Author
Hi, my name is Derek and I'm the author of The Dao of Dragon Ball.
Here's a bit about me in case you're interested.
Derek Padula is a website developer, private Shaolin Gong Fu martial arts instructor, video game designer and owner of Young Forest Games, where he creates "Games with Meaning" for PC and consoles, and is also a journalist for the Epoch Times Newspaper.
Derek has been a fan of Dragon Ball since the first two seasons of Dragon Ball Z aired on television in America over a decade ago (1997), and has been watching the anime and reading the manga ever since. He majored in East Asian Studies and saw a lot of correlations between Buddhism, Daoism, and Japanese culture within Dragon Ball and his daily life. This led him to write The Dao of Dragon Ball.
Derek is also a Falun Dafa practitioner and believes strongly in it's Fa (Law).
He holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies with a minor in Chinese from Western Michigan University.
He has contributed to the following video games:
- "Tony Hawk Under Ground (T.H.U.G.)"
- "Pitfall: The Lost Expedition"
- "James Bond: 007: From Russia With Love"
- "The SIMS 2: Holiday Pack"
- "Puzzles of Life"
- "The Soprano's"
He is a board member of the Westwood College Student Advisory Board Game Design Curriculum of Los Angeles and is on standby at ITT Technical Institute Torrance campus as an Adjunct Professor of Multimedia.
The author's journey page elaborates on Derek's process of personal development that began with Dragon Ball and his inspiration for writing the book.
And further information about Derek can be found at his personal website, www.derekpadula.com