This week’s edition of CDT ChinaCast‘s Foreign Correspondents Series features Ryoichi Hamamoto, former Beijing bureau chief for Yomiuri Shimbun. Hamamoto reported for Yomiuri for 30 years, including seven years covering China. Hamamoto’s interest in China goes back to his high school time when he became fascinated by Chinese characters. That experience lead him to foreign studies and Chinese language studies at the University of Tokyo. He joined Yomiuri Shimbun after his graduation. After he worked locally in Japan for 6 years, he started to explore international reporting. His first assignment was in Indonesia, then he had two assignments in China. First he worked as a correspondent, then he became the Beijing bureau chief. Right now Hamamoto is a senior research fellow in Yomiuri Shimbun Research Institute and he’s planning to write a book about China’s contemporary revolutionary route.
During Hamamoto’s two assignments in China, he experienced two important eras, the Hu Yaobang Era and the Jiang Zemin Era. He collected some bullet shells from Tiananmen Square in 1989. He reported on the conflicted anti- Japan issues in China. His interview with a leader of an anti- Japan website made him feel it is difficult for Chinese young people to understand modern Japan. Then how will Sino-Japan relations move on?
Listen to the interview here.
CDT ChinaCast is a podcast series of short and informal conversations with journalists, business people, artists and others doing interesting work in China. For the initial series, China Digital Times bloggers will interview foreign correspondents about their lives and work. The interviews do not aspire to find solutions to the many contradictions and challenges facing China in the 21st century – rather, we hope to offer a personal look at day-to-day life in one of the most complex and dynamic countries on earth. How do foreign reporters go about the business of covering China? What are some of the most unusual stories that have come out of the country in recent years? And what do expat journalists living in Beijing or Shanghai do for fun?
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