CHINESE TELEVISION

A couple months ago I switched from cable to satellite television. I had been having some technical problems with the cable service and decided to go back to a dish, as I had been using at my previous home.

As with any move of this type there are some good things and some bad things in any transition. But one of the BEST things has been being able to watch the Chinese Television channel that broadcasts in English. This is channel 455 in the DirectTV lineup and the station is called CC TV9. The station broadcasts are seen throughout China, and now are available in the United States and Europe via satellite.

I am finding the programming to be fascinating. It is very interesting to watch their news broadcasts. (I have not seen one single reference to Britney Spears or Anna Nicole ...... YET). There is much news from countries other than China that you don't see in the USA. You can also see some of this type of stuff on BBC-America as well. Other countries seem to regard themselves as citizens of the world, while Americans seem to be much more introspective and fascinated with themselves. I also enjoy the "Up Close" program very much.

Many political scientists are forecasting the 21st Century will evolve into the "Chinese Century", just as the 20th Century was regarded as the "American Century". If this is true, we had best get to understand the Chinese a bit better. Even if it isn't, we should attempt to understand other countries as something other than travel destinations or another place to be bombed.

If you don't have satellite TV you can actually watch live programing from CC TV9 on your computer. TRY IT at http://cctv-9.com/ Be sure to click on your connection speed. You can then either watch archival footage or can click on the "live coverage" button, to see what they are broadcasting right now.

The Library Director at the Marathon Country Public Library took a trip to China this past year. She spent considerable time with librarians there and noted the speed at which they were attempting to digitize their records. Chairman Mao, for some unknown reason, essentially left libraries alone during the Cultural Revolution, so Chinese libraries have much in the way of old records of their culture. As the Chinese of the 21st century are regarding this stuff with increasing reverance, libraries are beginning to play an ever increasing role in their society.