First up is The Journalist magazine -- which is akin to our Newsweek or Time magazine -- it's a weekly spotlighting key political and cultural events. The journalist interviewing me asks me questions in Chinese and I respond in English. When I was growing up, my parents only spoke to me in Taiwanese, and I would respond in English. They refused to speak Chinese at home, because they felt it was a language imposed upon them when the KMT came to Taiwan. I learned Mandarin Chinese on my own in graduate school, and only studied for 2-3 years, so I'm pretty limited in my conversation skills.
Next I have a television interview with one of my favorite people in the world -- Dr. Chi-Wei Hsieh -- who has a nightly political talk show on Formosa TV -- similar to Larry King on CNN. I met Dr. Hsieh two years ago, when we were prepping for the Formosa Betrayed shoot. At the time, he was the head of the Government Information Office for the Republic of China on Taiwan -- which meant he was the official government spokesperson for the Chen Shui-Bian administration. Dr. Hsieh is one of the smartest, funniest persons I've ever met and has been an outspoken advocate of the film.
One thing very few people know is that we actually asked Dr. Hsieh to play the role of Minister Kuo (eventually played by actor Tzi Ma) in Formosa Betrayed. We needed someone who was charming and who's English was excellent, and Dr. Hsieh fit the bill. Of course, the major difference was that this character is the spokesperson for the KMT government at that time. And Dr. Hsieh's wife nixed the idea because she didn't want him to play a KMT official in the movie!!! Fair enough. :)
The interview is a lot of fun. Once again, Dr. Hsieh conducts the interview in Chinese and Taiwanese, and I respond in English. Typically it's a live show, but they tape it so they have time to do a written translation of what I'm saying. Dr. Hsieh is great with puns, and during the interview, he says "Young people love to use PowerPoint. But if you don't have the Power, you can't make your Point!" We're told that the segment will air sometime early next week. We'll keep you posted here!
The final interview of the day is with J. Michael Cole of the Taipei Times. I'm pleasantly surprised to find out that he is French Canadian, and we joke around for a bit in French much to the chagrin of the Chinese/Taiwanese speakers in the room who have no idea what we're saying! It turns out Mr. Cole has a very interesting history. He used to work for the Canadian version of the FBI -- but was frustrated by the policies of his government. He met and fell in love with a Taiwanese woman, and they moved to Taiwan. Now, he is the Deputy News Editor for the Taipei Times, which is Taiwan's leading English language daily newspaper.
The Taipei Times has already done some interviews with me about Formosa Betrayed and done some news coverage about the film's release in North America. So Mr. Cole decides he wants to get into some of the more weighty political and philosophical issues that we tackle in the film. It's a fun and wide-ranging interview, different than most of the typical questions I get. We also give him some information that hasn't been made public up to now -- about why we decided to film Formosa Betrayed in Thailand instead of Taiwan. You're going to have to read his story to find out why... and we'll be sure to link it here on the BLOG!
That's it for me today. Only three interviews -- what a breeze! :) Tomorrow we have twice as many interviews, back to back, all day long. Sky Digi tells me their phone has been ringing off the hook all day from people requesting tickets -- and we've sold 3 times as many tickets today than previously!!! Good times! Will see you tomorrow...
-Will
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