My days of watching Taiwan TV may have been a long time ago, but the effects last forever. I still feel close to Taiwan, maybe also because I am a little nostalgic

South China Morning Post 
Date: 23 December, 2018

Though I have never been to Taiwan, and I grew up in a communist country whose political system and ideology are totally different, I have always felt a strong connection to the island. This consistent and deep-rooted feeling was nurtured by watching Taiwan TV.

My home city, Xiamen in China’s Fujian province, lies just across the Taiwan Strait. It was within Taiwan TV’s coverage and, since childhood, I immersed myself in watching their shows many hours a day. The deeply held cultural perspectives and thinking I nurtured were not the result of a one-shot message blast, but a strong emotional connection stemming from the world view as perceived on Taiwan TV.

Xiamen is special in that it shares the same language with Taiwan (the Minnan dialect) which helps us understand their programmes better. Exposure to those messages over time should mean something, we tended to perceive the world through Taiwan TV’s angle. Predisposition formed by TV before we attended formal politics classes in Chinese schools was difficult to subvert. “Counter-attack the mainland” was a phrase I learned from Taiwan TV, although with the current disparity in military power it sounds more like a joke.    [FULL  STORY]