December 5, 2003

I’m presently hosting this blog at DreamHost. It looks like one of my non-media related hosts got the “gremlins”, as they say.

So that’s why you’re seeing this totally out-of-topic “public beta” post. If all’s well, I’d have isolated the error.

If not, not.

Whoops.

Scenario: March 27, 2008, 20:00. Radio Beijing (774 AM). Live.

When was the last time you had a — or an Internet chat room rule an on-air show? This was a totally interactive show no matter which way you looked at it. It got every sign of interaction when I logged into the Net FM webpage-cum-chatroom (WARNING: music will start playing if you click on that link — don’t say I didn’t warn you) and was given — a rose (by an icon in the chatroom).

OK, so we started right after 8 PM. Immediately, we had folks saying, “Hey I know you” to each other. They then went: “Yeah, I know you — you owe me a free meal!”. We got people getting grotesque afterwards, though, so thank God there was a live mic: I “retaliated” by telling the listenership to “be nice”, and they did.

We talked about Greece, Crete, and Greek people having dinner just after 9 PM (and even going to the doctor’s then). It was funny, and informative too, as I got to tell people how big this Crete island thing was. (Fifth biggest in the Mediterranean!)

The discussion, though, was always twisted and turned around by the folks in the chatroom. On-air, live, we shifted to Japanese cartoons, my nationality, and how to say the word “help” in Greek. It was relevant, though: the Japanese cartoon bit had a link to Greek mythology, and a quick Greek lesson today showed signs of what’s to come on tomorrow’s show.

The show ended around 8:55. The chatters handed out roses to us, the two hosts (me and Juanzi), online — and we were off. This was a great evening — and I felt at home in front of the mic (as always).

Thanks for tuning in and being part of this great show, guys!

I’m officially revitalizing this blog and am giving this whole thing a new name — I’ll calling this David Feng’s “micblog”. The word “micblog” is what you get when you mix the word mic (short for microphone) with the word “blog”.

The micblog will cover just about every prezo, speech or event hosting I’ve done, no matter where the whole thing took place or what language it was in. I’ll also be summarizing my feelings of every program I host beginning — well, actually, beginning today.

So having said that, it’s time for an update. Here goes.

Another blog to call mine for the moment.

I’ve started a bilingual (English and Chinese) blog at Radio Beijing, where I’ll throw in a few pics about topics I’ll talk about. And I’ll update it when the spirit moves me (in other words, as soon as humanly possible).

Technically speaking, the site’s in China, so for those of you outside the mainland access to the site can get a tad on the slow side. (Ask the techies for the 101 on why this is the case.) However, I’ll still be able to feed this whole thing via my Twitterfeed — just subscribe to David Feng on Twitter (twitter.com/DavidFeng), and you should be able to get all updates.

By the way, I do the shows every Thursday in a mix of English and Chinese on Radio 774 AM. The show’s on LIVE every Thursday evening from 8 PM to 9 PM. You’re more than welcome to tune in!

I’ll post a few stories about how I do the show. By the way, I said this was LIVE — as in make a mistake, and everyone gets to hear it! I actually did make up messup; this tweet is living evidence…

January 3, 2008. A live travel show on the air. Hey, it couldn’t get any better — what a way to kick off the new year!

It was brilliant… I finally got the “kind of semi-job” or “add-this-to-my-other-gigs job” I was looking for: being a regular guest on a travel program on Radio Beijing. The host: Jane Chen, one of the very people I used to work with during my Radio Beijing internship. I corrected scripts and did voiceovers back in summer 2006 (did you catch me over the airwaves then?).

The task: share your thoughts on a few “odd stories about highways”, then introduce yourself. Fill up the airwaves for a full hour.

I got in the studio right after 19:20 — that New York, New York from Frank Sinatra got me all started and in the mood. Next up: the studio. I got into Radio Beijing’s extremely glitzy live broadcast studio — massive, spacious, and words-like-that. Good thing something was already playing — some kind of The Lion King rerun.

Jane gave me the scripts — we knew exactly what we wanted to say. If there were any doubts, I sorted them out right before 20:00 — a second later, and we’d be on air.

A 5-second tweet just after 20:00. We were on!

Jane started the whole show off in Chinese first. I kind of tuned in afterwards. Not the most perfect Chinese (I know plenty of folks with Grade A-1 Chinese who could cost Granny Xing of CCTV’s Network News Broadcast her job), a bit on the Taipei side, but nevertheless, that kind of got me into the whole thing. I now mix the Beijing and Taipei accents because those two are what I use every day when talking in Chinese.

We went through three stories (or nearly three stories) for the first 30 minutes. The first one was about a highway in Japan that you had to cruise through at 45 km/h to let the highway play music for you. Not sure if it’s the same old Mozart that Beijing Subway Line 5 is famous for, but musical nonetheless. The second one was about a massive thermometer in a “gas station” village, and the last one was about a highway over ice.

The next half hour was filled with my stories about the oddest places I’ve been to, as well as a bit of travel-related talk. I mixed in a bit of Chinese with what must be about 70% English. Jane kind of knew this; the moment she wanted to speak to me, bang, she switched into English mode. I kind of followed on that, and then went a bit Chinese afterwards.

Were we nervous? Yes, by all means — this was her 3rd livecast (my 2nd one; I started the 1st one in July 2006, when Raccolta Online made a secret radio debut); I was a bit more nervous wondering if I had too much for dinner. The secret now: eat your veggies, meat and rice two and a half hours before going on air. The reason: when I did December 5, 2003 (as in co-hosting the show), I ate stuff about three hours before the whole thing. I was wondering if my worst fears of a “stomach kernel panic” (so to speak) would be transmitted on-air.

Turns out this wasn’t the case, although I still felt a bit lethargic…

But hey, at the end of the day, it was a stellar debut. I’ve been granted more airtime beginning next Thursday; your cue to tune in comes every Thursday evening at 20:00 on Radio Beijing AM 774. See you then!

So, I approached the situation by making use of one of the skills students are really able to perfect over the course of the IB: I procrastinated.

That quote, of course, is from my friend Jeanette at high school — at her graduation ceremonoy. The opposite applies to yours truly. I was thinking about what I’d be saying when I finished my high school. I finally got a chance to do my graduation speech (at the Riverside School in Zug) on June 10, 2000.

It was actually a pretty easy affair. Everyone had their own bits of paper on the lectern, and the rule was that you “felt” yours and read your line.

One of my best friends, Manuel, in essence skated into the auditorium as I was about to go on stage — the guy came at the right moment. I had a line where I read some quote off Franz Kafka and the cockroaches. People were laughing…

I’ll be hoping I could do a graduation speech this year at graduation, when I leave the Media University here in Beijing, China…

We go back all the way back to 1996…

December 1996. I was with — I think — Ms. MacDermott’s French class. Assignment numéro un: recite a French poem in front of not just the mic — but a huge aula of like about hundreds of people.

Was I ready? Remember — I was about 14 years back then. A year ago, when I heard that I was going to be singing — mic in hand — in Class Assembly, I freaked out. (In Macintosh parlance back in the day, I referred to having a type 11 system error.)

In the class next door was a Japanese guy — Yoshi. Yoshi seemed to be quite a different guy than I was. This guy was someone you knew had a lot of energy kicking around. He was a big drama guy, and always got the top role in any play. His power, his barenaked Kraft (so to speak)… his determination, and his attempts (most of them successful) at “breaking through” — earned him big spots, time and again. At age 17, he burst into Viva-Swizz music TV. He was the core character in the school’s radio play. He got the mic as the host at ICS Radio Attack, the school’s first (attempt) at a radio station. (It was an attempt, though — the station shut down a few days afterwards… odd, given Yoshi’s energy and might on air.)

To this day, Yoshi is a guy I look up to. This guy has power to burn. We’re talking about the kind of power that puts solar power to shame — or projects even the size of the Three Gorges Dam.

So December 1996 loomed large and clear for me. Was this a breakthrough effort? Mind you, I was a “behavior” kind of guy in class, too. The class couldn’t escape my presence — I was always “there”. Sure, I got sent out a few times (for apparently burning too much energy in class, so to speak), but I was always “there”. Was I going to be “there” in front of the stage?

Ms. Zita, my 2nd grade teacher, was to bear witness to what she called “her favorite [Chinese student]” — and what he was up to in front of the mic. (Yeah, right — back in the day — the only reason why the PRC flag was there at all was because I was at school!)

I think we were number eight or something like that. (It was a “we” — I had a girl who would read along with me.) I started from the first line.

“Il neige!”

That was it. She started from line two. This went on for another round — we did four lines all in all (two lines each). I made a tiny mistake (maybe inaudible) on my last line.

And then we were through.

I tell you all, since that day… some things never change… some things do!

My first instinct: Hey, David, you’re not — “unrecognized” any more. People saw you. People heard you.

I got on the Forchbahn (local tram) and headed for a family friend’s house. I was in a great mood (deep inside). This was a breakthrough, no doubt — at least on a personal level. I had proven that I can be trusted in front of a mic — to read — and later on, to entertain.

Mom didn’t see me in that kind of a mood — I wanted to hide this. Teens often start their attempt at World War III at this age — 14 or thereabouts. (Their “enemy state” would, of course, be the family.) I lived two lives — deep inside, I was really excited, but in front of mom, I remained silent, a little cold, and very reserved.

There was, by the way, a bit of reason behind this — I wanted to prove to the family, and to society, that I had “what it takes”. I wanted the “shock effect” to come out really big. And I’m a guy who believes that the magnitude of the “shock effect” can always get bigger. You should never be pleased with the breakthrough you’ve just done. You should gear up and get ready for the next breakthrough.

Only by breaking through — only with “shock effects” — can you improve. Only by improving can you secure yourself that spot — mic in hand. People are never hesitant to dump boring speakers. That’s your cue!

We pick up from where we left off yesterday. Tom Chen, a good Mac friend, invited me to join up at Beiwai (that’s the Beijing Foreign Languages University) as they were running a DV competition, where all students from universities around Beijing were invited to share their DV talent. We had some great movies on display — and I enroled with my snip, Beijing 2002-2007: Gearing up for the Games.

Now, due to my “nationality problem” (I hold a Swiss passport, which according to Article 9 of the Chinese Nationality Law put my former Chinese nationality in legal limbo), I couldn’t enrol as a competing entry — only as a cankao entry. In exchange, though, I got “mic rights” and was given about 5 minutes to tell the audience how I made the film. I agreed — hey, I wasn’t after the prizes, just after the pleasure to share my work with the rest of the gang.

The presentation, as always, was done in Keynote. I used the classic trick — I plugged in a remote — the Keyspan Presentation Remote. (Believe it or not, in December 2004 I put a Mac laptop in front of the lecturn. It sucked outright — in front of me was this wall! So I learnt my lesson — don’t even think about carrying a Mac onstage!) It kind of worked — but at times the clicker became a little unresponsive. (I pity The Steve and his semi-dead clicker after the iPhone was released in January 2007 at Macworld.) Not to worry: a few triple-clicks later, we advanced to the next slide.

The slides all used my new “official font” — Akzidenz-Grotesk. This is a funny old font — and I do mean old. Akzidenz-Grotesk came out in 1896 — that’s right, not 1986 — so this thing is about 121 years old as we speak. So why revive such an old script? Because Beijing is fully devoid of this font! We’ve Arial, Helvetica, Univers, Times… and even a bit of the ever-popular Myriad… but no bit of Akzidenz-Grotesk. Plus, Akzidenz-Grotesk looked to be a font that seemed different — even if a bit different — from other “close by” fonts such as Helvetica and Arial (look at the 2, the 7, the G and the Q to see what I’m on about) — and it kind of reflected the type of guy I am — different from the ordinary masses.

There was a bit at the end where I wanted to show the evolution of the Beijing subway. But I went through the whole prezo and I found that the bit about the subway looked a little way out there. I couldn’t link it up to the whole prezo, so out it went. The next bit that underwent cross-examination: do you have to show those freeways? The freeways slide survived because I added a slide that made the transition from “freeways” to “olympic venues” look a little smoother; instead of going from “freeways” to “olympic venues”, I’d add in this little slide that went: “And where there are roads, there will be destinations; and in 2008, they’ll lead us all to the Olympic venues.” Great little lead-in.

Check, check… Keyspan im Ordnung… fonts all OK… I was ready for the show. My movie would play as movie number five.

The hosts looked pretty good (the female host looked outright gorgeous I’ll admit). Yet the male host seemed to be at the wrong place at the wrong time when the spotlight didn’t dim as my movie was about to start. Something went wrong at the back: the way I was told, he’d intro the film first and then get me on stage afterwards. Yet he was told (I think) that I’d be on stage first, and only after that would we see the film. Bang. My movie started; the guy rushed off (and the spotlight flew to the side). 3 seconds of my movie had past, but hey… we all make mistakes!

Then I got onstage. This wasn’t an ordinary prezo; this was a big one. For one thing, I had a spotlight shone on me — first time for me at all. Suddenly, I was in the center of attention.

A way-too-fast multi-click meant that I skipped a slide. Hey, no worries: I just went to the next slight with nary a hitch. I also remember bits and pieces of the prezo so that I could click away without constantly looking at the big screen to the back. (I swear — the stage and all that kind of stuff made me look like Steve Jobs — only that The Steve didn’t have a spotlight to contend with. I mean — massive screen, the stage, and all that kind of stuff.)

I got through the slide pretty quickly — I admit, halfway through, I was wondering — hey, maybe we could cycle through these slides quicker — we do, after all, have only five minutes, and let’s not bore the gang. I admit — halfway through I internally got a tad nervous — but it didn’t really show through. When I got to the end, I kind of slowed down — and I went through the Olympic bit in a little more detail. That last-minute “slide bridge” between the freeways and the olympic venues, by the way, really worked out well.

My closing remark was a quick “2008 is here next year, so see you around!”. Applause, as expected, and I hurried down the stage. Maybe I shouldn’t have really hurried down… but hey, this was the first time for me in about three years — first time I faced an audience of this size. I wasn’t exactly that nervous. Then again, you can’t — say — drive super-smooth after taking years off, being on hiatus, right? There’s something we call a mohe qi in Chinese — that’s when motors run from chunky to smooth.

Und zur guter Letzt: my prezo impressed both Tom and his friends. I got a nice thank-you SMS at around midnight (aren’t we all night animals?), and was invited back onto the stage — to do an English lecture on making movies as well as a BeiMac 4 U meet — to tell Beiwai people about the Mac and the iPod.

Seems like you can’t pry that mic from my cold, dry hands yet…

My driving school teacher back in Winterthur, Switzerland, had some golden words to say about a year I got my driving license. His words of wisdom: Once you know how to drive, you can pick it up pretty much from where you left — even if you had a gap of several long years. The same applies when you grab the microphone as much as it does when you grab the steering wheel or gearstick.

Having done speeches — even within my university — since September 2002, I know what being in front of the stage means. It means one thing — not having stage fright. If you act stupid, at the very best, expect a hundred blank stares; if it was a boo-boo on the stage in a fashion contest (as was the case with yours truly on April 16, 2004; the masses, not the mistakes), you’ll look like an idiot in front of a good thousand.

But what if you dump it for the best part of three years? How does it feel picking up after three years? That’s what I did. I haven’t spoken to an audience over around 110 in about the best part of three years. So to me, it felt kind of like of… you know, new frontiers, and stuff like that. I know I’ve been through this before. Yet it’s been three years. My mission: to tell the audience about a five-minute video I’ve done about Beijing in the run-up to 2008.

More on this tomorrow.

Facing a crowd of 1,000 and a little bit more than nervous? Welcome to Panic on the Podium?, the — uh — renamed “December 5th, 2003″ blog.

Given the fact that I love public speaking and hosting events — you know, those events where I get to steer a meeting or a speech — even in front of thousands, I’ve set this blog up as both my online notebook and a great resource for would-be public speakers or hosts to see just how much it takes to beat stage fright.

I admit — at the start, back in December 1996, I was kinda terrified. In front of me was a microphone and I had to read some odd poem out loud in French. However, that kinda subsided — and now, it’s like second nature to me.

Which I admit is a good kind of thing.