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Thursday, June 05, 2008

Radio Plays

My Philips Portable Radio looked like this one.


My father's old radio is exactly like this one. And we kept it working for many years in Sibu. The bakelite used is another posting. My siblings and I are grateful to this day that we had such an invention in our home.

On Thursday nights for many years in the 60's, I would make sure I had the portable, plastic, green Philips radio on the desk upstairs in our house on Kung Ping Road,Sibu. My siblings and I would listen to the "Family Radio Play" or Jia Teen Hua Jii in Mandarin. Sorry about the poor Pin Yin (I speak but do not write Hua Ye)

Family Radio Play was fantastic to us in the TV-less days of the 60's.

We would cry along with the characters most of the time because those radio plays were mainly tragic ones.

They were full of moral lessons and the next day, we would discuss the story with friends or just with ourselves.

Perhap these family radio plays helped us to learn our spoken Mandarin in an unusual way. We developed our keen listening skills too. Sometimes our grandmother would join us. But mother being always busy, would only be within ear shot. Perhaps the sadness of the tales affected her too much. It was indeed a great bonding time.

Sometimes we experienced the traditional Greek "catharsis". Perhaps that was one reason why we loved listening to the plays. We developed a great attachment to the "voices" of the characters. Because it was so long ago, I cannot remember all the names. Hopefully some readers can remember those marvellous radio voices. Most of these voices were specially selected by the programme organisers. I wonder what life has brought to them.

We hardly missed a Thursday. And there was no repeat or replay.

Here , I would like to thank the programme organisers for making family radio plays available.

1 memories:

I Am Sarawakiana said...

A called a friend up to discuss the Chinese channel of Radio Sarawak. He reminded me that many local Foochow teachers were involved in arranging for discussions and plays to be aired. some of the better Chinese students were also "paid" to be part of the programme.
According to him, the success of any programme depends very much on funding.

So we must all work harder!!

 

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