Olivia Xing is an actress, standup comedian, artist and student based in LA, and she recently did a one-hour comedy special called Party School where she told jokes about China, the US, politics in both countries, and the immigrant experience. 00:00 Teaser 00:44 Intro 02:48 How Olivia got started with her Party School comedy special 08:19 Chinese d…

Indigo was co-founder of Sina Weibo, or China’s Twitter. After Weibo, he started doing angel investments and incubating new projects. One of his main investments included the largest off-line art selling platform in China. Recently he got into the world of web3 and NFT. He writes a blog about frontier tech, and teaches online courses on stock inves…

Peng Dang is a standup comedian based in Texas. Peng moved to the US from China in his twenties, speaks absolutely impeccable English, and more importantly, tells jokes like a local pro. I find his sets funny, educational, and wholesome. I’m not sure if a comedian wants to hear their jokes described as “wholesome,” but I mean that as a compliment. …

Amy Yu is a bilingual standup comedian based in Canada. We talked about how standup comedy changed her life, how she thinks about telling jokes in Chinese vs telling in English, and how to properly tell a dirty joke. I also had a pretty serious debate with her about the role of artificial intelligence in comedy. 0:00 Amy’s standup set 01:04 Debatin…

Dan Chan is a magician that has performed at corporate events at fortune 100 companies and lavish parties hosted by celebrities. He recently got to perform for Elon Musk at the PayPal 20-year reunion party, hosted by Peter Thiel. Prior to his illusionist career, he was an employee at PayPal, where he met Thiel. Dan has also been grooming his 14-yea…

Alec Sorensen is a career coach who helps people take action on life-changing business ideas they've been putting off. Alec is also a follower of the Mormon church, a Japan-living American at one point, a California-to-Texas transplant, among other things. We discussed how he got into career coaching, his faith, cultural shocks in Japan, why he mov…

(Episode in Mandarin) Karol Guan is an entrepreneur. This interview was recorded in Nov 2020. At the time she was co-founder of HelloAva.co, a startup that recommends skin care products based on a combination of AI and doctors. Karol studied Fashion/Apparel design at Parsons School of Design in New York City. We discussed how the 2020 Covid both he…

Erin Cuellar is Director of Operations at STERIS, a manufacturer of medical devices. At the time of the interview, she was senior operations manager at the same company, and her role was essentially that of a plant manager. Her responsibilities included supervising teams, managing KPIs, and maintaining quality controls. Erin comes from a very diffe…

Bruce Wang is a Chinese cowboy. Not an ethnically Chinese person that was born in Texas, but someone born and bred in Yunnan, China. He came to the US as a college student. He adopted a Southern accent, started dressing like a cowboy, and started making videos about how cowboys spend their time. We talked about why he decided to become a cowboy, wh…

Av Richard Yan

Av Richard Yan

John Stevenson is a Black American who grew up home-insecure, but later graduated valedictorian of his high school. He went to Dartmouth and later graduated from the Political Science program at the University of Chicago. He now owns a yoga studio, does contracts for various government agencies. And he has ambitions to run for governor of Maryland.…

It has been one year since the tragic death of Dr. Li Wenliang dominated Chinese social media and made headlines all over the world. His passing on February 7 in 2020 was a huge moment over the past year, as there was an unprecedented outpour of anger, distrust, and despair flooding Chinese social media in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic in C…

His name is Tenzin, now known as Ding Zhen, and this Khampa Tibetan young man is China's online sensation of the year. Within a matter of days, the 20-year-old from Litang has taken Chinese social media by storm. In this latest What's on Weibo podcast, we explain Ding Zhen's fame from the very beginning, showing how one video clip snowballed into s…

On today's Chinatown 2.0, I speak with Ellen Lee Zhou, or 李爱晨, a two-time candidate for San Francisco mayor, in 2018 and 2019. She ran as a conservative in a city where the mayor had been a Democrat for the last half a century. On top of her “non-mainstream” political ideologies, she had zero experience holding public office and raised very little …

This is the third What’s on Weibo podcast, reporting the biggest topics trending on Chinese social media. In this episode, we’ll talk about China potentially further relaxing its family-planning rules, calls for laws against animal abuse, and shifting public sentiments towards Trump. Joe Biden or Donald Trump, who is the preferred candidate on Weib…

Lin Yang is a grassroot political organizer who also works in tech. Lin had a full-time job working for Howard Schultz, helping him explore a presidential run. For those unaware, Howard Schultz was the founder and previous CEO for Starbucks. Lin also participated in campaigns for President Obama and Senator Ted Lieu from California. He also worked …

Some are so eager to look picture perfect on their social media feed, that they go to extremes to create a fake online life. This and more was trending on Chinese social media this week.Av What's on Weibo

Wei Luo quit his software engineering job to become a contractor in 2006. After 14 years, he had a business (based in San Francisco Bay Area) consisting of 50+ employees and multiple business lines, including home renovation, interior design, cabinetry and appliances. Wei shared with us how he persuaded his parents to pursue a new career with seemi…

The very first What's on Weibo podcast. Trending this week: the story of a Tibetan woman burnt by her ex-husband has triggered outrage on Chinese social media.Av What's on Weibo

Jie Zhang has been an instructor, administrator and leader of American education institutions for more than three decades. She began her career teaching math to prisoners on Rikers Island (New York). Her most well-known positions included principal of the Ivy League feeder Stuyvesant High School, and principal of the now Chinese company-owned New Y…

Morgan Jones is a Black American that previously spent six years in China as a radio host, movie production assistant and EMBA English teacher. He is a “Chinese son-in-law” (中国女婿), a self-described Tiger Dad (“虎爸”) and a fluent Mandarin speaker. He got his EMBA from Cornell and bachelors from Middlebury College, or 明德大学 in Chinese. This episode was…

Professor Anne Chao is a Chinese modern historian that lectures at Rice University. She is also manager of the Houston Asian American Archive, an oral history archive that looks to document the challenges faced and contributions made by the Asian American community. As the daughter of a Taiwanese diplomat, Anne moved between Congo, Australia, Washi…

Rui Ma is an investment banker (Morgan Stanley) turned VC (500 Startups) turned podcast host (Tech Buzz China). Her show covers current tech trends in China, with a focus on power players such as ByteDance and Alibaba. Her diaspora journey included a childhood in the China countryside, college and grad school education in the US, a career of financ…

Jing Cheng is the co-founder and CEO of the largest North American Children's Chinese magazine, Pipa Magazine. She shares her inspirations for starting the publication, the challenges of running the business of print media against digital headwinds, and her philosophy and suggestions for Chinese immigrants raising bilingual kids. To learn more abou…

Sixiang Wang is an assistant professor in Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, specializing in Korea’s premodern history. He speaks fluent mandarin, writes Chinese poems and is well-versed in China's history and culture. Sixiang described his journey of attempting to self-distance from his Chinese identity to embracing and mastering the language a…

Nuo Yan is a Tokyo-based software architect. He was previously based in Seattle and San Francisco, and was founding engineer at multiple tech startups, one of which was acquired by Pinterest. Nuo discussed his philosophy of avoiding shortcuts in software design and implementation, the purpose of life as completing a journey instead of checking boxe…

Jingzhu Yang started her PR company AmeriChina to bring Chinese companies to high-end and exclusive American events, such as Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and charity dinners with ex US presidents. In the peak year of her business, the company made revenues of 10M RMB (1.5M USD). Jingzhu covered these topics: * Why she started AmeriChina * AmeriCh…

Robbie Yan is cofounder of a quantitatively driven hedge fund based in China. We talked about the nature of quantitative investing, governmental efficiency in China and associated tradeoffs, argument for protection of privacy, China's startup scene, and more. Robbie shared with us: * What makes good quant traders * Mistakes that might occur in quan…

Baidu to build 5 million intelligent cloud servers by 2030, China has seen fast growth in its livestreaming industry over the past years, ByteDance made $5.6 billion in Q1, Alibaba Pictures to delist from Singapore Exchange, Huawei to get green light for $500m R&D center in UK, China’s TZTEK Technology to buy German chip tester for USD20.4 million…

A quick introduction to 618 and first day sales

Xpeng files for US IPO, online marketplace for artists and collectors filed for IPO, Netease aims to raise $2-$3 billion in Hong Kong listing, Alibaba's online market to sponsor 100,000 influencers worldwide, TikTok user spending hits USD 78 million in April, Amazon unveils its first solar power project in China…

NASDAQ to delist China's biggest Starbucks rival Luckin Coffee, Bytedance is forming a car infotainment team, Zoom suspends new free user registrations in China, Ant Financial’s MYbank to extend USD1.4 billion in interest-free loans to small businesses

Business operation highlights for Baidu and Bilibili in Q1 2020

Chinese e-commerce upstart Pinduoduo has overtaken rival JD.com to become China’s second most valuable online retailer after Alibaba, following a 5.26% rise in its shares on Tuesday

ChinaJoy Game Anime Expo to Go Ahead, BMW to invest $620M in Shenyang, cloud computing company Kingsoft surges 40% on IPO day, Dior unveils AI skin-testing tool, China to Give Foreign Banks’ Local Branches Access to Fund Custody Licenses

Alibaba's Double Five shopping festival in Shanghai, grocery e-retail brand Hema Fresh, U.S. drafts rule to allow Huawei and U.S. firms to work together, Bilibili’s market capital increased USD 480 million in one day, Inspur wades into Japan’s USD 5 billion market

China has overtaken Japan to emerge as the second-largest wealth market, with an estimated 2.3 million high net worth individuals

Huawei's Hisilicon chip unit overtook U.S. semiconductor giant Qualcomm to be the biggest mobile phone chip supplier in China for the first time, Chinese brands accounted for about 61% of global 5G smartphone shipments in Q1, Tencent buys 5% stake in Australian buy-now-pay-later firm Afterpay, Chinese mobile games accounted for 19 of the top 100 hi…

MYbank, a digital bank under Ant Financial Services Group, served 20.87 million small and micro businesses (SME) in China as of the end of 2019, an increase of 70% YoY, according to its annual report.

Smartphone maker Transsion profit up 173% in 2019, Bitcoin-mining machine maker Ebang files for U.S. IPO, JD.com files for secondary listing in Hong Kong, China is expanding listing reforms, Alibaba Cloud 3rd biggest global provider for IaaS, Tencent to take over China’s game livestreaming market

AutoX trialing its “robotaxi” service in Shanghai, Tesla escalates battle against Chinese EV maker Xpeng, Starbucks has entered a strategic partnership with Sequoia Capital China, ByteDance ordered to suspend office app Feishu

JD.com and Volkswagen collaborate for vehicle-mounted smart system, Shanghai has become a major force behind the adoption of e-commerce live-streaming, China will launch an online shopping festival

iFlyTek reported a loss in Q1, Online education firm sees spike in userbases, China plane tickets fall 30%, Alibaba & JD offer bookings for COVID-19 tests

Tencent invests USD17M in Navinfo, Shanghai’s free-trade zone will accelerate digital infrastructure push with 5G, IoT and AI tech, Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus to compete in China, Huawei Q1 revenue grows 1.4%, Baidu introduced an updated version of Baidu Hi, 4.9 billion online office hours logged in March…

The gross domestic product (GDP) of China was 20,650.4 billion yuan (US$2,908.74 billion) in the first quarter of 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 6.8%

Megvii unveils virtual makeup solution FaceStyle to boost sales for cosmetics retailers, China’s largest utilities will spend $570m on charging stations this year, Revenues of Chinese mobile game providers hit record-high of US$7 billion during Q1, a new committee tasked with setting up national standards for blockchain, e-commerce platform Jumei Y…

China surpassed the U.S. as the top source of patent applications in 2019;

Lenovo Group managed to increase its market share of PC sector in Q1, Jack Ma tops Fortune China’s list of influential business leaders in 2020, China to extend cross-border e-commerce scheme, Tencent becomes majority shareholder in Chinese game live-streamer Huya, Chinese telcos try to replace WeChat with launch of 5G messaging service, China’s AI…

China tech investments sank 31%, Huawei Pay debuts in Singapore