Max Hirsch began his MA Chinese studies at the University of Hawaii (UH) after graduating from UAlbany in 2002 with a Chinese major. He was also a TA/GA from 2002-2004 in the East Asian Languages and Literatures Dept. at UH where he taught Chinese language courses. In 2004, he graduated from UH and was awarded a Blakemore Foundation language grant to attend the International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) at National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei. From Sept. 2004 to the summer of 2005, he studied various language courses full-time at ICLP. After his studies, he entered the Taiwanese government (Bureau of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economic Affairs) as a full-time translator. In April 2006, he left the bureau to take on a higher-paying, more challenging position as translator/features reporter at Taipei Times, Taiwan's premier English-language newspaper. (Click here for a recent story by Max.) His duties there included reporting for the Features section and translating Chinese news articles and op-eds into English for publication. Recently, he was promoted to News Reporter; his beats include the Ministry of the Interior and civic groups' activities. Since the summer of 2005, he has also worked on an ad-hoc basis for a Miami-based security firm called the Ackerman Group, which specializes in kidnap victim recovery overseas. The Ackerman Group also offers political risk and public safety analyses to its clientele, and his job is to research/write such analyses regarding China, Taiwan and South Korea. Such duties entail international travel and interviewing US diplomats and other knowledgable sources.

Check out the blog that Max contributes to regularly, Thirsty Ghosts.