Brendan O'Kane

writer and translator

Beijing

After finding himself bored in high school Spanish, Brendan decided that signing up for night classes in Chinese at the local community college would be the best solution. He moved to China in 2002, spent a year teaching in Harbin, put in a year at Beijing University after that, and began blogging and writing newspaper columns in Chinese while working a range of day jobs. He is the only Chinese-speaking foreigner he knows who has never appeared on television, which alone - he figures - has got to be worth some kind of modest celebrity.