Liam Bates () is an entrepreneur, television host and adventurer from

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, born 28 June 1988. Bates' first appearance on Chinese television was during the 2010 Chinese Bridge language contest, in which he received first prize and the eloquence prize. The show aired in front of a TV audience of almost 300 million. Bates has gone on to present TV shows for the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

and has founded several companies in China. In 2017, Bates made the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

Early life

Liam Bates was born in the canton of Vaud outside Geneva, Switzerland to an American mother and a British-Zimbabwean father. At school he spoke French. He later went on to study Chinese and film at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

in Canada.

Television career

Following Bates' Chinese Bridge success, in September 2010 he joined The Travel Channel China as their newest host, where he began a regular travel series filmed throughout the Chinese countryside. His first shows focused on rural life in

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

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and other Chinese provinces. Each show had Bates spending a week living with farmers and learning about their local cultures. In 2011 Bates and 'The Travel Channel China' team spent two weeks in his home country of

, filming several aspects of Swiss life: chocolate-making, Alpine cowherding and cheese production, Swiss military. The resulting television show broke numerous records in China, with the first 30-minute episode registering 1.5 million views on video-sharing website

Youku Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (), is a video streaming service and former video sharing website based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. Youku has its headquart ...

alone. Bates became more widely known in China than in his home country. In early 2012 Bates began a new series, ''A Love for Adventure'' (我爱大冒险) and the ''Last Tribe'' (最后的部落). In this show, he travelled around the world seeking out small tribes who have maintained their traditional lifestyles in order to learn their survival techniques. In 2016 Bates completed filming of a new series for the

, "Expedition X: Silk Road Rising".

Entrepreneur

Bates started his first company in 2006 at 17 years old, Beijing-based Bridges to China. In 2014 Bates co-founded Kaiterra (formerly Origins Technology), a startup that develops IoT hardware and software products to measure global air quality and pollution levels. In April 2016, Kaiterra's consumer air quality monitor, the Laser Egg, entered the Apple Stores across China. In 2017, Bates and Kaiterra co-founder Jessica Lam were selected for the Forbes 30 under 30 list.

Hangzhou Ambassador

In May 2013 Bates was officially appointed tourism ambassador to the Chinese city of

Hangzhou Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...

. Bates was awarded a $55,000/year contract to regularly visit and explore

, sharing his experiences on social media under the title of the 'Modern Marco Polo'. This made him the first foreigner ever to be appointed by China's government in such an official role.

Xiangsheng

Bates was formally invited to begin the study of ''

xiangsheng Xiangsheng (), also known as crosstalk or comic dialog, is a traditional performing art in Chinese comedy, and one of the most popular elements in Chinese culture. It is typically performed as a dialog between two performers, or rarely as a ...

'' (a traditional form of "crosstalk" comedy) by famous Chinese comedian Ding Guangquan after his success in the Chinese Bridge contest. In February 2012, in a traditional ceremony at the

Confucius Institute Confucius Institutes (CI; ) are public educational and cultural promotion programs of the state of China. The stated aim of the program is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilita ...

University of Hawaii A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, he was formally accepted into the xiangsheng hierarchy when he took Ding Guangquan to be his

Shifu ''Shifu'' is a Chinese cultural term. Although its pronunciation always sounds the same, there are two ways of writing it using Chinese characters, and they bear two different meanings. The first variation, Shīfù 師傅 ('Expert Instructor') ...

. Today ''

'' is still a large part of Bates' work, and he performs regularly on

China Central Television China Central Television (CCTV) is the State media, national television broadcaster of China, established in 1958. CCTV is operated by the National Radio and Television Administration which reports directly to the Publicity Department of th ...

Other work

Bates became known publicly through Chinese Bridge and his travel shows, but he gradually expanded into other activities, including hosting live events and leading outdoors/survival courses. His popularity as a performer and foreign personality on Chinese television has grown steadily: his Chinese microblog has grown to tens of thousands of registered followers in just two years.

References

External links

* *
Bates' outdoors channel
on

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Liam 1988 births People from the canton of Vaud Swiss performance artists Chinese television presenters Swiss television personalities Living people Swiss businesspeople University of British Columbia alumni Swiss expatriates in Canada Swiss expatriates in China