laowhy86

American Baby!

For those of you wondering how a baby born in China can become a US citizen, it's actually quite simple.

Through the process of getting Olivia's citizenship, I managed to find out some weird details about the Chinese side of the story.

If you are born in China, you are a Chinese citizen. Even if you obtain USA citizenship, you are fully a Chinese citizen. Because dual citizenship is not recognized, you have to renounce your Chinese citizenship, get a special book that allows you to leave the country, and then return on your American pas...

Conquering Southern China is Here!

But before I announce it to the world, I'm telling you, my Patreons first!

This show was no easy task. 10 months of filming, editing, revisions, and contacting everyone under the sun as we try to get it sold. Rik our main producer has been overseeing the edit and negotiating with various media outlets to try and get it on TV, Mark did an awesome job filming and editing with Rik. Winston and I have been trying to get as much media exposure as possible. Everything was self funded (and making a TV show yourself is WAY harder and more...

Super Typhoon Nida: For Patreons Only

Everyone is going crazy about this typhoon.

Every time a big storm hits, people send crazy videos and pictures of people flying away, houses being destroyed, and destruction at every level.

Like always, my phone is blowing up with people warning me of the dangers and death that is coming with this Code Red, class 14 typhoon that is tearing up southern China. I am currently in the eye of the storm, and I want to see what all of the hype is about.

Keep Laowinning, and thanks so much for your support!

How I Met My Wife

It's weird, the internet.

You start out using it to share videos and pictures with your family back home, as you have this crazy adventure abroad. 

Then it turns into so much more. 

Who knew that with a lot of work, and dedication, it'd turn into something of a dream and a passion, and open up so many opportunities for the future.

Also, thanks to the internet, I was able to find my future wife on Facebook after she refused to give me her phone number in the supermarket!

At that time, Faceb...

Merch is Ready!

Hey Laowinners! Just to let everyone know, merch is available at http://www.advchina.net/merch

T-Shirts, hoodies, and mugs are available for everyone!

ADVChina, laowhy86, and SerpentZA swag is all the rage.

Giveaways coming soon. Please let me know your sizes in my private inbox.

Dog Meat Festival

"So... where has laowhy86 been" some may ask.

"I need that fill of laowinning 3 times a week, but there was only 1 video this week...", said someone, I am sure.

"I was forced to watch Japan vlogs because you only posted 1 video!", said someone else, I am sure.

Well folks, I did something that took a lot of hemming and hawing, but I ended up pulling the trigger. 

I was contacted by a producer from Ringier media in Switzerland to go to the Yulin dog meat festival and host an unbiased documentary on it. I f...

Racism in China?

It's been all over the media. If you haven't seen it yet, here is the advertisement in question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRM_9aNw8O8

This sub 1 minute advertisement has been a point of debate since its release, and has opened up the almost non-existent topic of racism in China.

SerpentZA and I decided to cover two hot button issues, and his video about whether Chinese girls are easy or not can be found here:

2016-05-30 11:48:31 +0000 UTC View Post

Reignited in Beijing

Just had an amazing time in Beijing with SerpentZA (Winston)

We had to go up for some voice over work for our upcoming TV show, Conquering Southern China, and we met up with the old team, Rik and Mark. 

We got to go to a real TV studio and get stuff done. 

After we finished up there, Winston and I had an absolutely brilliant time in Beijing.

It was my first time to this awesome city, and it really reminded me of what I love about living in China.

Beijing is Chin...

10,000 subscribers

Do you know what 10,000 people looks like?

I don't.

I tried to imagine it, and being from Binghamton New York, I realized that it would be both the NYSEG baseball stadium, and the Maines Veterans arena put together. 

That is 1/3 of my entire city. 

That is the WHOLE population of my entire hometown.

That is 30 of my neighborhoods.

That is 50 of my entire graduating class.

As a kid, I couldn't imagine that many people tuning in to check out my little old life. (or imagin...

Idea Exchange

We (SerpentZA and I), had the honor of being the main speakers at a Guangzhou Idea Exchange. 

We promoted our YouTube channels, as well as our upcoming TV show, Conquering Southern China. 

It was awesome.

I was surprised at the open mindedness of the whole event, as well as the questions that we received. 

There was however, one question that shook me to the core.

"Are you going to stay in China forever?"

I didn't know how to answer.

I have ...

Flu Season is Blue Season

I had an awesome time in Guangzhou with my buddy and producer of me and Winstons TV show, Conquering Southern China. 

It was great to catch up, and I ended up doing a quick promo for it at an Idea Exchange.

Guangzhou is weird. There are (I believe) more foreigners there than any other city. There are entire sections of the city devoted to Africans, middle eastern people etc.

We ended up in the middle eastern district because Rik was filming a documentary about the Silk Road. 

We ran into a lot of people...

Fake Vaccines

When it rains, it pours.

Just when you come to terms with having a baby in China instead of America, news like this comes out.

http://time.com/4267266/china-vaccine-scandal/

"According  to state media, a mother and daughter from eastern China’s Shandong province have been caught peddling 25 kinds of unrefrigerated vaccines — including for polio, mumps, rabies, hepatitis B, encephalitis and meningococcal diseases �...

She is here

Hey laowinners!

It has been a grueling, trying, and really rough time.

Vivi started having contractions big time around 12:00 on March 12th, and I decided that might be the time to go to the hospital. There were also other signs that proved that birth was at hand (but I will spare you the details).

Her mother insisted that we didn't need to go to the hospital, but her contractions were so painful and serious, that she was sure the baby was coming. I rushed her down to the car, threw the bags in the back, and ...

Thank You Laowinners!

Some amazing gifts have been coming in the mail, and the Patreons have helped calm a really nervous time for me and Vivi. We want to say thank you so much to everyone that has helped us out, and watched our videos.

Every bit has helped, because buying baby stuff in China is a risky endeavor. We have to buy imported stuff to avoid all of the chemicals and low quality that China has in terms of baby things. It is so pricey. 

Thank you so much guys, and a huge special thanks to Sam Bear Clark for the awesome baby gifts, and Da...

I've got my ducks in a row

A lot of mixed response from the most recent video, "What's up with Expecting a Baby in China?"

Fortunately most of it was good. 

It was a blast to make, but the duck was disgusting. When we bought it at Wal Mart, it was so fresh, and by the end of the shoot it was rotting.

Either way, everything is ready for the baby to pop. I am trying to stay near Vivi at all times to make that mad dash to the hospital. My nervousness is compounding, but I also get the feeling that having my first baby girl is going to be an aw...

"Soy Sauce will make you black"

The Dim Sum video reminded me of having Dim Sum with my mother in law the other day. 

Vivi reached eagerly for a dumpling, and proceeded to dip it into soy sauce. Her mother smacked her chopsticks and said, "Don't eat soy sauce when you are pregnant! What are you stupid? You will make the baby black!"

Stunned at the statement, and the apparent lack of laughter at the table, I would've sworn that this attempt at humor was a genuine joke, but alas, it was not.

You would not believe some of the commonly held beliefs ...

Monkey It Up

Chinese New Year is always a time for Chinese families to get together and rekindle after a long time apart. There is shared food, stories, and Hong Baos (red envelopes full of money).

It's a lucky time if you are not married yet, because you will be showered in cash for a few days, but for us married folk, it is a time to relieve yourself of your hard earned rambos (RMB).

I'm a generous guy, but flinging hundos at people's kids I don't even know is not my idea of fun.

Chinese New Year is a weird thing f...

Let's all be pretty!

Hey Laowinners! 

Been hard at work with the videos these days, and I am loving the response I am getting. It has been a pleasure putting out all of this content for you guys!

These apps are hilarious, and I am really out of touch with what girls are doing back home to make themselves look better. I have a feeling that Chinese girls go the extra mile to make themselves look "better". I am not sure if it is a cultural thing, but photography here takes on a different meaning.

Photos are not meant to represent somethi...

Chintucky Fried Chicken

Fast food is not my thing.

For some reason I have never enjoyed it. I have always been a fairly health conscious person, so maybe that has something to do with it.

So, you can imagine that shooting this episode wasn't the most enjoyable for me.

However, I find it fascinating how well KFC did here. Growing up, I never thought of KFC as a massive fast food chain. There are so many others that are so much more popular, but here in China, KFC is king.

With so many menu items, it is quite amazing what the company ...

Retro Commercials

It's been really fun doing this videos with my wife. I feel like she is really getting better on camera. 

When sifting through a lot of these commercials to make the video, I realized that China didn't put out a whole lot of original content when it came to advertisements. Most of the ads came from Hong Kong and Taiwan. This is an obvious symptom of the lack of consumerism that was in China at the time. However, after talking with Vivi about it, it seemed that the rampant, entertainment saturated, attention deficit nature of my child...

Changes in China

China in 2008 was not the place it is now.

When I first got here, there were hardly cars on some of the roads.

Entire places in the city (Huizhou) didn't even exist.

I can drive around areas that were totally farmland, but are now skyscrapers.

In my city alone, the population has gone from 2 million, to 5 million, in 7 years.

It's hard to explain, and you have to be here to actually understand what shocking growth this is.

Is it going to keep going?

I'm not sure.

But what I do...

How I met my wife

Hey Laowinners,

Everyone always asks me, "how did you meet your wife?"

When I first got to China, I didn't speak a lick of Chinese. Life was tough for the first couple weeks. New money, new language, new setting, new climate, new timezone... It was hard to get settled down.

2 weeks in, I had to go to the supermarket to buy a few things that I wanted to replace (toothbrush etc) and I was wandering around.

I saw a cute girl near the produce isle, and I smiled at her. To my delight, she smiled back. She also spo...

We did it!!! First goal!

First and foremost, thank you so much for watching.

I am so deeply humbled that this is going the way I want it to.

The

comments, donations, and wonderful messages and feedback that I have

been getting is putting me over the moon. I never expected this to go

this well.

Not only does this feel like a more

interactive experience, but the potential revenue that I can make from

this now means that in the near future I will be able to make more and

more videos, improve the qual...

Mom sent some hilarious photos

Hey Laowinners,

First off, thank you so much for

being a Patreon. You have no idea how much motivation this gives me to

keep putting out new content, and I really appreciate all of the

feedback on my latest video, Diet, Exercise, and Digestion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31xmA95X_Z0

So my mom sent me some hilarious photos the other day, and I felt like posting them here.

I grew up in California,...

Why did I come to China? Thank Europe...

I was in my first year of University, sitting in some programming course, bored out of my mind, and I just started sketching a map of Europe into my notebook.

I started to fill out the borders and cities that I knew, and started to fantasize about being elsewhere.

Anywhere but that lecture hall.

Quickly, my imagination got the best of me, and I realized that if I just bought a plane ticket, took some time off work around summer time, and just did it, I could probably pull off a European backpacking adventure.

So,...

The Most Embarrassing Thing Ever

When I first came to China, I started a blog. I just came across it again.

Some of the later content is actually pretty good.

But the early posts... lord is it bad.

I was going to delete them out of shame, but I figured I would share them with my dear Patreons first. Get it while it's hot.

And enjoy the glorious cringe that is - "Learning to Fish"...

Here is an excerpt. Click link for full blog and go back to 2008.

...

We ate cow s***

When we were in Guizhou, we had a chance to eat a dong/miao/shui minority food that actually translated to cow regurgitation 牛瘪 hot pot. They feed a cow at 10 pm, kill it at 2 am, then squeeze the digested grass from it's stomach and intestines. It didn't taste that bad, because the beef was super high quality, but there was something rather off putting about eating a cow's meat cooked in it's own s*** and vomit. The next morning we had to go and help prepare it. Nothing could prepare us for how disgusting the smell and texture was in our h...