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Chinese New Year
Enter -- and Co-Anchor --
the Dragon
By
Ben Fong-Torres
AsianConnections
is proud to present the adventures of Ben Fong-Torres, our Renaissance
man: author, broadcaster, and former senior editor and writer at
Rolling Stone Magazine. This guy's our hero!
Ben
was a featured character in "Almost Famous," the Oscar and Golden
Globe-winning film by Cameron Crowe.
- AC Team
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It
was four years ago ?back in 4695 ?when I was hired to co-host the
telecast of the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade on KTVU. Having
survived one co-anchor change and the Y2K bug, I'm set to help describe
the parade again, this time on February 19, to bring in the Year of
the Dragon.
The following article, originally written for KTVU's Web
site, is a recollection of my first time in the TV tent (or "broadcast
position," as it's called in the biz).
It was February, 1997, the year of the ox. Last
year (tiger), KTVU's award-winning reporter Thuy Vu signed on as
co-host, replacing the departed Elaine Corral. Vu, who was born
in Saigon, is one of the brightest young broadcasting talents in
Northern California ?in the entire industry, in fact ?and we had
a blast, riding the tiger.
Here's how my first ride went.
The first explosions jolted Elaine Corral, the co-anchor
of the nightly newscast on San Francisco's KTVU. But it was just
firecrackers. Workers on the Embarcadero end of Market Street were
beginning the process of carpeting the boulevard with the red shreds
of paper from burnt firecrackers. It was the first of many explosions
to come.
Sitting next to Elaine, I was no less jittery. We were trying
to rehearse for the station's coverage of the Chinese New Year Parade.
Elaine, of course, is a pro anchor. But, for a co-host, she was
being saddled with a first-timer: me.
Sure, I've done some time on the tube, but usually as a subject
of interviews, and usually when the subject is the death of a rock
star. But co-anchoring a live event? Reading from a TelePrompter?
Describing floats?
It was all new to me.
When KTVU invited me, however, I couldn't say no. After all,
who doesn't love a parade? Actually, not me. At least, not live.
For years, I've avoided going to the parade, far preferring to catch
it on television. You can't beat having both volume and crowd control,
all from your couch.
Still, you don't turn down a plum assignment. I'd get to
work with Corral; I'd probably have a pretty good view of the festivities,
and, as part of my research, I might finally figure out the difference
between hoy neen and hawn neen. That's one (or two)
of those things I grew up with, in a Chinese-American family, without
knowing their meanings.
While I did my research, the KTVU and Chinese New Year Parade
teams were hard at work. Preparation for a typical parade begins
six months ahead of time; the station has a writer at work three
weeks before, gathering information from the participating groups
and meeting constantly with David Lei of the Chinese Culture Foundation,
other parade coordinators, and KTVU producers and directors.
In the days before the parade, Elaine and I attended two
script-reading sessions at the station, and that was it. Our next
meeting would be in the broadcast tent on Market Street, where we'd
get a few minutes for rehearsals, and where I'd see and try out
a TelePrompter for the first time in my life.
As it turned out, the Prompter would only come into play
at the top and bottom of the two-hour show. Besides, there were
plenty of other things to worry about. Just 11 minutes before air
time, for example, the monitors, on which we'd see what was going
over the air, went kaput.
Techies scrambled around on hands and knees, shaking and
jiggling equipment and cables. "Get the backup generator,"
someone cried.
Two frazzled minutes later, we got our mini-TVs back. A plug
had loosened. Just slightly frayed, we hit the air, I got through
the first TelePrompted hellos all right (Elaine, needless to say,
breezed), and we sailed for a few minutes. Then the scheduled order
of the parade began clashing with reality. The police chief and
the fire chief, who were supposed to be in separate vehicles, were
riding together. Script change! The scavenger marching unit,
which had four different components, showed up with one we hadn't
expected, and the others were out of the scripted order. Ad lib!
Production assistant Bonnie Lee, sitting beside me for just
such emergencies, reached over and ripped a page out of my script
just as I was getting to it. Other times, she hurriedly ran her
pen over chunks of script. Floats, bands and cars fell in and out
of order, and Elaine and I simply had to go with the flow. Sometimes,
Elaine, used to talking as soon as she got a "Go!" from
the director in her headset, would read my lines, and I'd have to
adjust by reading hers.
Before the parade, Elaine had offered some friendly words
of wisdom. "This is not going to be fun," she said. "To
the audience, it may look like it, but we're going to be working."
We certainly did. And thank Buddha for Elaine Corral. Whenever
I froze, she was there with New Year's factoids. I worked in bits
and pieces about my childhood love of lion dancing, about the lunar
calendar, and about Chinese New Year traditions I'd clipped from
various sources, ranging from Chinatown newspapers to a Tsingtao
placemat, and it all worked out fine. The last strings of firecrackers
exploded right on time, I gave Elaine a traditional lay see envelope,
we wrapped it up, and, afterwards, she still had her hearing.
The next day, we learned that the parade had drawn some 750,000
spectators, and, later, that the broadcast had also attracted excellent
numbers.
Elaine had worn red (jacket) and gold (jewelry) for good
luck, and it had worked. Me? I learned that "hawn neen"
is the closing of the old year, celebrated on New Year's Eve, and
"hoy neen" means "opening the year."
And I can say that my superb co-anchor was wrong. It was
fun. Especially the next day, watching the repeat broadcast with
my remote control.
What's not to love about a parade?
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Ben Fong-Torres, long-time writer and editor at Rolling Stone
magazine, is the author of four books, including his memoirs, The
Rice Room: Growing Up Chinese-American, and his latest, Not Fade
Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock & Roll. He is Editorial
Director of myplay.com, an Internet music site that offers free
Web space, where users can grab, store, mix, play, and share music
of all kinds.
Click to Ben
Fong-Torres Articles Index
Visit Ben's official site: www.BenFongTorres.com
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