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lifting the fog around china & asian Americans

How the Team of 1990 Institute is Bridging the Gap Between Cultures

Cultural differences can get extremely complex, especially when it comes to Eastern and Western worlds, whereas essentially we are all people, who care about very similar things in life. The focus on building the knowledge about this common thread between us, lies at the core of the series of the videos, produced by 1990 Institute. Packed into short-form video cliff-notes, these visual bites tell about various aspects of Chinese life that not a lot of people are aware of.

Dan Chao, Grace Yu, Susana Liu-Hedberg and their team of talented producers and program managers create evergreen video content, encouraging Chinese studies, making this knowledge approachable and balancing serious subjects with edutainment. With people to people approach, the videos help to bridge the gap between two different cultures.

Lisa Hsu, Executive Producer The 1990 Institute

“Equipping our next generation with knowledge about China is key to understanding the very complex but important relationship with the U.S. ”

156K views

were garnered for 8 videos and 5 trailers focused on contemporary China & China-related topics

60-90 sec

new series will feature “small bite” videos, packed with quick snapshots of a particular subject matter

60+ ideas

generated in one sitting for future video releases, which spreadsheet is lovingly called “The Beast”

5+ hrs

was once spent on 1 video project meeting to conceptualize & storyboard

meet the team

Dan Chao

Executive Producer & Vice Chair of 1990 Institute’s Board of Directors  Dan oversees the content of a select number of our videos and has developed and written scripts. He is most proud of the video “Mrs. Wong’s Purse”.

Lisa Hsu

Executive Producer & Member of 1990 Institute’s Board of Directors
Lisa provides creative and logistical oversight and has written and directed a select number of videos. One of her projects include “US and China Seek Relationship Counseling: Technology in the Crosshairs”

Sandra Pan

Executive Producer & Corporate Secretary of 1990 Institute’s Board of Directors
Sandra oversees content as well as provides strategic and creative guidance to the video program. She is proud that our videos cover a wide range of genres and are filled with engaging and interesting information like “A Tale of Two Countries: China and US Demographics” and “Chinese Millennials: Reflections on Life and America”

Grace Yu

Executive Producer & Chair of 1990 Institute’s Board of Directors
Grace supervises content for the video program and is particularly adept at weaving multifaceted stories together. Some of her projects include “Ping Pong Diplomacy” and “What is GaoKao: The World’s Toughest College Admissions Test”

Lewis Liu

Producer and Program Manager
Lewis manages the video production process from conceptualization to distribution and supports the team to create original, educational short-form content. Favorite video: “Chinese & Western Zodiacs: So Different. So Similar”

video-series
eco-system

fostering cultural understanding

Chinese & Western Zodiacs: So Different. So Similar.

The Chinese zodiac is a cultural artefact that has continued to thrive for thousands of years. Many cultures throughout history have created their own unique-yet-similar celestial systems for predicting the future…while observing the exact same stars and planets. We will look at the Chinese and Western zodiac systems. Why so different? Why so similar?

29K views on YouTube

addressing climate change

Why are Chinese & Americans the Key to Life on Planet Earth?

The clock is ticking. Earth’s average global temperature has been rising with twenty of the twenty-one hottest years occurring since 2002. As the two major emitters of greenhouse gasses, are Americans and Chinese the key to ensuring life on Planet Earth? And what can we do as individuals to reverse this trend and address climate change? See our video to find out.

11K views on YouTube

quick overview

China by the Numbers - If China Were a Country of 100 People

Our video series, “China in Perspective,” is designed to expose you to interesting and insightful information about contemporary China to better understand this complex and intriguing country of 1.4 billion people. This video is a primer for the series, providing a general overview of the demographic breakdown of the Chinese population, from wealth distribution to education, to social media and video game usage, and more!

29K views on YouTube

sandra pan

Executive Producer

What do you feel most passionate about working on this Project?

We love the fact that we are providing opportunities to view a new perspective about China and U.S.-China relations – much different to the information that is currently filtered through mass media.

What was the biggest challenge you had to find a way to tackle?

One of the biggest challenges for the team was being mindful of the length of the videos. Many of the topics we cover have so much rich information that it is sometimes difficult to convey in less than ten minutes and in a visually entertaining way. We spend a lot of time in the cutting room deciding what is crucial to keep to drive the story forward. We have rallied around our Advisory Council, Teachers Advisory Group and teacher partners to provide feedback and invite them to participate in how to use the videos as starting points for classroom discussions.

Would you like to know more about the Project?

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