It is now 8 a.m. on November 4, 2024, French time and 3 p.m. Beijing time. You’re listening to the Coffee Break News Podcast. The title of this episode is: Introducing Coffee Break News.
Hello friends. My name is Nathan, Rao Nan. Today, I’m happy to say, the Coffee Break News podcast has begun. I have been thinking about starting coffee break journalism since last year. But just thinking about it is not enough, you also have to actually do it. We spent a lot of time preparing last month. Now we really get started. First of all, I want to tell you that in the show, you will hear a new voice. This voice comes from our friend Wenjia. Who is Wenjia? Let’s ask her to introduce herself.
(Wenjia’s self-introduction)
Hello everyone, I’m Wenjia, and I’m very happy to join Tea Break Chinese! I am also very happy to start a coffee break with friends who share common interests and hobbies. I am a Chinese teacher living in the Netherlands. I have been teaching Chinese for 12 years and my students come from many different countries. Giving them Chinese lessons makes my life very happy.
Thank you, Wenjia. Looking forward to working with you. In fact, in recent months, several episodes of the Tea Break Chinese Podcast were written by Wen Jia and me. Also working with us are Enchil and Derrick. Although you haven’t heard their voices, their work is very, very important.
Why start doing coffee break journalism? Let me tell you about it.
Every day, a lot of things happen in this world. Every day, we want to know what is going on in the world. What do we do? Some people watch TV, some read newspapers, some read social media… and of course, some listen to the radio and listen to podcasts.
Who is doing this news? Who is writing these news? Sometimes, news organizations are government-owned. Sometimes, the news is done by very, very large companies. What are these big, big companies? They all have a lot of reporters, they have beautiful websites, they make beautiful videos… what do they not have? I want to tell you about my own experience.
I have lived in China and also in Western countries. I read the news in Chinese. I also read news in other languages. Sometimes I’m really surprised. For the same thing, some news applauds and some news criticizes. For the same person, some news says he is a hero, and some news says he is a bad guy. Sometimes, all Chinese people are paying attention to one thing, but no one in the world knows about it. Sometimes, the whole world is paying attention to one thing, but in China, no one cares. I wonder if you feel this way?
So, those big news organizations, what do they not have? They have no independent thoughts or independent opinions. Before writing the news, they already know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. If this good guy does a bad thing, these news organizations will also say that he did a good job. If a bad guy does a good thing, these news organizations will also say he never did a good thing. Language is really an art. Sometimes we can turn good things into bad things. Sometimes, we can turn bad people into good people. I really don’t understand.
Now, we’re going to start doing coffee break news. What should we do? My idea is that we try not to say who is good or who is bad. We just want to tell you what happened today. We will talk about a lot of things that happened in China. We also talk about a lot of things happening around the world. We all say.
In terms of language, we will still speak to everyone in simple Chinese. We have been looking for it for a long time and found that there is no other program that tells everyone the news in simple Chinese like ours. Probably, doing journalism takes a long time. Maybe, it’s not very profitable to do journalism. I have no idea. In short, I feel that doing a coffee break news podcast is a very important thing.
What will we do? Every week, we bring you two episodes. Each episode is not too long, about seven or eight minutes. We just said: We can talk about Chinese news, and we can also talk about international news. Most of the time, we will talk about what is happening in China, because we want to introduce to you the latest news about China. Then, decide for yourself who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. We don’t want to tell you.
You can hear us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. What should you do if you don’t understand something? I welcome you to check out the Tea Break Chinese website. We will put the original text of all news on the website for free. This way, you can listen and read at the same time. Learn Chinese and learn the news at the same time.
Three years ago, we started the Tea Break Chinese Podcast. Everyone has been encouraging us, so now we have the confidence to do coffee break news. If you like what we do, please drop us an email and let us know. If you have any suggestions, please let us know. We will continue to work hard to produce Chinese programs and introduce the real China to everyone.
So, that’s it for episode 0 of the Coffee Break News podcast. See you soon.
