🎗️🏆 Interview with Lianshen 🥰🌍

Interview with @Lianshen 9.12.2024

Thank you very much Lianshen that I can interview you for the forum!! 😊😊Merci beaucoup!! 🙂 I made 20 questions and this is the first part of 5 questions. But please only answer the questions that you like. Many thanks for that!!! 🙏🙏

It's my pleasure to answer your questions!

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART I

1: How long have you been a member of PPG? What do you like the most of the site? And do you think it has changed a lot since you are a member (good or bad)?

I don't remember for how long I have been here, but I think I have been here for 4 years now. The website hasn't changed drastically, but the forum went through a few modifications; especially with members that arrived or left. It used to be more conflictual I guess, with ideas being confronted with others. Some people would say that it is a good thing, but it's neither good or bad for me.

2: It says that your homecity is Vannes. Do you like your hometown and what is it like? And you wrote on the forum that you are also Breton? Is that part of France very different from other parts?

I grew up in the surroundings of Vannes and I never liked it too much because I thought it was a big city already, that was smelly because of the cars' gas and that was all my problems there for my early life. Quite big ones, right?

With the time, I started to realize that much bigger cities are way worse, and that bad smells are not stopping to exhaust smells... I also found out how Vannes is a (very) peaceful city compared to other places, even though the conditions degraded on many aspects during the last decades.

More generally though, Vannes is a 2000 years old city. It has a great history with a roman wall, medieval buildings etc., and used to be the capital of Brittany with Rennes and Nantes. It's also in one of the nicest spot of Brittany and Europe, with a microclimate that makes the life there very chill, and never too warm or cold; has a great biodiversity... and people usually are (too) nice; resulting in both formidable opportunities, but also abuses from some people; and a kind of naivety inherent to Bretons I suppose.

I often say that I am Breton because, yes, it's very different. It indeed belongs to France now, but it used to be a country (and a strategic one in Europe) with a great history, a specific language and a strong culture. To keep it short enough, France is a Latin culture with a romance language, whereas Breton is Celtic with a Celtic language (Brittonic) close to Welsh) and even a different ethnicity.

Today, only remnants of the culture exist as the language was forbidden by the French Republic and some unhappy events were conducted by the French Republic during the Revolution. Still, Breton culture is trying to survive and make a come back with some Diwan schools to teach children in Breton language (a standardized version of Breton) and most of bilboard are written in 2 languages. For instance, if you go to Vannes, you will see "Vannes" and "Gwened" (the breton name) when you enter in the city.

3: What kind of study or work do you do? And what do you like the most about it?

It's difficult to say exactly, but let's say that I focus my attention on Conservation biology, behavioural ecology/ethology (the study of their behaviour) and a pinch of Evolution. What I like the most about it is that it talks about animals, allow me to grasp a little bit more why people act a certain way, how we arrived where we are and that it can cover a huge range of subjects. Conservation especially can be research, but you have to communicate, to talk with people who have very different opinions; to find solutions and to try to eventually implement them or at very least to monitor them.

4: Do you like to live in France? Has it changed a lot or not so much (for example in the last 5 or 10 years)? And if you can choose: where in France would you like to live the most?

I have spent as much time outside than in France during the last years. I think what I said about Vannes can be said about France (although France has the problems, but in x2 or x3 sometimes).

That stays among us and nobody should know about it, but France is a very nice country still. It has a great diversity of landscapes, cultures (although it very much tried to destroy them and favour foreign ones now) and more than anything food. You can go to the mountains, different kinds of the sea, you will see a nice and calm one, a very turbulent one, a sad ocean as well, or you will see pastures, forests of different nature within a few km. You can have a different architecture just by switching from province, get totally different food habits so that you will never get bored. Best with food is that most of the world doesn't really know it, even though it's full of simple and traditional dishes that can make everyone happy.

5: Can you cook and bake very good? What are the dishes that you can make the best? 🙂

Very good, I don't think so. I can cook and bake a little, but haven't really done it in a while as I would like to. I think my best dish is crêpes, because it's very simple and, as a Breton, I was born making them already every week. However, I have never seen a non-Breton making proper crêpe... So I have often heard that my crêpes were really good (I don't think that they are exceptional though) and taught a few people how to make them!

Thank you very much for the first part of the interview @Lianshen!!! 🙂 I like it très bien!! 😛

I did not know that Brittany was a separate country!!! I know that it was from England when there was a war with France and later it became French again. But it makes the history of your province very different too!! But it is also a French history and an English history and a Breton history!! Does everybody in Brittany also speak Breton? Or now not anymore?

Because you mention several places in Brittany, it is maybe nice for everybody to see a map of Brittany:

And for @Sabri_KC and @Pennarossa2024, this is the flag of Brittany:

And these are nice pictures of your homecity Vannes:

I found a nice webpage about Breton crêpes in English (also with pictures): https://www.visit-lorient-brittany.com/unmissable/specialities-recipes/crepes-galettes/

I will soon try to make the second part if Lianshen's interview but if you have nice comments or questions in the meantime you can post them below!! ⬇️⬇️ Merci beaucoup!! 😇😇

I'm surprised, you got the right map of Brittany (historical map) and not the modern one 😉

There are 2 other breton flags. The one you put is the most common and standard one, the Gwenn ha Du (meaning "White and Black"), maybe one of our flags' pros will known them 🙂

Ps : I realize I didn't answer part of your question: I don't aim to live in France at the moment. Brittany is nice, but unsuitable for what I want to do. I don't see myself living anywhere else in France

🤩🤩🤩🤩

Oww i did not know that i used the wrong flag from Brittany!! 😛 I just googled it and thought it looked nicer than the others! 🙂 So now Brittany is a bit bigger!

And if for what you want to do France is not suitable, where do you think that you want to live later? 🌎🌍

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART II

6: What kind of music do you like and do you play music yourself? If not: what kind of instrument would you like to learn to play?

I never had the chance to learn to play an instrument so, no, I don't play music except in my dreams at some occasions. In this case, then my brain manages to create totally new musics with inexistent instruments and it's always a pain to wake up and forget the melody! Oh, because, yes, I forget the melodies very quickly and I suppose that I would be a bad musician because of that too.

As for what music i like, it depends... I usually prefer instrumental music, sometimes more ambient one, but it really depends on seasons/time. I really enjoy a not so well known composer called Kashiwa Daisuke for example, and my music list/suggestions are heavily tainted with a Japanese print of this kind (Anoice, Film, Kashiwa Daisuke, Yuki Murata, Tomoya Naka are frequent names that pop up in my playlist for instance).

I also have other kind of musics, but it will change over time and come back periodically. For instance, I listen to people who played music from Touhou (a game) a lot. It was very popular in 2011 I guess, and the fanbase of that game was VERY VERY active and made a lot of things; so I got stuck there for a while although many people would probably not enjoy it so much: I had a special thing for the metal bands that played the musics.

More broadly though, I enjoy listening to metal, heavy, but maybe more folk metal from different horizon. It's really nice to have Chinese, Celtic, Japanese or Nordic elements/instruments within a metal music or song. I enjoy to listen to baroque music at times too, but also mathrock (again Japanese version of math rock pops pretty quickly there), experimental/alternative rock in general, some Jazz, Funk, Folk or traditionnal (I really enjoy Celtic traditionnal music, but I also really like Chinese instruments). A Broad range of style, although I'd be picky within them!

To sum up though, you could just say obscure Japanese artists and I think you'd nail a good amount of what I listen to on a dialy basis!

Oh, and it's al ittle less true now that I have less time, but I use to listen to music for hours everyday.

Concerning an instrument I'd like to play, well, the ones I heard in my dreams sometimes! Else, I don't know, but like I said, I think I'd have some issues to learn properly 🙂

7: If you can meet yourself when you were 6 years old, what would you ask and want to know? And what would you teach you when you can give tips?

Honestly, I don't know what I would do in that case. I am not convinced that my younger self would listen to me at all!

So, maybe that, rather than asking for anything to teaching myself, I'd just bring myself to a nice hike in the mountains/forests. That would be enough and, for the rest, well, the path I took is not the most efficient one, far from it, but it is what it is and I prefer to stick to it rather than taking the risk to get something worse by changing my younger self.

8: What subject did you like the most at high school when you were 13? And which subject did you like the least? What were you like at high school?

In France, at 13 I was in something we call "collège" and that we consider middle school. There, I don't know. At 13; I think I had that terrible life and earth science (I had to deal with him for 3 years) and had terrible grades (around 6/20) despite loving it. I just disliked that teacher and the way he was doing things, and he really didn't like me either ahah. So it's hard to say "biology" at that time for me, despite I really enjoyed it when I was home.

I think I didn't like most of the subjects either to be honest, and I happened to be the worse troublemaker in my middle school and antagonized most of my teachers. At 13, I think there were only 2 exceptions: Physics/Chemistry teacher, who was a young man starting his career and was really nice and good teacher. With him, I behaved and my grades - which heavily depended on my teachers, their methods and what relationship we had - improved drastically for that year in physics. So I'd say that man made physics/chemistry my favourite subject when I was 13, followed by Arts because I was always drawing and the teacher was a very chill woman (I even had a special agreement to just go to her class instead of study time for a year or two because I was behaving there ahahah).

For the subject I liked the least, I'd say French literature and English. My English was terrible until I left high school; essentially because I found it useless and that, once you miss a few lessons/don't work, then you can't catch back just by being in class and I was too lazy to work. French literature because I really found it uninteresting the way it was taught in France, despite books can be nice, but hell I really found no point in putting colour on some sentences and explain why the author made a metaphor or I don't know what there that was mostly just coming out from the teacher's mind. I also had a terrible grudge with that teacher and made a point to be a pain in her ass.

9: If you have to play in a TV show or series (for example a drama series or a reality show or adventure programme) what would you like to be in and why? And what do you like to watch yourself on tv or apps like netflix?

I don't watch tv or Netflix at all anymore, so I don't know... If I can say a documentary series, then I would probably pick Nigel Marven. I grew up with his wildlife documentaries and it was really putting stars in my eyes so that I would have loved to be in those documentaries around the world. I would have loved to get to be in a documentary with David Attenborough, just so that I can be around a well of knowledge and ask many many questions.

Not really answering your question in the end, I know, but hey! If you want a movie, I can tell you the Lord of the Rings 😉

10: Do you have an idol? And is that the same person when you were 13? Or did you have a different idol then?

I never had idols I think. There are people I really like in history, and that I'd be happy to learn a little bit about, or more exactly about what they did, and eventually discuss with them if I had the chance, but that's all. I particularly like people like Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, Marcus Aurelius, or Darwin although I know too little about what they did. I also like some heroic figures, like Yi Sun-sin for example.

Some are adding to the list with time, but I think that if it's at 13, Darwin and Shi Huandi were already there. I'd love to learn more about some other great people too, but I didn't really dig into it.

I guess that from what I just said, you'd get pretty easily that I am not really fond in many modern people, and especially less in celebrities.

This is Kashiwa Daisuke who @Lianshen mentioned in the interview:

And here is an interview that you maybe like to read: https://wsum.org/2022/05/31/kashiwa-daisuke-interview-todays-program/ and here you can listen to a lot of music video's on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KASHIWA_Daisuke

I really ❤️ the very beautiful answers you gave @Lianshen and you took time to write a lot of things that are special from you!! 🙂 But I wanted to ask why you need a nice teacher to get super good grades because you can easily get very good grades even if you dont like the teacher!! And that is better for your diploma right so it should not be that depends on the teacher. And if you play in Lord of the Rings, which role would you like the most for you to play? 😛 😛

And if for what you want to do France is not suitable, where do you think that you want to live later? 🌎🌍

Oh, sorry, I missed your message. It's hard to answer, but if I had the chance to live in Norway, I wouldn't say no 😉

If you look photos of Norway nature they are very beautiful!!! But my mom said Norway is also SUPER expensive!!! But i hope that you can live in Norway for your dream!!! 🙂

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ PART III

11: In this forum you wrote what is the most important for you in life and you said: peacefulness, health and relationships & time. What do you do for peacefulness and health if for example you are super busy and stressed? And can i ask about your relationship: how did you meet and are you like each other or super different?

Yes ! I think peacefulness is the most important for me. Relationship and health are usually things that have been noted to be reliable sources of happiness to people according to studies in psychology, which I agree with.

The rest of your question is very difficult to answer… First, I don’t get stressed very easily (which makes some people around me jealous). For the rest, I believe it depends on the angle you take to see life. On my part, I take almost nothing seriously, so it makes it easier. I don’t think that I should abide to people’s will and direct my life according to their expectations ; nor that killing myself at a task at the expense of something more valuable to me is a good idea.

Of course, sometimes, you have to comply and get yourself to work for instance. If you are lucky enough, then you are working in a field that doesn’t make a « super busy » time unpleasant, but learning to accept it can also be nice.

That being said, for peacefulness, I included having time for yourself for example, having a nice environment, safety, restful/peaceful place to stay at (not saturated with stimuli), not having to worry too much about tomorrow etc. I guess peacefulness will depends on people, but to me, it’s mostly that. If I can add some pets to a dog, some wildlife and a few details, then I guess I’d be satisfied with that.

For your other question, we met on the internet and are very different on some aspects, but similar on some others. For instance, she is very emotive and might cry for nothing ; care about others… whereas I might not care about others much, without even talking about their feelings. However, we generally have common goals and a shared pinch of madness.

12: You have a sleeping red panda as profile picture! Is that your favourite animal? And what do you like about it? And which animal would you like to see in nature one time?

That’s right, it’s an adorable overheating red panda ! However, it is not my favourite animal, which I don’t know really what, but probably a predator like an African wild dog (so impressive animal in many aspects), a hermine (also symbol of Brittany, but super energetic and super cool, and crazily good predator), honey badger or wolverine maybe or something that hunts or is a bit goofy or crazy.

To answer you though ; I love this picture because I took it at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) in Paris. I went there with a close mate of mine who also happen to work there. I remember it was in summer and we visited the « ménagerie » after going to the building with the « Grande galerie de l’Evolution ». I wasn’t really happy there, despite fulfilling a long time wish, because it was really too crowded and noisy ; with many people not caring as much with the content of the Museum than taking instagram pictures or just going to a famous place to see a famous spot ; neither was my mate who got a headache because of the situation, which also prevented me to spend as much time looking at everything I wanted/read the description (eventually annoy the staff with questions). Thus, I was a little disappointed when we just decided to move to the menagerie where a bunch of animals are kept, a little bit like a zoo. Considering it was really hot outside that day, that it’s probably not as popular as the galerie, and that it was already late in the afternoon – so the place would close soon after – there wasn’t so many people visiting. There, I saw a few really cool animals, like a snow leopard looking at a grandpa in red shirt like if it was a sandwich (for its defense, the grandpa looked pretty much like he wouldn’t be able to run and was nothing but a ready-meal). As it was about to close, I urged my mate to go to the red panda because it’s an animal I never saw and really find adorable and funny, just to see this little guy dying from heat in the most « red pandish » way. I loved it, took a picture, and loved the picture too ; then used it as profile picture !

For an animal I would like to see in the wild… Many ! Mainly predators like I said earlier ; maybe even more the African Wild Dog, although my dream would be to see them hunting a prey.

13: If you have to write a book, what will your book be about? Is it a novel, poems or a science book?

Difficult to say. I don’t think I have the legitimacy to write a science book, but I might be writing some chapters in the future if I keep working towards more science. I also have to work papers/articles if it counts.

If I get really good at writing and communicating knowledge someday, then maybe a book to share knowledge about ecology/conservation someday ?

14: What is the most special present somebody ever gave to you and why did it mean a lot to you?

Difficult to say. Maybe a panda plush ; or a ring. I wear that ring everyday despite not having the meaning you probably think of, yet.

For the plush, it is an exchange as I and my partner both had a panda, although a different one. I brought it everywhere with me, but forgot it in an Airbnb when we visited Paris together. It bothered me very much and I had to fight with the owner for a month or two before being able to get it back (I went there for absolutely nothing once ; and in the end, it’s my mate who picked it up for me). Thus, that Panda never went to Germany, but it visited other places and took many pictures near the sea, in the city, in a field of flowers, on the top of a volcano… in a few countries/regions. I still have to pick it up in the future.

It means a lot to me because it’s the first gift I got from her ; and I use it for making souvenirs/build a story.

15: What do you think will be the biggest new invention over 5 years that almost everybody will use or like?

It’s a harsh question again ! I don’t believe it will be ready over 5 years, but I think nuclear fusion might revolution our energy use, although it is NOT a panacea.

Another big innovation in my opinion, especially in the current context, and since I heard of it today so it seems to become something more important, is carbon captur devices as people might see a potential solution in them (although it is not a solution per se)

Thank you very much @Lianshen for giving very nice and detailed answers and taking the time to write that!!! 🙏🙏 That also makes your interview really special!! 🙂 This evening i will add some photos!! 😛 And if anybody has a question or wants to leave a comment you can do it here below!! ⬇️⬇️

These are images about the interview posted above!! 🙂

This is the snow leopard that @Lianshen mentioned:

The Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (National Museum of National History) in Paris:

The Red Panda:

Wild dogs:

Nuclear fusion:

We have seen wild dogs (also on the hunt) a number of times in Southern African NPs. Despite declining numbers you may still see roaming packs in the vicinity of Skukuza and Satara in Kruger NP and in Sabi Sands. We also had good viewings in either Moremi or the adjacent Okavango Delta (years ago). Their hunting strategies are often considered to be “a tiny bit brutal” by tourists and are sadly not considered equally valuable as the Big 5. Ironically a kill by a pack of wild dogs - I will omit graphic details - can often be considered less gruesome than a “prolonged dinner” of other species with teeth and claws.

We have seen wild dogs (also on the hunt) a number of times in Southern African NPs. Despite declining numbers you may still see roaming packs in the vicinity of Skukuza and Satara in Kruger NP and in Sabi Sands. We also had good viewings in either Moremi or the adjacent Okavango Delta (years ago). Their hunting strategies are often considered to be “a tiny bit brutal” by tourists and are sadly not considered equally valuable as the Big 5. Ironically a kill by a pack of wild dogs - I will omit graphic details - can often be considered less gruesome than a “prolonged dinner” of other species with teeth and claws.

Interesting to read that you could see such a rare thing as a hunting event. I suppose it's related to the habitat that makes it easier to spot wildlife than in, let's say, boreal forest. I checked a few researchers working with them recently, but didn't contact them as I have other plan for this year. However, I would gladly study their hunting behaviour if the opportunity arise, so learning that you could see them in those parks is a valuable information; thank you!

Wildlife density in Kruger draws tourists in great numbers. Please do realize that magical moments in Kruger are often shared with 3-10 vehicles (excluding on some of the unpaved roads). Sabi Sands is more exclusive and shares the abundance of wildlife, but comes with a price tag. Viewings in Northern Botswana (including Okavango and Moremi) are a bit more challenging, but the natural scenery is breathtaking. It comes as no surprise that the acclaimed NGC film makers Dereck & Beverly Joubert call the Okavango Delta as their home turf. When the time comes to possibly venture south, we can ask friends who are located in Maun/Kasane about recent sightings and residential populations of wild dogs.