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May 27 saw the gathering of several writers in The Bookworm for an event called Scotch and Stories, presented by the Anthill in collaboration with Whisky Wednesday and with support from Ai Whisky. We’re reliving that event in today’s podcast, timed with the last of those stories going online on the Anthill and The Bookworm’s launch of its new whisky menu.

The rundown:

5:10 mark: Anthony Tao with the poem “Whisky”

8:40: Daniel Tam-Claiborne story “Classifieds”

16:25: Tom Pellman story “Tiger Suit”

25:55: Karoline Kan story “The House by the River”

40:00: Kaiser Kuo story “The Hornèd Hand”

47:45: Kerryn Leitch with faux advice to laowai

55:10: Aaron Fox-Lerner story “Goodbye Joe”

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 20 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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On March 21 as part of the Bookworm Literary Festival, Mark Natkin (founder and managing director of Marbridge Consulting), Kaiser Kuo (director of international relations at Baidu), and Josh Gartner (senior director of international relations at JD.com) sat down with Eric Jou for a panel discussion called Tech in China. They spoke on artificial intelligence, O2O, censorship, the market, and woolly mammoths — all of which you can listen to in this week’s episode.

Highlights:

13-minute-mark: Josh Gartner on Baidu’s IPO and the ecosystems available to start-ups now.

20:20: Kaiser on “success,” and whether that necessitates going abroad; be sure to catch his woolly mammoth analogy, which begins at 21:20.

27:40: Mark Natkin talks about Xiaomi and its advantages going into a market like India.

28:00: Eric Jou asks a question that touches on protectionism.

30-minute: Great Firewall… Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google…

Kaiser makes a defense of the plucky, small, versatile Chinese entrepreneur vs. “the manager” of bigger, established foreign companies that “never really stood much of a chance against the equally well funded, scrappy, incredibly hungry entrepreneurs.”

34:15: O2O in China, i.e. Online to Offline — specifically how China is leading the way.

42:30: Natkin on some of the amazing services that are available due to low cost of fulfillment: did you know you can call someone to come to you, wherever you’re at, to do your nails? Or have a chef shop and cook for you in your kitchen? (“iAyi,” as Kaiser quips.) Also: closing of inefficiency gaps, exemplified by taxi apps.

49:30: How to make technology smarter? What does the future hold?

There’s some unfortunate construction that interrupts the proceedings at the 5:30 mark, but then we closed the windows and it got better.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 19 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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JUE | Music + Art is an annual labor of love, a privately run, basically not-for-profit gathering of creatives in Beijing and Shanghai, with live performances, workshops, exhibitions, and talks. Founded in 2009 as a protest against “the big, homogenous mega-festivals emerging in China at that time,” JUE Festival has just concluded its 7th program, featuring acts from around the world.

Host Anthony Tao is joined by Morgan Short, editor of Smart Beijing / DJ-about-town, and JUE Festival organizers Sophia Pederson and Doris Yan, both project managers at Split Works, the China-based promotion company that puts on JUE, to talk about the challenges of organizing the festival, the highlights, and what exactly happened with the high-profile cancellation of Japanese rock band Boris (“sensitive climate”?).

Also, the story of Sontag Shogun, a Brooklyn ambient piano trio that was thrice cancelled: at Club XP (after Acid Mothers Temple lead singer Kawabata Makoto, who is banned in China, was unsuccessfully booked to play a show there), Zajia Lab, and another place. They did play, however, at School Bar and Bookworm; you can listen to a snippet of their performance in the interview below:

Toward the end of this week’s podcast, we preview another independently run, privately funded festival, the Bookworm Literary Festival, which is entering its final weekend of events.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 18 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 16, Bookworm Literary Festival preview; Episode 17, The Female Voice In Contemporary Chinese Art

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On February 5, 1989, at the opening of the China Avant-Garde Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, a young performance artist by the name of Xiao Lu fired two gunshots at her work, two telephone booths with figures engaged in conversation inside. Her act — part of the performance piece titled “Dialogue” — became synonymous with the exhibition, caused the entire show to be temporarily shut down, and contributed to her and her boyfriend’s arrest.

Madeline Eschenburg and Ellen Larson, both curators and students of Chinese contemporary art (and editors Open Ground Blog), are with us today to discuss this seminal moment in Chinese contemporary art. They are also the moderators of a Bookworm Literary Festival event on Sunday, March 29 called The Female Voice in Chinese Contemporary Art, a panel discussion featuring Philip Tinari, director of the Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing; Sun Shaokun, who explores her body in relation to nature; and the aforementioned Xiao Lu.

The panel was assembled by Mojdeh Shiek, a Bookworm Literary Festival organizer and special cohost of this episode, joining regular host Anthony Tao (disclosure: also a Bookworm Literary Festival organizer).

Together, they discuss issues ranging from live sex performances (art?) to the evolution of contemporary Chinese art (meaning?), from the “apartment art” of the 1990s to commercial art to art’s response to commercialism, and how the cycle is ever-fluid.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 17 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 16, Bookworm Literary Festival preview; Episode 18, JUE Festival

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The 9th annual Bookworm Literary Festival kicks off on Friday, March 13, and this year’s lineup looks to be one of the most interesting ever. The guests on this week’s Creamcast certainly think so — they’re festival coordinators, after all — but don’t let their bias stop you from checking it out yourself.

Download the PDF of the full BLF program here.

Chang-rae Lee, Yasmina Khadra, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Willis Barnstone, Victoria Hislop, Michael Meyer… art, environment, journalism, comedy, trivia… and so much more. Where do we start?

May we suggest… with this episode? Host Anthony Tao and his Bookworm Literary Festival colleagues Thomas Price, Mojdeh Shiek, and Julia Lobyntseva offer a run-down of the program, point out events that shouldn’t be overlooked, and muse on what makes the Bookworm Literary Festival — one of the world’s few international literary festivals run mostly out of a bookshop — so special.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 16 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 17, The Female Voice In Contemporary Chinese Art; Episode 18, JUE Festival

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Download podcast | Size: 36.0 MB

Welcome to the reboot of The Creamcast! From the studio of Popup Chinese, RFH and I welcomed Andray Abrahamian, Executive Director at Choson Exchange, and Simon Cockerell, general manager of Koryo Tours, to talk about all things North Korea — spying, journalism (7:35 mark), coffee (21:43), reunification (27:30), and whether animals cry (this was really a predominant theme).

Obviously we also discussed The Interview (35:20) and the merits of Katy Perry.

Other topics included: the Daily Mail’s profile of Simon, beginning with this headline –

A love of killer high heels, dog ribs in gravy and why Bend It Like Beckham is a smash: Man who’s been to North Korea 140 times shares his unrivalled insight into ‘normal’ life in the world’s most secretive nation

– Andray’s insightful editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and a book recommendation, the forthcoming North Korea Confidential by Daniel Tudor and James Pearson.

A quick note: this episode wasn’t without its technical difficulties, and for that I offer my apologies. But we’ll try again this week, and promise to do better.

We offer our sincerest thanks to Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio, and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 15 of The Creamcast — THE REBOOT – here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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On April 16, Alec Ash of the Anthill gathered eight writers (technically nine) to read stories at Cu Ju, a rum bar in the hutongs owned by the somewhat legendary Badr Benjelloun, who paired each writer with a rum. The result was glorious. Alec graciously allowed us to record the entirety of that event, which we now present to you as an episode of The Creamcast.

The audio has been edited to remove Badr’s rum introductions. (Update: per request, the unedited version is here.) Below is a table of contents for those who want to skip to specific writers.

6-min mark: Anthony Tao poem, “Broken Scotch”

10-min: Steven Schwankert on the British navy and rum

20:30: Nick Compton, “Baijiu, Baby”

28-min: Hannah Lincoln non-fiction about teenage love

34:30: Carlos Ottery, “Big in Beijing”

Alec Ash’s “Drinking Alone” about his London days was written specially for the night and has been kept out of the podcast by request.

43:30: Stephen Nashef, a creative translation of a Li Bai poem, “Let’s Drink!”

48-min: Amy Daml, “Peng”

56-min: Tom Pellman, selections from The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink

Download Episode 14 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Download podcast | Size: 57.5 MB

Blogging China was a March 18 Bookworm Literary Festival panel discussion moderated by Anthony Tao and featuring Jeremy Goldkorn (Danwei), Alec Ash (the Anthill), Mia Li (Sinosphere), and Tao Stein (WeChat: 石涛讲故事 / shitaojianggushi). In front of a full house, we talked about the characteristics of bloggers (journalists without credentials? writers without agents? mavens without business plans?), the purpose of blogs, particularly in relation with traditional media, censorship, curation / aggregation, Sina Weibo, and whether WeChat is the future of blogging — among many other topics.

Special thanks to literary festival organizer Tom Baxter and Bookworm GM Peter Goff.

Download Episode 13 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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This week’s podcast was recorded at the Bookworm on Wednesday for the Literary Death Match, hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga, featuring the four readers/competitors Leslie Ann Murray, Tom Carter, Stanley Chan, and Anthony Tao, and the judges Alice Xin Liu, Vicky Mohieddeen, and Sherwin Jiang.

After the readings, Murray defeated Tao in literary pictionary for the well-deserved win.

Download Episode 12 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Participants:

Leslie Ann Murray, short-story writer
Tom Carter, editor of Unsavory Elements (reviewed here)
Stanley Chan, a sci-fi writer of three novels and dozens of short stories in Chinese
Anthony Tao

Alice Xin Liu, editor of Pathlight literary magazine
Vicky Mohieddeen, founder/director of Electric Shadows
Sherwin Jiang, stand-up comedian

Download podcast | Size: 58.8 MB

Ace (Amy’s roommate!) speaks to John Artman and Amy Daml about teaching young children in China, culture shock after arriving from Boulder, Colorado in 2009 — her first time out of the country — and other…unique experiences in Beijing. 

Download Episode 11 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

Download podcast | Size: 27.3 MB

The beneficiary of tomorrow’s Chug-Off for Charity at the new Great Leap Brewing is Magic Hospital, a 10-year-old organization based in Beijing that organizes activities to cheer up sick, orphaned, abused, and generally neglected children. They’re a wonderful foundation, and to tell you more about it, here’s Lesley Sheppard, Magic Hospital’s volunteer communications director.

Some highlights:

On Mr. Liu, a “performance artist” who’s been working with Magic Hospital from the very beginning and has never missed a week of work (4:50): “You have children who are so sick maybe they’ll be in wheelchairs, maybe they can barely move, they’re so weak sometimes — and their eyes light up, they’re smiling, they’re waving, everyone wants to go up and touch him, hug him.”

On funds running low (15:48): “It’s every non-profit’s nightmare, trying to get enough funds. One thing that happened is all of our core team moved at one time. Poor Rob (Wang, director of Magic Hospital). It was Rob, and only Rob. And it wasn’t planned that way, it’s just how it happened. So as a result we missed some of our fundraising events, we got a little bit behind. At the same time, hospitals want us more days. So the hospitals that just had us on Saturdays want us on Sundays, and we don’t ever want to let any children down.”

On a particularly memorable experience (24:05): “I was there on the floor, we were playing some bingo, and I was singing some songs to them, and we’re having a great time, and I notice this one little girl over in the corner. She wasn’t participating that much, but there were a whole bunch of kids climbing all over me, so I didn’t focus too much on it. And when I began to sing the songs she perked up and she came running over and she just threw her arms around me, and she motioned — she can’t talk, she has some serious learning disabilities, but — she kept motioning with her hands, Up, up…”

Lesley and Rob are both expected to attend the Saturday event, where we’ll also have a lucky draw (sponsored by That’s Beijing) and some merchandise via Plastered 8 (like with the raffle, all proceeds to Magic Hospital). A portion of the sales on one of Great Leap’s beers will also be donated.

Download Episode 10 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe. Anthony Tao @anthonytao is subbing for John Artman @knowsnothing on this episode.

Download podcast | Size: 55.9 MB

Badr Benjelloun — Beijing Daze curator, IT captain at True Run media, ESL forum operator, former Tangshan teacher, capoeira practitioner, guy who does business on the side, cook, and owner of the best rum bar / Moroccon eatery in Beijing, Cu Ju – is… um… sorry, we lost our train of thought. Badr does a lot around Beijing. We’re very happy he’s here.

John Artman and Amy Daml sit with Badr over whiskey (and rum, of course) to talk about his many projects, including dazeFEAST, Middle Eastern cuisine, what it was like to run a Chinese-language boot camp, and football/soccer (he’s an FC Barcelona fan, but missed the Barca trivia question: “Barcelona is the only European club to have done what since 1955?”).

p.s. Go to Cu Ju on Fridays for 10 kuai rums.

Download Episode 9 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes. Chad Lager, somehow, gets mentioned again.

|The Creamcast Archives|

Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

Download podcast | Size: 36.9 MB

The “emergence” of punk, in 2008, was a social interest story, as international media arrived in Beijing for Olympics coverage but “discovered” Chinese rock.

It’s different now, as Nevin Domer, COO of Maybe Mars and founder of Genjing Records, explains in our latest episode of The Creamcast.

“In the past couple of years, you’re getting proper music magazines, blogs, other taste-makers from abroad that are looking down not just at, Oh wow, China has rock music, China has punk music, whatever, but they’re actually looking at the quality of the bands, writing about music itself, writing about the musicians,” he says.

Listen as Domer talks to John Artman and Amy Daml about punk rock, his former bands, the early days of D-22, and why Michael Pettis decided to found Club XP.

Download Episode 8 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

Download podcast | Size: 68.7 MB

Long-time Beijinger and The Local owner Kenn Bermel enlightens hosts John Artman and Amy Daml on why his bar is no longer called Brussels, how he survived SARS locked into his dorm (people had a lot of sex), and what exactly propelled Brussels The Local to an improbable 2nd-place finish in last year’s the Beijinger Burger Cup (including a shocking – shocking — victory over Blue Frog).

Also, Kenn had this to say about his handicapped bartender from Minnesota:

“He’s definitely going to listen to this podcast, because he is stated his plan to discredit me. I’m serious. He wants to besmirch my name.

“Besmirch was my word, discredit was his.”

Also, Chad Lager’s name comes up again.

Download Episode 7 of The Creamcast, i.e. Unfettered Sex in the Time of SARS, here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.

Download podcast | Size: 43.5 MB

Candice Lee is leaving China, and that doesn’t seem fair for those of us who can’t imagine a Beijing without her — including the bowling league, the annual kickball tournament, those random nights at 4corners or Great Leap Brewing when she would be merrily blitzed from a boozy dinner and talk about things no one would remember the day after.

If there was an Expat Hall of Fame, C-Dice would be a first-ballot entry. Over her seven years here, she has accumulated friends and acquaintances — and stories — from every social circle, from Ultimate Frisbee to business to journalism. If you’re an Olympic-wave expat (arrived 2006-08) in Beijing and find that you’re separated by more than one degree from C-Dice, you’re doing something wrong.

What we could say is that Candice Lee represents millennial expatriate fun in its purest form, and might just be the linchpin of our presently fading era of easy jobs, friendly faces, cheap rent, and discoveries around every bend. That’s probably overstating it though. In the end, we all just wish we could have a China experience like hers — before we grow up, buy business casual slacks, and leave this place.

This episode marks the debut of our new host, Amy Daml. Lee talks about her projects, a planned cross-country sidecar trip, being an Asian American in China, and making out at bars. Also, co-host John Artman tells his famous snail joke.

Download Episode 6 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

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Theme song sampled from Löhstana David’s ”Demain je change de vie,” and our logo is by Katie. This episode was recorded at the offices of Vericant.

Follow John Artman @knowsnothing or visit his website. You can catch Amy Daml every weekday from 8 to 10 pm on China Radio International’s Easy Cafe.