Who am I?

I am a translator and writer who specializes in Chinese fantasy genres such as wuxia, xianxia, and xuanhuan. I work primarily for Wuxiaworld.com, but also do freelance work and personal projects. My lovely wife is my greatest support, and provides me immense help in all of the content I create.

I was born and raised in San Diego, California, and while I was always drawn to Asian culture, my interest in China was sparked in the year 2000 by the wuxia movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In 2004 I took a month-long trip to China, and after returning, I began to study Mandarin. Shortly after, I got a new job in the game industry in New York City, so I moved to the Little Fuzhou section of Chinatown in Manhattan. In 2010 I moved to Hebei province, China, where I worked as a teacher, and eventually, as a manager at a private English school. I remained in China for 8 years, during which time I traveled to dozens of locations, from the megacities like Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing and Hong Kong, to tiny villages that few foreigners are familiar with. 

A few years after moving to China, I started translating wuxia novels to improve my reading ability. In 2015, after having translated four wuxia novels, I started translating Chinese fantasy web fiction full time for Wuxiaworld.com. To date, I have translated over 12,000,000 Chinese characters, making me one of the most prolific individual translators of Chinese fantasy in the world.

In 2019, I moved back to California after eight straight years in China, bringing my family with me. My wife Yuanyuan is a native of Hebei province, as is our son, who is now four.