HELLO once again our loyal readers, it’s your river town reporter John Muyamba aka Comrade New Era, since it’s elections time many started addressing me that way, but we cool.
Today I would like to share my recent wonderful experience in China with you my good reader and I am sure you might be wondering why my title is “wait a moment”, well don’t worry I will tell you as the story goes but for now I don’t want you to lose your cool and laugh out loud before I finish my story, so you will have to wait a moment.
Well last week I got the opportunity to be a foreign journalist at the just-ended APEC Economic leaders week, which ended on Tuesday 12 November and it was held in Beijing, China. The Chinese Embassy wanted to send someone to cover the event and I was lucky that somebody recommended the river town boy and they phoned me and I was so happy that I couldn’t hesitate to accept the opportunity.
I mean hello it’s China we talking about, I might never afford to travel there and to top it off it was a big event I was asked to cover.
And so after all the arrangements were done, I took off to Jin Ping’s territory. I enjoyed the greatest hospitality, my experiences were awesome and the Chinese food was astounding though they like veggies a lot and I wanted to eat the Chinese way. I learned how to use the two chops sticks and I joined their clan as a Chinese of African origin though the language was a bit of a barrier but at least I knew one Chinese world “Ni hao” meaning hello, LOL.
Well, I was amused by many things while I was there. They even wash their roads can you believe it and their taxi system is cool once one gets in they don’t permit another customer until they drop you off, isn’t that safe and cool and there is privacy. I also enjoyed working with different journalists from different places around the Asia-Pacific group. The event was hectic, one had to register every step and few could be granted a pass to cover certain events but networking was happening and I even got a chance to be interviewed on CCTV. Since I was the only journalist from Africa they thought that was cool and man that was cool. They asked me where I was from and what media house I represented and they asked what I thought of the whole event that China was hosting and so on.
I loved the beautiful and historic sites of Beijing, the people were welcoming and always wanted to talk to this fellow from Namibia but the only problem is language proved a huge barrier.
The good and funny part was that they always tried to speak English and when they get stuck they don’t just leave it there, they tell you to wait a moment and then they go look for one who could continue were the English conversation ended and so the “wait a moment” continues until they assisted you, they gave me the best English moments though. “Wait a moment”, if only you could hear how it comes out, lol. Well by the time you read this, I will probably be pushing the road back to my duty station in Rundu.
People have looked for me while I was away and lastly I would like to thank my childhood friend Seun also known as Kiki, who is studying in Beijing. He was there for me at all times. Study hard my friend and come home an engineer. And thanks to the Chinese Embassy for all they did for me. There are a lot of journos out there but the call came to me, thanks to New Era for responding to the invite without hesitation. And to my other friends that took me around Beijing, Maison and Chaofeng, thanks I know they will read the net. I can only thank God for making my flights safe and for this opportunity. So until then “wait a moment”.
By John Muyamba