Al Jazeera in Mandarin
Al Jazeera in Mandarin Wang Meiping | Producer, Al Jazeera Online - China
Back in 2017, I had the opportunity to work for Al Jazeera Media Network as a freelance translator. My duties then were to translate - and sometimes review - news stories and articles for Al Jazeera Centre for Studies. The work was to be published on both Sina Weibo and WeChat along with other social platforms in China. This was a precursor to a huge career shift for me; and to a promising project for the Network, namely the creation of the Al Jazeera news website in China. The idea was the brainchild of our late bureau chief in Beijing, Dr Ezzat Shahrour, who passed away before the launch. The website in the Mandarin language is the first of its kind by an Arabic news provider, targeting the Chinese population of one-and-a-half billion people. I was fortunate to be part of this huge enterprise. Not only did I gain vast experience, but I also witnessed the gradual progress and advancement made by the website. The website was officially launched in January 2018. Overwhelmed by joy and pride at seeing my first news article, I then felt that a huge responsibility had been placed on my shoulders. I was responsible
for publishing and assigning coverage. Fully aware of the challenges we were facing, we were happy to contribute to the cultural exchange between China and the Arab world. The aim of the website is to provide instantaneous news stories to the Chinese public. It also provides a meaningful context for events in the region. Throughout my childhood, I used to read thrilling Arabian stories. I became familiar with the beauty of the Arabic language through the famous ‘One Thousand and One Nights’. The book, known in the West as ‘The Arabian Nights,’ contains a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales. It was compiled in the Islamic Golden Age. That was enough for me to fall in love with Arabic and embark on learning the language. Having been successfully admitted into college, I joined the Arabic language department at Shanghai International Studies University. There, I conducted a methodological study of Arabic. During my studies, I was fortunate to visit the Suez University under the student exchange programme. In Egypt, I gained a deeper understanding of both the Arabic language and Arabian culture. It was a rich experience of the human traditions.
The digital revolution has recently eliminated many of the obstacles conventional media used to face. It has provided journalists with more resources and additional tools. Al Jazeera’s Mandarin site employed all these tools to reach out to the public across China’s social platforms. As a result, Al Jazeera launched its accounts on both Sina Weibo and WeChat. The response was massive, with more than 200,000 followers and viewers to our news stories and articles.
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