AMBITION OF A SKATER
It was more than 20 years ago when the skateboarding culture first came to China. At that time, few people knew how to skate. It was very difficult to even buy a skateboard, let alone purchase any textbook or watch any videos to learn skating tricks. Nowadays, skateboarding as a sub-culture is widely accepted. There is one website which has witnessed all the changes taking place. “KickerClub”, as it’s called, was founded 15 years ago in the dormitory of Andrew Guan, who was a college student at that time. Andrew has maintained his enthusiasm for the skateboarding culture until today, and KickerClub has become the most established skateboarding website to date in China. See how our behind-the-scenes video with Andrew.
Most Chinese skateboarders taught themselves skate tricks a decade ago. Nowadays, it’s much easier for newbies to learn tricks from tutorial videos. Andrew often works with professionals to record these sort of skate tutorial videos.
We interviewed him while he was on a shoot, so it was a challenge for us to keep up with him while he was skating and shooting at the same time, especially with our subpar skateboarding skills. Our cameraman almost ran into Andrew several times during this shoot on a scorching 35 degree day.
We follow Andrew as he works.
Andrew recently started KickerRadio, the first online skate radio in China. Since the timing of the program depends on the availability of guests’ and the recording location, we met up with Andrew at 5:30 on a rainy morning and set off to Yuan Fei’s home together. Yuan is a renowned anchor for skateboarding events in China.
Aside from skateboarding, Andrew is also very good at calligraphy, a skill which he has practiced since he was a kid. He was invited to collaborate with a skateboarding brand to create his own skateboard. His design is in the picture above.