Olly Wells and his Taiwan-born wife, Emily Ho, live in England, where they run and host a two-hour Internet radio show every evening beginning at 6pm Taiwan time. From modest beginnings, the English Music Radio broadcast is catching on worldwide.
“It’s an Internet radio show for learners of English in Taiwan and other Chinese-speaking nations,” Wells told the Taipei Times in an e-mail.
Wells was born in England and Ho is from Keelung. The couple met in Britain and married there.
The pair set up the bilingual English Music Radio show for Taiwanese students of English of all ages who want to use English pop songs to learn more about the lyrics, with explanations from the two hosts in both English and Chinese.
When asked how they choose the songs they play, Wells said: “We mostly play the music we like. We hear it on the radio here in England and want to share it with Chinese-language speakers. The playlists are mostly agreed upon while Emily and I chat while eating dinner.”
“We have had a lot of positive feedback from our fans in Taiwan. Mostly about how people like the songs and now they understand them better, too,” Ho said.
“We have similar reactions from listeners in China, but there it is more that they like the music... We have listeners from all over the world including Mandarin speakers living in the US and Europe,” she said.
When asked how the idea began, Wells said he thought of the idea while teaching English in China a few years ago.
“I always felt that it was a shame that students there didn’t have a good English-language radio station to listen to that would help them to understand English songs, so I decided to start one someday,” Wells said.
“We first needed to get the right software and learn the technical skills we needed,” he said. “Then we had to apply for the licenses and build our Web sites. It took a few months, but it was worth the effort. Each one-hour show takes nearly four hours to make, if we include the time to edit and schedule the tracks as well as planning and recording.”
Wells and Ho said it was fairly easy to start a radio show like theirs, but that it took a while to learn the skills to make it sound good.
“There are many free tutorials on YouTube that I found very helpful,” Wells said. “Setting up the Apple and Android apps and Line messaging also took some time.”
The couple plan to keep the show going for many years, they said, adding that they plan to include show quizzes so that listeners can test their English knowledge from each show after they have been listening.
To hear the show online in the evening, go to www.englishmusicradio.com.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard