China to Chennai: A Tamil Radio that bridges two cultures

25-year-old Chinese broadcast journalist Liao Liang speaks Tamil with such a fluency that will make a native speaker of the language feel envious.
Liao, who works in the Tamil Department of the state-run China Radio International (CRI) introduces herself on the show as 'Poongothai', a name that has become an integral part of her multi-lingual identity and to her listeners in India and around the world.
At the over 70-year-old China Radio, she is part of a 20-odd member Tamil language broadcast team, which includes mostly Tamil-speaking Chinese employees along with a few native speakers hailing from India.
Meet Liao and she would greet you with a 'vanakkam' and her hands folded in the Indian gesture. She says, "knowing Tamil lets her understand and connect with people of India."

"I learned this language out of sheer curiosity. I know it's a difficult language with a tough grammar but I wanted to learn it. And, so I enrolled myself at a university, where my Tamil (Indian) teacher gave me my Tamil name. And, from there my journey began," Liao told PTI here.
Born in the city of Quzou in Zhejiang, an eastern coastal province, she moved to Beijing to pursue an undergraduate diploma course in Tamil from the Communication University of China, and after graduation in 2011 joined CRI.

Together with her colleague, K Manikandan, a Tamil Nadu native, who has been working with CRI in Beijing for the past one year, they have been working on a radio show on the recent visit of a 100-member Indian Youth Delegation to China.

"We interacted with the Tamil members in the delegation and many were surprised to see a Chinese girl speaking their (Tamil) language, and that too with such ease. For me, personally, it meant connecting with them on a personal level and they also felt happy about it," Liao said.
Sanjana Konduru, a student of Women's Christian College in Chennai, who part of the delegation said, "Though I had heard about the Tamil radio from China, I never could imagine its scale and reach, until now. I am now looking forward to hear the show (on the delegation)."
"We (Tamil service) broadcast to India every day. Now, we are trying to broadcast the show on the delegation visit soon," Manikandan said.

Established in 1941 during the civil-war era, CRI broadcasts in over 60 languages from its multi-storey headquarters in west Beijing. On December 3, the network marked it 73rd birth anniversary.