Her father, Jack, fled the People’s Republic of China in 1962 with a single Hong Kong dollar in his pocket. “My dad instilled in me at the age of 7 that as long as you put your whole heart into a project, the outcome will be magnificent,” Ms.
Chao, 29, has lacked in experience, though, she has made up for in fortitude. What’s remarkable is that this highly personal, highly stylized, faintly feminist project has sprung from an artist whose previous experience in television was limited to watching it. Conceived here in Southern California but animated and partly designed in Taipei and Shanghai, the 20-episode project is Nickelodeon’s big-ticket domestic and international television release for 2007.
#Ni hao kai lan dailymotion series
in August, has been nurtured from what was a wisp of an idea four years ago, in experimental shorts called “Downward Doghouse,” then later into a series with Asian-influenced characters, settings and situations. The series, which will make its debut on Nick Jr. Chao was given at birth, later Anglicized to Karen. “Ni hao” means “Hi” in mandarin, and Kai-lan is the Chinese name Ms. Chao and her mother, Hai-lan (Helen), were outnumbered but unbowed, honoring some gender traditions that dated to Confucian times while questioning others. She’s the creator of “Ni Hao, Kai-lan!,” an animated series for preschoolers based on her memories of growing up in a bicultural household with two overachieving brothers, a doting immigrant grandfather and a father with one foot in the Old World and one in the New. Lines of tasseled red lanterns hang overhead, the lighting is subdued, and, in a corner office, stands Karen Chao. Walk through the lobby, past the basketball court-theater, past the gratis cappuccino bar, and soon enough a visitor comes upon an area where the walls are awash in apricot, sunny yellow and fuchsia. HERE in the animation capital of the nation, computer artists dressed in Cali-casual are ensconced in a converted warehouse that could rightly be called the House That Slime Built: Nickelodeon Studios, a hothouse of toon talent.