Ok, quick summary!

1) 23 year old German-Chinese film student, currently in Berlin to sample all the lovely delicious dark humor secreted by 21st-century European streets and their chittering, winged denizens.

2) Just moved to Germany, and am really excited to meet new people and experience my home country for the first time!

3) Studies and experience in Theatre and Creative Writing. Film's more of a new medium to me but it's a darling. Inkling towards surrealism and the darker elements of all three mediums :)

4) I really like tiny freaky animal thingies, and all kinds of other weird stuff that makes you feel like your stomach has been replaced by a frantically vibrating ice monster. Ghost hunting, eating food in a restaurant in China. It goes on.

5) Have a tendency to name various surreptitious inanimate objects "Larry", and to occasionally task them with waging battle against the forces of boredom and an assortment of imaginary foes, each more devious and inhuman than the last. Genghis Tan, the everyday office warlord, was one of the more recent ones.

General Outlook on Life:

*Salute*

Sorry.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Overall, I'm someone who's come from a lifestyle and culture of drudgery and small mindedness, and is now looking for the alternative promised all over the world. I enjoy hearing about people, and the crazy, wild, incredible and beautiful things that so many of them do. I like being around places steeped in variety and that wild, subconscious madness that lives in the hearts of cities filled with open people. I love the concept of travelling, and moving on a constant basis. Seriously, give me a renovated school bus with beddings on the inside and I'd take that over a house any day (I can't wait for the day when I get to afford that. On a writers salary, give me 30-40 years :P). I love the idea of things just happening all around me while I do whatever it is I do, and I've found that travelling, rather than say, riots, or a crowd in a supermarket. And so, when it comes down to it, I love everything that this couchsurfing idea has to offer. It brings us together, as people, on both an individual and group level. It's evidence that there are, and a chance for us to meet, wonderful and gracious people in our lives who are willing to help perfect strangers move around in their endless journeys all around the world, and it's something which I feel incredibly privileged to have the chance to take part in, and incredibly proud of that it exists as part of a thing we human beings sort of make up for ourselves. It's the proof of our kindness and our thirst for the wonderful things which we do that makes this up, so I'll give it a go any day!

I mean, overall, it's the whole package. The chance to meet someone you've never met before, who's got a completely different background from you letting you in, and sometimes telling you of his or her life growing up under completely different circumstances, with a whole different set of beliefs and experiences than you are used to - that's incredible. And how easy it is to move from place to place without worrying about exorbitant hotel pricing is a plus on its own. But mostly the people. Always the people :P

Music, Movies, and Books

By a mile, Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree is the best book in the universe. Bill Watterson for any other questions. Aside from that, you've got to hand it to Mr. Howard Lovecraft, Cpt. Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan!), Ser Thomas Ligotti Esq., and the likes of Fernando Pessoa (that bloody Portugese man who wrote under 75 different personas, and who made them write letters to one another) to smash you on the head with new ways of telling stories. Also, the person who does all those Floccinaucinihilipilification webcomics. She's a godsend.

Movie wise, you've got to hand it to the Lego Movie or any of the Toys Stories, and I'm an absolute sucker for the How to Train Your Dragon flicks. Star Wars cuts close. You know the ones. Stuff in the style of momento, Ronin (that old Robert DiNero movie), the Tarantino films, animes (looking at Mr Satoshi Kon), and some of the old americans with Humphrey Bogart were amazing. Casablanca, Dark Victory, all that jazz.

TV shows: House MD, and GAME OF FUCKING THRONES. Cheesus, that last season was breathtaking.

Music: A whole mixmashed spool of it. Doesn't really get better than ZZ Top, Journey, or Van Halen for me. The 1975, Rogue Valley (holds a particular spot in me heart, this one), Joe Satriani, Kodaline, Prince, and just about any 'ol song from the Fallout games works brilliantly too. Martin O'Donnells work in the Halo 2 soundtrack was also amazing, as well as most of Phil Collins' stuff. Genesis was ok, but I liked his solo work more. Sigur Ros was a band I got into a year or two ago, and the same goes for Jonsi's career - I'd take a solo performance of his over the band any day, though both are amazing!

The only concert I've been to is a Hi-5 one from when I was seven, so unfortunately I can't say I've watched any of them play live before, sadly, though once while I was in a jazz club Bali, this one insane local player made me fall head over heels for just about anything coming out of a saxophone. I like almost everything, in different moments, as long as it doesnt sound like the demolition process of a metallic dustbin depot.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Watched calmly and approvingly as an Orang Utan urinated on my enemies.

"My enemies" in this case being the term my grandfather uses to describe random people in public.

Teach, Learn, Share

I just remembered this column, and I sort of blended all this in with the "sharing" bit below.

There's a walrus in there to make up for it.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Pre-discourse - I'm uncomfortable as shit with these kinds of segments. I never know what to say without it being a little pretentious or downright silly. But anyways. I'll get over it if I use point form.

1) Conversations and intellectual discourse on the softness and the buoyancy of various silly animals on different fluids. Those will happen in the event of a need of an icebreaker, in the event that our meeting precludes with the sight of me floating a Wobbegong on Cosby jello. Which is not exactly a liquid, I know, but since the Wobbegong is already a shark, I might as well let it cheat a little more and let it feel delicious and happy at the squigglyness.

2) Knowledge and discourse on a variety of books and chewing gum. The latter of which the teacher always asked about in class whenever I was caught chewing on some. I'm a stickler for conversations, so if you're the kind who likes talking about views on life and all those things, I'll be one for your balcony, or closet, or broom cupboard or under sink cabinet with all the mossy bits growing extra fingers in - wherever it is you like to house discussions in your house.

3) Theatre was one of the things I'm more proud of that I've done, and anyone who's an enthusiast, or wondering about it, or thinking of trying it out, I can talk to you a little bit of what it was like being a part of several productions and taking part in a rather open course about it. I did personal research into surrealist theatre and chinese theatre (popular fields, I know), but anyone interested in any of that stuff, ring me up, we can have a chat. Provided that there's a picture of a walrus with a cake melting on its tummy, because then I'll have something to giggle at as we go along.

5) Gaming was a thing I was into for a couple of years before I came here, and I'm relatively up to date. And anyone who has played and therefore subsequently fell in love with the most extraordinary game Psychonauts - you're already receiving mental fives of the highest levels. If you've Halo, or any of the other FPSes of the last decade lying around and are keen on playing, I'll enjoy the defeat I'll doubtless suffer at the hands of someone who's tiers above me by actually having a platform. I'm a sucker for rpgs as well. Again, fallout, fable (the first one only), and so on.

6) Seeing as to how I'm centred in Europe for now, I think one thing which I might be able to shed light on is knowledge of countries in Asia I've been in, if you've any interest for what it was like growing up in a culture which was essentially the polar opposite of what life is like over here. I only came back to Germany three weeks ago, so I'm relatively up to date with everything going on there as of right now!

9) Am particularly good with numbers, and will gladly do your end of month tax calculations for you if you're a little busy at the time of hosting me and need an extra hand.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, China, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Singapore, Thailand, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, Germany, Indonesia, Singapore