So I’ve been out in Beijing for a little over 2 weeks now. Why did I move out here? I got an offer to work for Jet Li / The One Foundation and in less than 24 hours I had decided I would relocate everything to Beijing. A frequent slogan of the one foundation is that with “one” it symbolizes a beginning to something. Without 1 there can not be a 2 and subsequent growth.

People ask me what do I do? This is such a difficult question because there’s just so much. As much as the previous assistant explained and prepared me for what was in store when I got off that plane, actually diving into it head on was a completely different sensation. I remember 3 days in RW constructively told me “stop sighing… I know it’s a lot to take in. I sighed a lot when I first got here too, but I know you can handle it.” ..and since then I do feel a better grasp on things of course, but I just wanted to use that quote to exemplify how much was going on.

One Foundation Research Institute Ceremony

So a quick recap of some of the things that happened in the life of Alfred Hsing upon first arriving. I feel like I barely drop off my 2 huge luggage bags and before I know it I am on a plane again. We essentially traveled to Shanghai, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Macau, and back to Beijing in 7 days or so. We had meetings, lunches, interviews, dinners, red carpet events, philanthropy discussions, and press conferences to attend throughout the day. The first first day on the job for me was the announcement of the One Foundation Research Institute at Beijing Normal University. After that it all blends together, but a few notable events include meeting the CEO of Alibaba.com, fighting our way out through a mob of fans, seeing Jet promote his “WuJi” Adidas line, first hand tour of part of the Shanghai Expo, and attending press events for his latest movie “Ocean Heaven”.

Ocean Heaven

I had the opportunity to watch Ocean Heaven with the One Foundation team. Let me cue you all in on both real quick in case you don’t know. Ocean Heaven is a non-action film starring Jet where he is the father of an autistic child. One of the reasons he did this film was to support various causes and create awareness for people out there. This sort of ties in with the One Foundation in terms of his aims to help others. The One Foundation was created in 2007 and the simple message is that everyone should do a little every month because the world is one big family. He says that above all.. before we get into races and genders and who owns what and who does what.. we are all humans and we share one earth.. so we should all do our part to help out. That is a very high level explanation, but day to day there is a LOT more going on. He and the team are always striving to develop and grow the foundation so that it can do more in cases of natural disasters, poverty, education, health, and environmental protection.

Ocean Heaven Red Carpet Event

Wushu
I think it’s cool that Jet was one of the first that broke through and brought wushu to the world and a couple of wushu generations later I am still practicing wushu and working alongside him. We had a brief chat about who I trained with and it was cool that he knew most of the people and they were people that competed in his era and or trained with him. We had a meeting with some wushu federation members and it came up that I would be attending the Sport Accord Combat Games which they are helping to host.

For the Sport Accord Combat Games I will be competing in changquan only. Some friends in China asked to see my longfist form and some videos since youtube is BLOCKED in China.. I’ve uploaded my videos on youku.com! Here are two clips:

Social Life
I haven’t had much time to go out since I’ve just started working, but I was able to hang out with some friends at Shi Cha Hai and train once or twice with the Beijing Wushu Team. Although I’m working a lot and learning a ton, I need to remind myself to stay in shape still… on top of that, I need to keep in shape for this last tournament in August at least. I also have interacted with Jet’s previous assistants and they have all been very talented and very cool people.

Food
One thing about this job is that food and hotels are never shabby. I have had some really delicious food the past few weeks. The other half of the time when we are not out at a restaurant room service becomes your friend.

Thank You Room Service

Thoughts
I am definitely learning a lot out here. I do not for a second regret this decision although to be honest at times I do think to myself “I could be in LA with family and friends. I could be in an environment where I know all the places; I know the people around me; the language, roads, etc are more familiar” but then I do consider that this is a very rare opportunity to take in as much as possible from the movers and shakers of the world. We’ve met UN officials, real estate moguls, and the largest web entrepreneur in Asia. I am very passionate about the work we do and it just so happens that the things my boss is involved in happens to be “business, entertainment, and martial arts.”

Jet and Wang Shi

stapler gun

Hey guys, I’ve still been a little sick. Here is a quick update.

Martial Arts/Stunts
Haven’t been training much because I was sick the past week or so. I’m in a recovering mode and just got the sniffles. Hopefully it will be completely gone by the end of the week.

I helped coach at LA wushu today and I’ve still been staying active training my private lessons. Also got a new student starting next week so we will see how that goes. This sets me in line with my goal of having a max of 3-5 private lessons. I really enjoy teaching, but keeping it one on one – this way I really get to see someone’s skills develop and provide them direct attention and custom training. Meanwhile, it keeps me active without turning martial arts training into a full-time thing that prevents me from focusing on other areas of my life.

Sam called me the past week and mentioned helping her out on a crouching tiger hidden dragon fight set for 8711, but the scene required 2 girls instead of a guy so it fell through. However, I’m sure some other cool opportunities will arise. =)

Film
Finished shooting pick up scenes for Barry Baz (www.barrybaz.com). There’s nothing really on the site yet, so don’t get too excited. However, I am quite excited because it’s been about 6 months since I finished shooting the main stuff with them and they’ve been editing (with the editors from the same studio that edited the Bourne series) and cleaning it up so that it’s a masterpiece. It’s about an Australian that comes to America. He meets me and I am an award winning film maker of sorts.. but I can’t say much more… so let’s just say it’s a comedy and a whole lot more. Should be done within a month. I’ll post more details when it’s done.

Business
Tons going on over here. Continued working on wk mock ups. Created 2 versions that I like right now.. just trying to decide on a layout. Also got the martial arts complete site in progress. The layout is good just need to get the content up there and adjust the color scheme. I filed for the dba and am still waiting on the paper work.

Corporation’s taxes are due March 15, so I started cleaning up my finances. Feels good to really sit down and see everything from a numbers perspective and then watch how it’s grown over the years. I know this is something that I should actually be looking at quite often, but as a start up you worry about a million things and hardly want to deal with the number crunching. Anyways, it’s looking good for 09.. now just to stay on top of things for ’10.

Other
Major thing going on is that the front porch is finally getting remodeled and getting tile put in because the old material was starting to crack from the rain. Should be done by Sunday.

Also started doing a few fun raps/freestyles/covers if you hadn’t noticed on my previous posts.

Casual is Cool has our official youtube page which can be checked out at http://www.youtube.com/user/casualiscoolyo (SUBSCRIBE if you are cool)

Vietcong on Deadliest Warrior Season 2

I’m an extrovert so I gather my thoughts by talking or thinking aloud… so this post is to help me gather my thoughts. It’s been a few weeks since I got back from Asia and since I did my demo for Jackie Chan and all this excitement has sort of died down.

As I mentioned before I’ve been training more san shou lately and also getting into some tricking. I train basically 6 days a week. I still do wushu once or twice a week. I get this itch to want to compete still, but at the same time I want to focus on movies and learning more applications/styles of martial arts to become more well rounded. I think I am pretty sure now that I want to hit up my business ventures hard for another 2-3 months and then turn most of my focus on acting / stunts / entertainment for 2010.

Speaking of business wushukicks is doing well. All administrative paper work is done. Finances and accounting are clean and ready to go for 2010. Sales are also off to a great start. Have to file taxes in March. Merchant account is set up and been working smoothly this month. Saw an all time high of traffic this month as well which shows that more and more people are discovering the site. Wushukicks supplements are in a few locations in LA now. The last thing on my 2009-2010 to do list for wushukicks was to do a layout revamp. I am going to get on this in the next week… oh and also business cards. That shouldn’t take too long though. After those 2 things are taken care of, I will be quite the happy camper.

AngelsTea is doing well. We are in process of doing some redesigns on the tins and packaging. It’s going to look good when it’s done. The one thing with AngelsTea that I’ve come to realize is that it’s going to be a big project (big but fun) and I will probably have to finish up with the wushukicks to do list before I am able to shift major focus to this.

In TV and entertainment news – I worked on Season 2 of Deadliest Warrior. There was a joke on set that I was going to be a running gag where I just appear on every episode. (Since I was on the shaolin monk and samurai episode last season). The show is always pretty strict on revealing information and I don’t wanna accidentally violate the non disclosure agreement, but basically I was on the show doing some stunts and some shootouts and fighting occur (like on all episodes). DY was also on this and we had some laughs about being the only wushu guys on set. haha! Anyways, look forward to the episode airing when season 2 of the deadliest warrior comes out.

Aside from that, I’m going to start training even more. Hopefully I can get a cork and an arabian soon. I also want to shoot a few small projects where I can get some good fight scenes in and get a better understanding of angles, editing, choreography, etc.

For the first time ever I have my stunt resume finished, professional headshots printed out, and an updated demo reel.. so I think Im ready to start doing things right, hustling more, and submitting myself to more projects.

Cheers to 2010 – My year for film and entertainment.