Leon Lau

Leon is a country bumpkin British born Chinese from Ulverston in the Lake District, which is a rarity, but currently lives in Manchester and is trying to earn sufficient money to go travelling. He graduated from Newcastle University last year with a degree in History, which he's not really put to use yet, much to my parent's chagrin, but aims to use it to pursue a career in journalism. His interests include music (not particularly keen on Cantopop), tennis, all things beach-related, surfing, film, and Cantonese Roast Duck.

Helen Yuet Ling Pang

Helen is British Born Chinese, but grew up in Germany before returning to England as a teenager. After graduating from LSE with two degrees in International Relations, she worked in television production for ten years, with stints in Beijing and New York. Now a Film Examiner at the British Board of Film Classification, she writes about food as a hobby. Check out her World Foodie Guide blog, with personal restaurant reviews from around the world and recipes gathered from family and friends.

Glenn Watson

Glenn is a freelance film journalist with a special interest in Hong Kong and Chinese film. A graduate of the British Film Institute’s Film Journalism qualification, he contributes to Dimsum on film and the arts. Born in Lancashire, UK, Glenn studied English, and trained as a historian before joining local government in Oxford, where he manages a specialist team supporting local councilors and promoting democracy. Glenn has practised Classic Tiger Kung Fu for four years… and wishes he had started sooner.

Alan Diment

Alan was born in Dorset, and graduated with a degree in History from Swansea University a very long time ago… Since completing a course in Film Journalism at the British Film Institute, he has written reviews and articles for a number of different websites. He has also contributed to various film festival publications, including those produced for the Cambridge Film Festival and the Raindance Film Festival. In 2006, he reported on the British Independent Film Awards in the presence of Her Royal Highness, Helen Mirren. Alan lives in West London with his rather nice girlfriend and their two ferrets.

Martyn Bamber

Martyn is based in London, and works in the film and television post-production sector as a Project Manager. In addition to contributing to Dimsum, he has also written about film for a number of online journals, including Senses of Cinema, 6 Degrees Film, Close-Up Film and Cinemattraction. He has a First Class Honours degree in Film and Television Production from the University of Westminster, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Film Journalism from the British Film Institute.

Oliver Pfeiffer

Since graduating with a degree in Film Studies at Middlesex University, Oliver has completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Film Journalism at the British Film Institute, has become a member of the Writer's Bureau, and now works for a computer science corporation. Oliver is also a freelance writer and film critic, contributing a regular slot for the CSC Spotlight newsletter. An enthusiastic cook, Oliver appreciates good food, seeking out fine restaurants, and contemplating quality wines. He is also intrigued by conspiracy culture and fascinated by psychoanalysis. He loves traveling, where he enjoys seeking out hidden treasures, including architecture and culture. He is also a keen black and white photographer.

Sheila Cornelius

A graduate of London University, Sheila taught English in Singapore between 1990-93, sparking her interest in Chinese. She has struggled with Mandarin since then whilst teaching in London. She has also taught summer school in Yuhuan, Zhejiang province, and has worked as an editor in Tonghua, Jilin province. Sheila completed an MA in Media Studies in 1997, and went on to write New Chinese Cinema (2002), which appears on the reading lists of many university courses. She has also delivered lectures on Chinese film at Morley College and at City Lit. Now writing full-time, she is researching the life of the last Emperor’s sister (who lived for a while disguised as a match-seller in a Tonghua), with a view to writing a novel about the subject.

Kwok Wain Wan

Kwok Wain Wan is a freelance journalist. He was born in England and his parents are from Hong Kong.

Kwok studied Theoretical Physics at the University of Kent, and worked in IT before moving to Japan. He lived in Nagoya and spent three years teaching English, eating sushi and watching a lot of weird Japanese TV. He came back to England last year and enrolled in a Post Graduate Diploma course at the London School of Journalism.

He currently lives in London and publications he has written for include bbc.co.uk and Wandsworth Borough News.

Fletcher Bailey
Michael S. Fletcher is originally from New Zealand. He left his home country in 1992 to come to Hong Kong with the intention of visiting his new in laws. But as with many foreigners that have come before him, once he got a taste of Yum Cha and a whiff of the Hong Kong Harbour he decided to stay for a while. 15 years later he has well and truly made Hong Kong his home. He writes poetry and currently has two completed books he is trying to publish. He also has a love for both reading and writing great poetry and has received great inspiration from Asia for his poems and writings.

Susan S. Cheung

Susan is British-born Chinese, raised and educated in England. She had a successful career in Training and Development in London for over 11 years. When love beckoned, she emigrated from the UK to the United States at the end of 1999 to join her husband (born in Hong Kong and raised in England). He had been working in the States for a number of years. Now Susan calls home a suburban area of Upstate New York.

One of Susan’s ambitions was to pursue a graduate degree and, in 2003, she received an MA in Communication from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Currently, Susan is taking a career break to stay at home and raise her two young children. She is a freelance journalist for her local newspaper, The Spotlight and volunteers her time on the Parent-Teacher Council of her son’s school. No stranger to identity struggles, she faces the challenge of bringing up her son and daughter in another country with a sense of their Chinese identity.

MeiMei

MeiMei (WU Yanmei), born and raised in China. Trained in music and dance form an early age, she is qualified teacher who studied Pre-school Education and Music Education and had worked as a teacher in China before moving to Britain in 2002. She is a graduate of SOAS, University of London where she did her masters in (East Asian) Music Performance. She has worked as a Chinese dance teacher and performer, a choreographer, musician, music teacher, Mandarin teacher, translator as well as an actress in Britain.

http://www.meimei.co.uk/

Simon Crab

Simon is creative director of award winning new media agency Lateral.net. His interests include electronic music, audio programming and ethnomusicology - he plays penyacha for lila-cita gamelan gong kebyar orchestra.

Simon is also Founder and Director of 'Informal', a research and implementation group for collaborative research with a focus on social development and technology, and a board member for 'Space Studios', a London based community arts organisation.

Richard Yuen-Kiu Ng

Rich secretly delights in getting asked for ID when he's nearly twice the legal age. He loves his sexy ghost wife, noodles and venting creativeness to balance his stereotypical job in IT. He doesn't know where he's put his unused law degree, but maybe gave it to his parents to look after while he went globe-trotting. He still finds himself chuckling when discovering Chinese foibles that he'd always put down to his own family's dysfunction and he thought The Missing Chink was brilliant.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Doris Lee Butterworth

Doris Lee Butterworth is a freelance journalist and began contributing to Dimsum in 2001. The last few years have been a period of great change for Doris. She gave birth to her gorgeous son Oscar in 2004 and moved to Edinburgh from London the following year. Although Jenners is smaller than her beloved Selfridges, she’s more than happy to while away a few hours in the store.

Ruth Ng (nee Neilson)

Until Ruth met her BBC husband at Uni she had never known anyone who could eat that many noodles. Transformed from a typical Gweiloh girlfriend (who ate no rice, let alone noodles) she's now happy to chow down on a whole range of weird & wonderful things, probably much to her in-laws relief (though chicken's feet continue to freak her out...)

She loves lor bak go and cheung fun, Japan, bears, knitting, buying cute things, singing, writing, and she's the world's biggest fan of 'Anne of Green Gables'.

Cherise Fong

Web scripter by day, cinephile by night. Native of San Francisco, three generations away from Canton, successively citizen of Paris, New York, Monaco, and presently London, where Sarah has introduced her to the Little China of Dimsum.

Alfred Oshin

I’m Londoner born and bred, though not a cockney. I graduated from King’s College London with a BA in Ancient History. My interest in China started when I found out that a secondary school I live near is named after a female missionary, Gladys Aylward, who lived in China in the 30’s. When the Japanese invaded her region, she rescued ninety-four children by leading them over mountains to safety. From then on I went on to read about Chinese history, particularly in antiquity. My passions are writing articles, plays and novels. My genre is history and the role of African people in it. Currently I’m writing a play about the various troubles that befell the German black community in the 1930’s under the Nazi regime.