Since my last two posts have talked about how I've reached two of the goals I had set for myself in regards to Chinese ability, I figured this is a good time to make new goals to continue to push myself. Of course I have other goals for my Chinese ability that I have yet to reach, but as those are rather big ones, I think it's a good idea to put some "smaller" ones between those and where I am now.
One thing that I've considered doing several times, is a podcast. On a tiny blog, I can only write so much, but there are a lot of topics that I would like to go deeper into. A podcast would also give me the chance to answer a lot of questions that I get. So I've taken this idea and though about how I can incorporate it into my Chinese learning. What I came up with is something that could be an interview/discussion show about topics presented in this blog.
I always feel bad that almost everything on this blog is from "my" Taiwan, meaning the Taiwan I see. But I know that not everybody's Taiwan is the same. Also there are some really interesting people that I'd love to interview and learn more about their job/life experiences/beliefs. So I figure that a podcast could also provide me with a great excuse to talk with these people. For example if I'm writing about the when the Japanese were in control of Taiwan, I could interview somebody who grew up during that time.
As for how this could help my Chinese. Well it would mean taking the time to prepare questions in Chinese, interviewing them in Chinese, and then translating and paraphrasing their responses in order to present it as a podcast that people could understand.
Can/Will I do it? Well it would take up an enormous amount of time, time I may not have because of some other projects I'm working on. Also while it would be great Chinese practice, I'm thinking that my Chinese is not good enough for the interviews I really want to do. For example near a former apartment in a town outside of Taipei, there was a street that was full of brothels for prostitutes who were over 45 and considered too old for Taipei customers. I would love to interview one of these women to find out about their lives and their experiences in their career. However, my Chinese is far from perfect and I don't want to trouble a 55 year old prostitute with my "half" Chinese. I think she deserves better than that.
So who knows when, if ever, I will do this. But I know that I will definitely give it a try, even if that means it's just for myself and I never put it online because it was a disaster.
