Three television programs designed to teach Southeast Asian languages premiered Aug. 1 by state-owned Radio Taiwan International and Taipei City-based Chunghwa Telecom Co., offering lessons in Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.
Produced by RTI, the weekly programs are each 10 minutes long and available via CHT’s Multimedia on Demand, an online service with over 1.3 million members. The programs will also be broadcast on RTI’s official website beginning Aug. 8 as well as the official MOD app from Sept. 1.
In line with the government’s people-centric New Southbound Policy, the shows were created to help foster business, cultural, education, trade and tourism links with the country’s key partners in South and Southeast Asia, RTI said.
According to RTI President Shao Li-chung, the programs are designed to teach not only languages, but also the three countries’ cultural values and norms.
Citing as an example the traditional Thai greeting, Shao said that while many people are aware it is accomplished by pressing one’s palms together in a prayer-like fashion, they do not know that the height at which they hold their hands has cultural significance. He said that through the shows, this type of knowledge will be conveyed, thereby narrowing cultural gaps.
Founded in 1928, RTI broadcasts worldwide from Taiwan, providing news and entertainment programs in 13 languages and dialects including Hakka, Holo and Mandarin as well as English, French and Spanish. The radio service has been producing Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese-language programs since 1953. (CPY-E)
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