‘Jenny Zhu is not your typical Shanghainese’. This is the caption of an interview I did with The Star, Malaysia’s largest English daily paper. Chow How Ban, the journalist who interviewed me had a keen interest to attest if I embody the wacky combination of being a Shanghainese girl, part of the only-child generation known for brattiness, and if I am a socialist. After one hour at the 50th floor in Bank of China’s headquarters in Lu Jiazui overlooking the Bund, he arrives at this conclusion.
How Ban asked me everything from my grandparents coming to Shanghai to ‘liberate’ the city with the PLA in 1949 to my work at ChinesePod. Not to sound self-important, but I think his wide-ranged questions showcased a personal story of what China has gone through in the past few decades.
Here is the interview, Chinese Teacher to the World. There is also a video version of the interview which will be available in China when youtube is unblocked.
April 6, 2009 5:36 pm
Wah not often we see 朱老师 on video!
超级辣妹！
April 6, 2009 7:09 pm
Maxiewawa,
你完全过奖！
April 7, 2009 9:53 am
Very interesting interview. I’ve been listening to ChinesePod since like June of 2006, so it’s interesting to find out something new about you Jenny.
April 7, 2009 2:57 pm
Hi Jenny,
Why China blocked YouTube?
Btw, very interesting. I’m also tuning into ChinesePod.
Nikou
April 9, 2009 4:48 am
Very cool interview!
Very important point Jenny makes in her interview about not much snobbery being there with the people at cpod.
There seems to be a lot of snobbery around when it comes to people showing off how good their chinese is. Maybe i’m just too jealous when i hear some non chinese people speak so fluent chinese haha!
加油 Jenny.
May 12, 2009 8:47 am
It really is interesting to hear your biography. It was also helpful to hear more about what your parents did to help you gain english fluency. I think your tips about putting the time in to learn English should be given to cpodders as a metric for what it might take the average person to really gain fluency with mandarin. Not the 30 minutes a day, but 2 hours a day, and trying to speak with others. That was especially helpful, at least to me. Thanks.