ABOUT HOST MATTHEW BLOOMFIELD

Matthew Bloomfield, Chinese name FeiMeng 飞梦 or ‘Flying Dream’ , was born in Montreal, Canada. His family moved to Ohio, USA when he was still a child. Matthew maintains dual citizenship. At age 12, Matthew spent a year in France, where he became fluent in French at a French public school. There, he developed his love of language learning, and also a love for international travel. In all, Matthew has been to 36 countries so far in his life.

After graduating from college, Matthew worked as a school teacher and studied World Music, before earning a U.S. government scholarship for intensive study of Mandarin at Cornell University. The following year, Matthew was Cornell’s Graduate Exchange Scholar at Beijing University, one of the most prestigious in China. As the only two Canadians that year, Matthew roomed with Mark Rowswell, who quickly became a major star throughout China with his stage name ‘Da Shan 大山.’ The year was 1989, and during the TianAnMen student movement when classes were boycotted, Matthew served as translator for ABC News.

Returning to the US, Matthew worked for three years for the United Nations and UNICEF in New York, helping to edit documents in several languages. He also became the first Caucasian to pass the UN Chinese Language Proficiency examination. While at the UN, Matthew took part in an overseas mission to Cambodia, to help organize the country’s first democratic elections.

Matthew moved back to Ohio, and got his Masters Degree in Teaching English as Second Language (TESL) and Linguistics at Ohio University. Matthew received U.S. Government Fellowships in Chinese and Indonesian to help fund his graduate education. In Summer, 2002, Matthew was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for intensive Indonesian language study in Sulawesi, Indonesia. In the Fall, Matthew accepted a job as English Instructor at the University of Macau, where he remained until Fall, 2004. Matthew likes Macau very much, owns an apartment there and considers it a second home.

In Fall, 2004, Matthew was lured to Shanghai to become the first English Director for Saybot, an MIT-funded startup company producing speech-interactive online lessons to help Chinese learners improve their spoken English. In November, 2005, Matthew decided to devote himself to his teaching, training and creative arts endeavors. Since then, he’s earned his living as a multilingual MC/Event Host, commercial voice talent, actor for film & TV, corporate trainer and language instructor. Matthew is very excited about his recent song composition ‘My Home Is Basra’, which he wants people’s help getting it out to the world. At this time, Matthew is most excited about his new venture—The Rapping Professor Gift RapsTM. Matthew gathers information on a private, corporate or conference event, and writes it up into a humorous song or rap detailing the themes, people, sponsors etc. of the event. The Rapping Professor then performs the work live at the event and if the client desires, records it onto CD or DVD for each participant to take home to relive and share the event at their leisure. Matthew started The Rapping Professor business in Shanghai, and is now expanding to global clients, including major celebrities.