AM 729

I seldom listen to the AM radios. Today, I tune the radio back and forth without any specific program to listen. It happened that I found AM 729, the Shih Hsin Radio Station(世新電台).It was Deutsche Welle(德國之音) on the air. For me, the Deutsche Welle is not the same to the BBC world service, DW is in more depth with no-big-deal kind of news, and you won't have American election or Afghanistan news all day long.

To my surprise, they had a special on how the Indonesian ex-Chinese are doing after Suharto's death. These ex-Chinese have been through a terrible life under Suharto's anti-Chinese policy. They are a bit confused. They consider themselves as Indonesian, but why is that they have to be treated differently just because they have a Chinese strain. Some are proud of being both Indonesian and Chinese.

There were some interviews in the program, so I can hear the voices directly from those Indonesian ex-Chinese. That's quite a contact.

My point here is not to discuss the Indonesian ex-Chinese problem, but the media from German that is so different from the U.S. or British ones. We all have been for too long a time reading, watching, and listening to the U.S. media, and unintentionally getting an American view. It's a situation that I thought I can do nothing about it. For if we want to keep receiving world views, we have to receive them in English, which automatically conveys an American view. I am not saying that the American view is bad, actually it is quite good, and I have been enjoying it very much. But we just want to have some other voices to listen to.

I am glad that Deutsche Welle does it in English. From now on, I have BBC, ICRT, and DW to choose.