Steve Temkin, aka Laszlo Montgomery, launched his China History Podcast four years ago, which is now downloaded 1.5 million times a year. Liu Xiangrui / China Daily
When Steve Temkin launched his ambitious China History Podcast program four years ago, he decided to go by the pseudonym Laszlo Montgomery to avoid embarrassment in case it failed.
Since then, he has uploaded 135 audio episodes, over 80 hours.
"My idea was to explain China to my fellow Americans and spread goodwill between the two peoples," says the 54-year-old Illinois-born businessman.
Montgomery, as he asks to be called, didn't expect that his self-produced free podcasts on the Internet would connect him with so many people; a recent system statistics report shows that he is downloaded 1.5 million times a year, with about 45 percent of his audience in the United States, 15 percent in China and the rest in some 100 other countries.
"After more than 25 years doing sales and marketing of 'made in China' products, I've now become a sort of a salesman of Chinese history," says Montgomery, who visits China several times a year and speaks fluent Chinese.
When China and the US normalized diplomatic relations in 1979, Montgomery, who was at college, believed he'd find his place in the future interactions between the two countries, and decided to study the Chinese language.
"My friends laughed at my decision," he recalls. "People in the US knew little about China then. Who knew what China would become in the 21st century?"
To find a "China-related" job after graduating from university with a degree in history and Asian studies, he moved to Los Angeles. Since then, he has been a businessman involved in US-China trade, and he is currently doing business consulting for Chinese companies trading with their US counterparts.
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