“Our Radio aims to promote China in various languages because many people across the world do not have the correct idea about China. Besides, I believe that Bulgaria is China’s best friend, because it was the second country that established diplomatic relations with China. Therefore, it is important to have Bulgarian broadcasts at China Radio! Our goal is to contribute to the friendship between the two peoples and to the cooperation between the two countries.”

This is how the Editor-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Section of China Radio International Mrs Fanglei Xia explains the mission of China Radio and the presentation of information about the East Asian country in a not very popular language like Bulgarian.

China Radio International emerged in 1941 and is the only international radio in that country. Since then it has been broadcasting to the world and since 1999 has been providing international news in Chinese to local TV stations by opening foreign bureaus in various points of the planet. On top of that the radio runs as its subsidiary а publishing house for audio and video material.

“Today China Radio International has 65 language sections and about 2000 staff. It employs 1700 Chinese, and the rest are foreigners. We prepare materials in foreign languages and also in Chinese”, Xia said in an interview Radio Bulgaria.

Languages in which China Radio prepares content along with Bulgarian include Chinese, English, German, Spanish, Korean, French, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Romanian, Vietnamese, Italian etc. Xia added that the Bulgarian Section was created on April 17, 1974. Its team is 12-strong: nine Chinese and three Bulgarians. In order to inform their audience, editors select and translate news and more durable articles for rubrics submitted to the section by the Central Information Service of the radio. The most important news and news of interest for specific language audiences are selected for translation. Also, each language version has its own production presenting information specific to its audience. Xia said more about how the editors from China manage to maintain an excellent command of the Bulgarian language:

“We have studied Bulgarian in the course of four years in the Bulgarian Studies major of Beijing Foreign Studies University. Most of us have spent a year in Bulgaria specializing in Sofia or Plovdiv. At present we often organize lectures in Bulgarian which help maintain a good level of the language.”

Asked what motivated her to take up learning Bulgarian Xia smiled and explained that she had an idea of studying an East European language. Her final choice came by a lucky chance. In fact, the decision what language the candidate is going to learn is made by Beijing Foreign Studies University. And given that it is hard for foreigners to pronounce Chinese names Chinese students receive names in the language they learn. In this way, the Bulgarian teacher of Fanglei Xia gave her the Bulgarian name Tsvetelina (derived from flower). A logical choice, explained Xia, because her first name “Fanglei” means “flower buds”. It is interesting to know how large the main audience of China Radio in Bulgarian is and what kind of listeners it includes.

“The larger share of the audience of our radio broadcasts is from Bulgaria. But we also have 150,000 visitors a month from around the world on our website and around 300,000 fans of our Facebook page.”

Xia specified that today radio broadcasts take less time in the work of the section while online material and webcasts have become priority. Aiming to promote its Bulgarian language program China Radio cooperates with Bulgarian media.

What are the most popular rubrics of China Radio in Bulgarian?

“The topics related to economy, cuisine, healthcare, and also the rubric Mailbag. The Mailbag rubric is based on questions from listeners and readers. In it we provide interesting information on themes from health, cuisine, tourism and others,” concluded Fanglei Xia, Editor-in-Chief of the Bulgarian Section of China Radio International in an exclusive interview for Radio Bulgaria.

Miglena Ivanova