Howdy!
I ran into my old part time boss the other day, and he invited me back to his school for a talk. I didn't want to go because I was afraid he wanted to offer me some classes for the summer, and I try to keep my summers free.
Anyway, after showing me around his school (which his company bought from another company and kept the name) asked me if I wanted a job being a DJ for a radio station in Hangzhou (105.4 FM XIHU). They would also like me to do some television work. I wasn't too keen about television work, but the radio work I found to be very interesting. They talked about me being paired up with a Chinese person, doing some ESL type material, (but entertaining) plus maybe doing some musical blocks like a tradional station.
Tomorrow I am going to their office to do a recording of my voice. The voice is a funny thing, it sounds good to me, but when I hear my own voice I cringe. It doesn't sound like what I have spoken. I also like to sing, but unfortunately I suck. There is a guy in Hangzhou that has a little band, and he hates me because I used to sing duets with him. Another thing is that my Chinese is very poor, especially my tones.
I don't know how much Chinese censors would let me cut loose on the radio. It would be very clean material, but I would poke fun at common life, like taxi drivers, chou dofu, Baijiu, mah jongg etc. I would also steal a lot of material from famous people. I would like to be able to play musical blocks of many different foreign acts, rock, country, blues. Chinese people like country music (maybe because 80% of the people are rural) but they have had little exposure to it. Imagine a couple of old baijiu swillers listening to Johnny Cash.
I have never done anything close to this, nor have I had any training in doing this. In Taiwan, they have an English language radio station called ICRT (which is dreadful, mainly because of the awful disco/pop/crappy plastic Asian crap they played)
I would love to give this project my full time attention to make it work, and I am excited. They also want me to do some television work on Hangzhou Television, but I am camera shy, and I don't know if I want everyone in town to know who I am. People point at me enough. I even told the girl that offered, "Do you know Brad Pitt?" "Yes, of course..." Me, "Well, I'm not him."
I'll be on 105.4 FM XIHU. Mr. Phil from Suzhou, you are more than invited as my in studio guest.
Senor