Ep 51: Guest: Hannah Lund: From the US to Hangzhou, China

Summary:   This week we expat chat with Hannah Lund, who is magnetic, funny and thinky. Her geographic trajectory includes her home state of Minnesota and a quiet town in Iowa in the U.S., Paris, France and Hangzhou, China. In 2012 it was a mystical story involving a character called Madame White Snake, set in Hangzhou, which was the inspiration for this move to China but Hannah soon found out there were so many more unexpected surprises that would come from this experience. After 6 years in Hangzhou she moved up to Shanghai, which seemed like an apt time to look back at that first year in China in this podcast episode. She uses her short story, “In Search of White Snake”, from the May 2018 edition of Concrete, The Shanghai Literary Review’s revered publication. After Hannah’s animated reading of this piece we chat about many of the expat issues that it brings to the surface (every pun intended), such as her “sense of urgency” to make things happen, facing the differences between the China in her mind and the one in front of her, and a general fascination with ghost stories (how is that expat related? You will need to listen to find out!) We are so pleased to have Hannah in Shanghai now and I am sure you will be thrilled to have her story and wisdom in your ears for this episode. Where to find Expat Rewind Podcast: Subscribe on : iOS , Android devices, RSS , YouTube channel and you can join our email list: for weekly podcasting updates Support the podcast: Amazon Affiliate Link and Traveling Mailbox Affiliate Link Show Links: (available here: https://expatrewind.podbean.com/e/ep-51-guest-hannah-lund-from-the-us-to-hangzhou-china/) -Shanghai Literary Review and Concrete Magazine (one of their publications), where Hannah’s story was published earlier this year -Hannah’s article on Chinese ghost stories in Sixth Tone -An interview with another lovely Sixth Tone person, Lucy, on my Changing Scripts Podcast, episode 7 -Xing’s Expat Rewind Podcast, episode 27, the 1st interview for this podcast AND Xing’s writing website -Atlas Obscura : THE website for quirky travel locations (Hannah wrote some China articles for them) -Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Songling Pu (especially The Painted Skin story) -Elizabeth Gilbert’s TEDTalk, “Your Elusive Creative Genius” -Japanese spirits, Yokai. Here is the book I used with my students, “Yokai Attack” Be a guest: Share your blog, Twitter/Instagram/Facebook feed, or any other artifact from your 1st year in a new country Would love to hear from you! Socials: Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube & Speakpipe (leave a voice message) Check out all of our projects here: https://stephfuccio.weebly.com/ Music courtesy of Damon Castillo, Song "Rocket of Love" on the "Mess of Me" album