While taking part in BBC Radio Cymru's weekly radio show, Dau o'r Bae, on 13 June 2008, Cairns was asked to apologise on air, and immediately did so, for referring to Italians as 'greasy wops'.
A short story by Bảo Ninh, "A Marker on the Side of the Boat" (Khắc dấu mạn thuyền), translated by Linh Dinh, is included in the anthology Night, Again.
Dau is a film based on the life of Soviet physicist Lev Landau.
Currently, Dau is the president of the John Dau Foundation which was founded in July 2007 to start and develop health facilities for most of the populations of Duk, Twic East and Bor South counties in the state of Jonglei in South Sudan.
The John Dau Foundation is governed by a ten member Board of Directors that is headed by Bill Coplin, Director of the Public Affairs Department at Syracuse University.