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By Qian (Judy) Wang
The alarm clock is trying its best to wake me up. It is 7.00am and if it’s Saturday it means I have an hour to get to the studios of China Central Television where I am an intern sports editor. I jump out of bed and rush to the bathroom, trying not to wake my room-mates who are still in their sweet dreams.
As undergraduates at the Communication University of China, we sleep six to a room. It seems no privacy but it is quite a big room and we decorate it as for a real family since it is our home for the four years of the course in Broadcast Journalism and we all become very precious friends.
There’s an excellent (and very cheap) breakfast available in the refectory – porridge, egg, meat pie, a small cake or other options for just around 20p. But the food tends to run out after 8.30 and we think this is a trick of the university to tempt the students to eat very early so they will be in good time for their lessons.
I’m in too much of a hurry for that so just grab an apple pie and a small box of milk while dashing to the squeeze my way on to a crowded underground train. If I had more time I would go by bus because it goes through the main street of Beijing and I enjoy looking at the mansions, office blocks and department stores (often of bizarre architecture) rather than gazing at advertisements on the tube station.
I have to be at the studio an hour before live broadcasting begins at 9.00 and the eight of us in the sports unit then work straight through for the next six hours. It is never an easy job, knowing that any mistake will be watched by an audience of several millions. We cover many different sports, from ping-pong to international tennis and golf, from kung-fu to British football and snooker.
But the biggest slot today is the three hours of live coverage of basketball from the USA. Basketball is now one of the top sports in China and we give big coverage to the NBA league in America ever since our top player, Yao Ming, joined the Houston Rockets and became a big star over there. He is very famous as China’s first international sportsman. He is not handsome like David Beckham but a most humble and likeable young man who at 7ft 6ins (2.29 metres) is one of the tallest player in the world. When we show his games, like today, we always hit the highest ratings.
Our director is Qi, nicknamed “Tiger”, who is always joking and enabling us to relieve the tension. In breaks when we are playing previously recorded video I relax by finding time to eat ice cream, fruit or some biscuits.
The last working hour just flies and then several of us decide to do some shopping. This is the favourite weekend activity in Beijing so all the shopping centres, supermarket and restaurants will stay open from early morning to 10pm – some stay open through the night.
Chinese girls are picky about the brands of clothes and cosmetics so the shopping centres are big and luxurious, full of brands we like from all over the world – Nike, Addidas, Esprit, Only, Betu, Mango, LV, Gucci. Prices are the same or a bit higher than in the UK but college girls still prefer them to our own Chinese goods even though we all know these Western brands are really “Made in China.”.It is just so ironic.
(I am to learn in my time at Bournemouth that English girls are not so brand-conscious and that Primark offers a nice choice)
Shopping is definitely harder than work and after roaming through all six floors of two department stores for three hours I feel starving. It is time to call friends for a big dinner now. If you are single, Saturday night belongs to friends in a wonderful restaurant, followed by singing in a Karaoke bar. Dinner together is a popular social activity, seated not at a long table but at a round one so that we can all talk together.
Tonight the six of us who share the room at University eat hot fish, oyster sauce mushroom, beef and turnip stew, Chinese green cabbage, fried chicken, mashed potato and salty yolk with pumpkin. The taste is very different from a Chinese takeaway in Britain.
After dinner we can’t wait for Karaoke time. One of our room-mates, Meng, has just learned some new songs of Liang Jingru, a famous singer in China, and wants to practice her singing skills immediately. Over the next three hours we sing Mandarin, Cantonese and sometimes English and Japanese. We all have such an exciting time.
Since meeting up in college we share all the happiness, vexation and secrets together in such a consolidated friendship. I still remember how we gathered together to give Xixia lots of useless suggestions on getting along with her boyfriend. It is lucky our advice did not harm their relationship; they will be getting married soon.
It is now 11.30 and we catch the last tube back to the dormitory. There are still seven hours of live broadcasting waiting for me tomorrow. I drink a little red wine and go to bed with satisfaction.
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