tbjhome: Where are you from, and how did you end up in Beijing?

Kang Mao: I’m from Lanzhou. I lived in Wuhan for about four years before coming to Beijing in 2000 in order to find better opportunities for music. Here in Beijing, I live in Tongzhou, which is really far from the city center. But it’s also really cheap. My band and I don’t have cars, so we have to take buses to our shows in the city center. The commute is sometimes three hours – a real pain for us.

“Beijing is not a beautiful place. It just doesn’t look very good on film … Still, Beijing is better than Shanghai”

Tell me about where you’re from and how you got here.

I’m from Nanjing and worked there for a number of years before coming to Beijing for film school in 1991. After I graduated, I was Chen Kaige’s assistant and began to write stories, plays, and films. In 2000, I finally wrote and made my first full-length film.