Tag: journalism

Christmas in Bangkok & Hong Kong

by Jill Amadio

I looked forward to spending Christmas in Bangkok, Thailand. We’d moved there four months earlier when my husband was posted to Saigon, and I landed a job as a reporter for the Bangkok Post.

Writing about an Asian Christmas energized me, and I eagerly looked around the local shopping districts for gifts, decorations, and seasonal goodies for the kitchen. Writing features and pointing out the differences between our holiday in England and America and our current home seemed like endless discovery.

Alas, none of these visions came to a realization. Thailand, like most other Southeast Asian countries, does not celebrate Christmas because it is Buddhist. With three children expecting to wake up early on The Big Day and rush downstairs to open their gifts, what to do?

Ah! Got it! We’d spend the holiday in Hong Kong, just an hour’s flight away. At the time, the colony was highly attuned to British customs, and the big hotels, I was assured, displayed a splendid farang (foreign) Christmas that would enthrall any Westerner. In addition to enjoying the holiday, I planned to interview hotel guests, locals, market stall owners, and tourists. Among the latter I encountered, were Swiss, German, Swedish, and Australians.

I’d visited Hong Kong several times due to assignments and visited the island of Macau to cover auto racing. There were always a plethora of stories worth reporting for the newspaper in Bangkok but I was eager to experience how stupendous this Christmas adventure would surely prove to be.

My husband and I decided it would be silly to take wrapped gifts with us, so we planned to take the kids shopping to choose their own. My editor agreed that I would write about the trip, sending in daily reports and photos taken with my Polaroid camera before we skipped New Year’s Eve and returned to Bangkok. As our last day drew near and we were anxious to return home, we booked an earlier flight.

Big mistake.

It turned out that December 31 was always a massive celebration for both Brits and Chinese, a richness of reporting I decided to cover, even though I had plenty of stories of our own excursions in Hong Kong. Besides, who wanted to miss the turn of a century in this historic city at the southern tip of China?

Our children had never been in a toy store because two were born in Spain, where Christmas was essentially a religious holiday. Our third child was born in the U.S. during a quick turnaround trip to New York and back to Thailand to ensure her American citizenship by being born in the States. My son was already pledged to fight, at 18, in any war that Spain became involved in because he was born in Madrid, but his second sister was registered as American, as by then, I had received my own U.S. citizenship.

Our shopping trip was a great success with many changes of mind as we, as parents, pointed out the mounting cost of their decisions. Finally, having selected their toys and new clothes, and I had talked to several shoppers from various countries, we returned to our hotel. It was my turn to choose a gift. My husband wanted to go out alone and buy me a watch. I told him I’d like a Patek Phillipe, please. Off he went but returned rather quickly.

“Are you insane?” he asked. “Do you know what those watches cost? No way. You’re going to have to settle for a Rolex.”

At the time, Hong Kong was turning out fake Rolexes by the thousands. Most had wristbands that looked like gold but were, in fact, made from anything but that precious metal. Aha! Another good story! In fact, the bona fide Rolex dealer pointed out our mistake when we showed him the watch we’d bought elsewhere. Never mind. The band looked authentic, and the watch itself was confirmed as the real McCoy.

The festive air in the colony extended everywhere we went through the perpetually crowded streets. I knew that more than 7 million people lived in the small British enclave, and they invaded every restaurant, bar, and all the shopping districts in sight. Antique stores added red ribbons to their vintage wares, and the buildings were ablaze with Christmas lights. Even the hotel’s small office for guest use had a small Christmas tree. Laptops didn’t exist back then, but the electric typewriters fit the bill for typing up my interviews.

After a great New Year’s Eve, the hotel manager asked if we planned to stay on for January 6, the Chinese New Year, but by then, we’d had our fill of festivities.

I returned to Bangkok with a new satchel filled with notes and an extra suitcase for the kids’ toys and outfits. In Bangkok, we had to have our clothes tailor-made as there were no ready-made stores. The upside was that a dressmaker charged $5 or $6 to create a dress, a blouse, or a skirt. I’d simply bring in the fabric, show her a Chanel photo in Vogue or another magazine, and she’d copy it.

We left Hong Kong after two glorious weeks and enough material for several follow-up feature stories in the Bangkok Post.

Now, permanently living in America, with stores brimming with seasonal cheer, I wish my dear friends and readers at The Writers in Residence a Happy Hanukah, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Why write?

by Linda O Johnston

As I’ve said before, writers write. But why? 

I’m sure we each have our own reasons for wanting to write and to get our work out there in various ways for others to read. 

Sometimes it’s because we have things to say that we want the world to know about, right, you writers out there? That’s one reason I write. Anything good about dogs is best for me. 

But why else do I write? 

Well, it’s who I am. I started writing as a child. I even had a story about a couple of kids who got together to travel to see the world. My mother saved what I wrote, and I think I have a copy—although I’d have to hunt around to find it. 

And after? For one thing, I loved my English classes, learning spelling and grammar and how to write. I still have an affection for grammar, although it’s changed over the years. Who would have thought that? 

In high school, I got into advanced English. And then, when I went to undergraduate school at Penn State, I majored in journalism with an advertising option. That helped since I also did some writing and editing for my dad, who had an advertising and public relations agency, and I eventually became his employee. Before I became full-time there, I wrote articles for a small newspaper, making use of my undergraduate degree in journalism. But while I worked for my dad, I met the guy who became my husband and he got me interested in law school. And yes, although that involved a lot of reading and studying of law cases, there was writing involved there too. 

When I eventually started practicing law, I did write some legal briefs, then became a transactional attorney. And I’ve always said that contracts are just another form of fiction! 

As I practiced law and before, I also started writing actual fiction, and started getting it published–including winning the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for the best first short story of the year for my first published story—and so it continued. 

Why? Because I loved it. Still do. I like trying different forms of fiction, though now I’m concentrating on romantic suspense and mystery. 

How about you? How and why did you start writing? Did you always like it? Do you like it now? 

Write on! 

A Woman in Journalism – Nellie Bly

by Jackie Houchin

(Note to self: Use this article as a base – review two books written about her – “Ten Days In A Madhouse” and “Nellie Bly & Investigative Journalism for Kids.”  Fill in info from other sources, use the three photos (her in 1890 and the book jackets.) )

Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Cochrane was living in Pittsburgh when the local newspaper published an article titled “What Girls are Good For” (having babies and keeping house was the answer, according to the article). The article displeased Elizabeth enough that she wrote an anonymous rebuttal, which in turned so impressed the paper’s editor that he ran an ad, asking the writer to identify herself.
When Elizabeth contacted him, he hired her on the spot. It was customary at the time for female reporters to use pen names, so the editor gave her one that he took from a Stephen Foster song. It was the name under which she would become famous—Nellie Bly.
Bly’s passion was investigative reporting, but the paper usually assigned her to more “feminine” subjects—such as theater and fashion. After penning a controversial series of articles uncovering the working conditions of female factory workers, and subsequently being assigned once more to cover society events and women’s pastimes, at the age of 21, Bly embarked on a hazardous and unprecedented (for a woman) mission to Mexico to report on the living conditions of the working-class individuals there.
After her reporting got her in trouble with the local authorities, she fled the country and later published her dispatches into a popular book.
At age 23, having established a reputation as a daring and provocative reporter, Bly was hired by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and there she began the undercover project that made her famous. In order to investigate the conditions inside New York’s “Women’s Lunatic Asylum,” Bly took on a fake identity, checked into a women’s boarding house, and faked insanity—so convincingly that she soon found herself committed to the asylum.
The report she published of her ten days there was a sensation and led to important reforms in the treatment of the mentally ill.
The following year Bly undertook her most sensational assignment yet: a solo trip around the world inspired by Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. With only two days’ notice, Bly set out on November 14, 1889, carrying a travel bag with her toiletries and a change of underwear, and her purse tied around her neck.
Pulitzer’s competitor, the New York Cosmopolitan, immediately sent out one of its reporters—Elizabeth Bisland—to race Bly, traveling in the opposite direction. As Pulitzer had hoped, the stunt was a publicity bonanza, as readers eagerly followed news on Bly’s journey and the paper sponsoring a contest for readers to guess the exact time of Bly’s return (with the correct guess winning an expense-paid trip to Europe).
Seventy-two days later, Bly made her triumphant return (four and half days ahead of Bisland), having circumnavigated the globe, traveling alone almost the entire time. It was the fastest any human had ever made the journey. Nellie Bly was an international celebrity.
At age 31 Bly married industrialist Robert Seaman, a 73-year-old millionaire, leaving behind her journalism career and her pen name. As Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman she helped run the family business. She patented two inventions during her time as an industrialist, but business was not her really in her skillset and under her leadership the company went bankrupt.
When World War I broke out, she returned to journalism, becoming one of the first women reporters to work in an active war zone.
Nellie Bly’s remarkable life ended on January 27, 1922,  when she died of pneumonia in New York at age 57.