Richard Swyston spent six months as English-language news writer
for Shenzhen's 'Channel 8'
By MATT BELLAN
M ore and more Canadians are travelling to China as businesspeople or tourists.
Jewish Winnipegger Richard Swyston had a much rarer experience last year: He spent July through December, 2003 working for a Shenzhen, China TV station.
"I'd always wanted to go to China, so I went," Swyston, who'd just retired from schoolteaching, explained last week."It was always my dream."
He'd already done interviews for several jobs in Hong Kong, when a friend told him about an opening, just across the border in Shenzhen.
It consisted of writing the news for a daily English-language TV news show for that city's"Channel 8", and doing an English-language voice-over for all the news videotapes broadcast on the show.
"By Chinese law, no foreigner can appear on camera. But my voice was on the station and I worked with all the anchors."
Shenzhen, like Hong Kong, is a metropolis of seven million. It's a"new (duty-free) economic zone" that has drawn manufacturers from around the world. Channel 8's reported audience in Guandong, the province Shenzen is located in, is"45 million".
"English is an important aspect of doing business," Swyston said of Shenzhen. And Channel 8 does some of its daily broadcasting in English to serve the many anglophones there.
Despite China's booming economy, Swyston quickly learned how tight censorship is in that country.
He had three censors at Channel 8: One went through all the news he wrote, based on English-language news releases he'd received or local stories he'd covered himself.
A second was a translator sitting beside Swyston, when Swyston worked with one of the news anchors, explaining to the anchor the"context" of world news, because"people there didn't know what was going on in the world."
A third sat beside Swyston in the recording booth, when he was reading a story he'd written. That censor would"pull a lever" to cut Swyston off if he departed from his written script.
Swyston tested the effectiveness of that censor; he deviated from his script, once, reading an English-language news release from the Middle East about Yasser Arafat.
Swyston began by saying:"Yasser Arafat, terrorist and killer of children, announced today...."
"The censor went nuts. He said 'mayo, mayo, mayo!', Chinese for 'no, no, no!'" and stopped the recording.
There is no"bad news" reporting in China, Swyston quickly learned. All the stories he covered and wrote about the country for Channel 8 had to focus on"accomplishments", like factory openings.
"If I saw anything else, I was told I couldn't report on it."
Swyston also learned during those six months how many negative stereotypes persist in China about Jews and Israel.
"I spent a lot of time wth a Ministry of Information contact lady."
She carried around an electronic pocket translator, and Swyston asked her to punch in the word for"Jews" in Chinese.
As he recalls it, the computer voice on the translator said:"Very good in school. Very good in business. Will steal from you."
The"contact lady" would then talk to Swyston about Israel being"an aggressor" and"occupier".
"She said: 'It's in the Chinese army newspaper, so it must be true.'"
Attending synagogue in Hong Kong on the High Holidays, Swyston met nine other Jews, including several from Canada, also working in Shenzhen.
They spent time together, dining out and on other occasions.
Besides the five and a half hours a day he spent at Channel 8, Swyston took on several other parttime jobs. They included teaching"sample English" to 60 computer engineers at Foxconn, a Chinese company in Shenzhen with 70,000 employees -"a city within a city."
Swyston had the option of staying at Channel 8 for another six months. He decided to come home because he missed his family, and was losing weight.
Although Shenzhen is a modern city, it's in Guandong province, where SARS originated.
Swyston stuck to a diet of vegetables, rice and noodles, and drank bottled water."But you still shower with water that came out of the tap," which can penetrate the eyes and mouth.
As a result of all that, he lost"22 pounds"."I was losing weight at such a rapid rate I was worried I'd have to go to a Chinese hospital".
Fear of that, alone, was enough to prompt his return home.
The thing that surprised Swyston most in Shenzhen, despite the fact that it's one of China's most prosperous cities, was the number of beggars he saw in the streets.
"I saw so many of them - elderly with cups, begging for money. Some were deliberately maimed to get money."
Hong Kong is a dramatic contrast: no begging, no spitting in the streets, and an adequate"social safety net" for lower-income residents.
Swyston, who spent so much time teaching and communicating in English, didn't learn much Chinese. But he hasn't lost his yen for working in the Far East, despite the alarming amount of weight he lost in Shenzhen.
"To me, China, with the possible exception of North Korea, is the final frontier," he said, explaining his fascination with that country."It's one truly exciting place, and its impact on the world is becoming more and more noticed."
He also likes"crowds".
Swyston has been interviewed for a new job, teaching and supervising the teaching of English by instructors in Hong Kong's civil service.
"I'm just waiting to hear back."
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