more stories

Psychic journey to Shanghai

Feature | Expat Tales
2010-2-10

SHANGHAI is usually the center of commerce, a place to make money for Chinese and expats alike. But for one Swiss self-described "psychic and holistic healer," Shanghai was the unlikely inspiration for the next...

---

Student breezes through acting, directing to start own theater group

Feature | Expat Tales
2010-2-3

AT just 25, American Rosita Janbakhsh is running her own theater company and is about to stage her first production of Shakespeare's "King Lear." Taking on one of The Bard's greatest works with an international...

---

Listening to the city

Feature | Expat Tales
2010-1-27

ARMED with microphone and tape recorder, American Terence Lloren takes "sound walks" in the city, each guided by a young Shanghainese with special memories and stories to tell. Nancy Zhang listens. The vibrancy...

---

Picking your best colors to light up your face

Feature | Expat Tales
2010-1-20

ON a drab, gray Shanghai winter's day, Australian color consultant Kylie Bartnicki is determined to bring out her client's inner glow. Bartnicki is holding court with a group of Belgian women in Pudong, who are...

---

Stripping off modern facades and preserving historic buildings

Feature | Expat Tales
2010-1-13

AS so many old buildings are being torn down, it's easy to see the Shanghai glass as half-empty, but American developer Brent Beisher preserves historic buildings and puts them to creative use. Nancy Zhang reports....

---

Words of experience guide new-wave young expats

Feature | Expat Tales
2010-1-6

FRENCH businessman Manuel Ramos has carved a niche by producing language-specific guides in Shanghai, but he warns budding entrepreneurs that China is no El Dorado, Sam Riley reports. His own boss at 28 and an...

---

Chasing a guitar dream

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-12-30

ARMED with an acoustic guitar and two years of Chinese, 23-year-old American Jessica Gibson is writing earthy, folksy music, playing with a couple of bands and hoping one day she can tour China. Nancy Zhang strikes...

---

Translator's worlds of wisdom

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-12-23

MEET the Canadian who likes to stay in the background - translating the speeches of the world's top leaders into Chinese. And, as Sam Riley discovers, his words mean business. His voice has been heard in a live...

---

Tapping talented Chinese youth

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-12-16

AMERICAN Sean Leow used to envision his future as an economist toiling in the ivory tower of academia. Today the 28-year-old is on the cutting edge of Chinese youth culture, a promoter of the alternative arts scene. ...

---

Italian film maker focuses on China's urban youth

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-12-9

CINEMATIC postcards from the edge are created by an Italian film maker focusing on young Chinese Internet addicts and others on the fringes of the urban mainstream. Sam Riley reels it in. The lives of young people...

---

Mr networking whiz once a shy and awkward guy

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-12-2

ONE of the lures of living abroad is the chance to shed old identities and discover new talents. Alex Griffiths, a formerly shy kid from rural England, has blossomed in Shanghai into a social expert, even earning the...

---

Portrait of an artist

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-11-25

A lightning-fast sketch for a passerby, an intricate Egyptian-motif backdrop that is packed up and put into storage, or a delicate painted tattoo on a long lithe limb -- Spanish artist Sevilla Antonio's creations...

---

Champion with a warm heart

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-11-22

ONE of world golf's champion players and course designers, Gary Player has a heart of gold when it comes to using his fame to make a better life for the disadvantaged around the world. He tells Nancy Zhang how his...

---

Warrior for extreme cuisine

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-11-18

MICHAEL Ohlsson tastes food like scorpion and spiders so you don't have to - instead you can read all about it on his blog, writes Sam Riley. Whether it's crunching on a tarantula in Cambodia, snacking on a...

---

City's top Kiwi traces China roots back to 1925

Feature | Expat Tales
2009-11-11

IN 1925 the great-grandparents of New Zealand's consul general in Shanghai set up a teaching hospital in Hebei Province, and today the top Kiwi in this city is still connecting Chinese and New Zealanders. Nancy Zhang...