KEVIN GEIGER | Revenge of the Fretful Laowai Radio Hour!
Returning champion Kevin Geiger (Magic Dumpling, Peewee Frog; ex-Disney) is back for another freewheeling China chat! We start with an outline and let it rip from there. Big fun, and a big reason I rebooted the podcast. We talk about returning home & expat ennui (hence the “Fretful Laowai” show handle), our new projects, how to (and how NOT to) package and produce a feature film (note: it really helps if you hire a rockstar cinematographer, and then he brings on partners who’ve worked on Green Book, the latest Star Wars, Interstellar, etc) and lastly: how to tell if you’ve been in China for too damn long. Enjoy!
KEVIN GEIGER links:
Peewee Frog books http://peeweefrog.com/news.html
Magic Dumpling Entertainment www.magicdumpling.com
Huhu Studios http://huhustudios.com
《神隐桃花源》“Shen Yin Tao Hua Yuan” / “Hidden in the Peach Blossom Garden” https://www.awn.com/blog/breaking-boundaries-beijing
SEARCH “If I Knew You Better” in all podcatchers OR listen / learn more below:
LISTEN - APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-i-knew-you-better/id1457785319 / WEB PLAYER: http://ifiknewyoubetter.libsyn.com/website/ LINKS https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/knew-resources
“How China Works”: LISTEN - APPLE: https://tinyurl.com/HowChinaWorks-iTunes / ANDROID: http://howchinaworks.libsyn.com / SOUNDCLOUD: https://tinyurl.com/HowChinaWorks-Soundcloud / STITCHER: https://tinyurl.com/hcw-stitcher / WEB PLAYER: https://www.howchinaworkspodcast.com
“Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom”: APPLE: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom/id1237037187?mt=2 / SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/brendan-davis-2 / STITCHER: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/brendan-davis/big-fish-in-the-middle-kingdom / WEB PLAYER: http://bigfishmiddlekingdom.libsyn.com
MATTHEW BYRNE: The Arts & Literary Scene in China
#036 - The Arts & Literary Scene in China - Matthew Byrne
This week’s guest is Matthew Byrne. Matt is a transplant from Britain who runs the arts and literary magazine and collective Spittoon. We discuss the next Spittoon event taking place tomorrow, this Thursday, 25th January at 8pm - in Matt’s words, “ ...there will be fantastic English language poetry but also Chinese poetry in translation. A new host will also be announced who has great new ideas, plus there will be a special music / poetry collaboration performance from Spit-Tunes to round off the evening”.
Jan 25 Spittoon Event Location / 地点：
40 Zhonglouwan Hutong
(directly east of the Bell Tower)
旧鼓楼大街钟楼湾胡同40号
Spittoon:
spittooncollective.com
Matthew Byrne WeChat:
fintan14
Alan Watts:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/32581/alan-w-watts
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/187469/the-way-of-zen-by-alan--watts/9780307784346/
AWA Health (mention the show and get a 20% discount):
4th Floor, THE PLACE mall
Guanhua Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
137-1618-2745 (Chinese)
186-0083-9624 (English)
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/
TROY'S TEAM: The Way of the Fist
#016 - The Way of the Fist | Troy’s Team
Welcome back to Big Fish in the Middle Kingdom! I'm Brendan Davis, your host, and this week’s episode features Troy Sandford plus Myra Mala and Mayela Magrou, who are core members of Troy's Team. Troy's Team is a martial arts and stunts team here in Beijing who also offer training in what they practice. Troy and his team members have distinguished themselves in many ways with their contributions to action filmmaking in China, and their work is really fantastic. If you like impressive action and martial arts sequences, you will want to check out their videos, and if you’re in or visiting Beijing, contact them to take a class!
This episode was a first for me in that I got to interview three people at once. The resulting conversation was fast-paced as well as being very thoughtful in places, and the four-way interchange made it more dynamic than usual. As much as I enjoy the regular one on one interviews, the experience of doing this one makes me want to seek out more small groups and teams to speak with in the future as well. Links to find Troy’s Team online and learn more about them are available in the show notes. You can also visit my website, crazyinagoodway.com, to learn more about me, the show, to make a donation and support my efforts here, or just to say hi and let me know what you think. Any support or feedback is always greatly appreciated.
Also, in the show intro I also talk a bit about my recent trip as a cultural ambassador to Dunhuang, in Gansu Province, which was pretty amazing on many levels. I was a guest of my friend Amy Chen and her team at Global Communications and Cooperation Company, led by Bruce Huang. I’ve previously participated in other events for Global in Gannan, also in Gansu Province, as well as at the Zambia Embassy to China here in Beijing, and there’s never a dull moment. In Dunhuang, I got to ride a camel in the desert, tour grape vineyards and participate in an official kick-off ceremony for the season, and appear onstage at an event and make a few thousand people laugh, which was awesome and a load of fun - but the most profound moment was getting to visit the Mogao Caves and stand inside Buddhist temples dug into the hillside, some dating back more than a thousand years, in the presence of priceless antiquities. These kinds of opportunities are just one of the benefits I’ve found of being local here, making friends of all kinds, and remaining open to new experiences. I’m very grateful for the unexpected gift of this trip, for seeing my old friends Amy and Bruce and making my new friends Chen, Koen, Jean, Larissa, Liu Yue, and everyone else, and I'm excited to see what comes next.
Thanks as always for listening, I hope you enjoy, and I’ll see you next week!
Troy’s Team links:
Web - http://www.troysteamaction.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/troysteamaction
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/troysteam/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/troysteam
WeChat - detroyt99
Dunhuang and the Mogao Cave Temples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunhuang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogao_Caves
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
BFMK website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
BFMK Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BigFishMiddleKingdom/
SUPPORT BFMK via PayPal or WeChat:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/donate/
BFMK PayPal direct link:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=K5W6EANCYSQHU
Other links to LISTEN:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com/podcast-links/
Carl King (composer):
http://carlkingdom.com
MATT WILLIAM KNOWLES: Acting in China, Los Angeles & London
#008 - Acting in China, Los Angeles & London | Matt William Knowles
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.
Matt William Knowles:
http://mattwilliam.com
"BFMK" Website:
https://www.crazyinagoodway.com
Brendan Davis on Twitter:
@VeritasInLux
"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