iteration in sight.
Back to process:
Part of how I stay connected to my home culture while I am so far away from it is listening to podcasts. Recently the writer-producer-actor-comedian Whitney Cummings was a return guest on one of my favorites, the excellent Tim Ferriss Show, and the format of this episode was that she answered listener questions. The one she saved for last asked what was the best advice she’d ever received for achieving success. She credited actor-director-producer Peter Berg with a one-word challenge he gave her at a time when she was struggling with something profound:
“FINISH."
Just finish. His point (as relayed by her) was that there aren’t awards given out for the best screenplay someone merely STARTED, or funding being thrown at all those great IDEAS that someone came up with but never bothered to put into a tangible, shareable, salable, FINISHED form. You have to FINISH what you start for it - and all the effort you expended creating it - to actually MEAN anything.
It reminded me of another piece of advice I got once, that for anything to even have the HOPE of becoming real, you have to fIrst WRITE IT DOWN.
It works for Berg, it's apparently worked for Whitney, and it's worked - so far anyway - for me.
So before the more cynical of you are tempted to dismiss these as trite aphorisms, please know that as simple and obvious as these ideas may seem, there is also - for some of us at least - deep truth and real power to be found in understanding them, and lasting results are only attainable by applying them. So maybe meditate on them and see for yourself, if that’s your thing. Or don’t. Either way, good luck!
On that note, off I go to do it again. More later here. :)
Cheers, and thanks for reading. Comment below if you like.