The first time I met Ian we were walking around Shanghai for a work event, talking about the challenges of learning Mandarin Chinese. When he casually described the Mandarin Chinese script (cursive) book he had to special order, my mouth dropped and I made a mental note to ask him to be on the podcast later. Thankfully he agreed to do this.
Because of our similar learning method of focusing on reading first and speaking later, this conversation was a turning point for me. Hearing how far Ian has been able to get with this strategy, I finally could envision my own future success in the language, which to that point felt very illusive. (Thanks Ian!) Fair warning, you will want to dig into the show notes for this episode to save some of his learning recommendations.

​As a Writer, Translator and Playright; words are what Jeremy Tiang uses to share his ideas about the world and all of its ambiguity. In his prose he addresses issues of identity, culture, and the boundaries of what we think these things mean. His upbringing in Singapore was multicultural and yet it was not. So much so that when asked what his first language is he replies, “It is complicated” and it is easy to see why.

​Singapore, very much like Jeremy and very much like most curious, discerning people such as yourself (yes, listeners, I am talking about you), is in a state of constant change. This change includes how it shares itself with the world and Jeremy plays a part in how we see both Singapore and its people, especially, if I understand it right, those who are not often portrayed in the national narrative. In this podcast episode, we primarily dig into Jeremy’s language experiences from early childhood to the present day. But those cultural tones are impossible to remove from language, so we did not even try.  ​