Icrt

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
21

By the way, after 7-8 years in Asia, I am so out of touch with my old self. I am actually looking forward to every Blockbuster Movie that breezes through town every weekend. I was actually excited to see Jurassic Park 3 last weekend. I can’t tell my friends back home.

I also am so out of touch with what is going on in the music world and I shop more than I ever use to. I am not who I was when I left for Asia a long time ago. I sometimes am shocked if I go to 99 and see so many foreigners. So far I haven’t taken the KTV plunge yet. I guess it is not far off. Would have to be drunk to enjoy it, but hell I don’t even drink much any more. I miss good beer. I use to love driving in the US, but now I hate it. Sports…forget it, I am not going to get up so early in the morning to catch big games. Anyone else that has been here a long time losing their native English language skills? I am so use to speaking in Chinese or Chinglish or very simple English. 2 weeks a year back home isn’t enough.

But the food and the excitment in Taipei. I go back home now and it seems boring with things closing so early, and I wonder where all of the people are. I wonder where are the crowds. The USA seems like a big frontier to me when I return home. Stop off in Hong Kong for a weekend then fly to New York and even that city will seem deserted on the streets. Strange…

22

As crappy as ICRT has become, I have to say it did once come in quite useful for me when I was in the army. I was stationed at a base in the hills outside of Miaoli, at a really, really old base, all old one-story cement-and-wood buildings. I was in the guard company, and there was one post that was unique in that it was only one guard, without rifle or helmet, just a stick, at the division HQ building at night. That old building was rumoured to be haunted, and the noises it made when empty in the dead of night made it a really spooky post. When I was a rookie, I got that post, of course.
After a few times I devised a way to pass those two hours in relative comfort without listening to doors opening and imagining footsteps. I got a little radio, cut off one of the ear buds, snaked it through my uniform and put the other earphone in my collar, so that I could listen to the radio and stuff it back in my collar quickly if anyone came round for an inspection. It was the night shift, and usually I listened to Ron Stewart’s show, since back then ICRT was the only signal strong enough to reach that area at that time of night.
Believe me, it helped a lot to listen to Ron Stewart singing happy birthday instead of imagining ghosts in the next room. For that, ICRT has my gratitude.

23

I agree. Why is it the same stuff day in and day out? Being a station rather representative of a blended culture, how about supplementing it with a proportionate blend of music? Some R&B, Jazz and Blues, perhaps? Suggestion are definately needed!

24

ICRT is the best English radio station in Taipei.

25

Please folks, objective thoughtful input.

Here’s a question: Do you think ICRT should NOT market itself as an ESL radio station and instead focus all its attention on us? In other words, it should not dumb-down anything and provide us, the international community, with a decent radio station.

26

ICRT sold out a long time ago, becoming merely English-instruction background noise to let young female office workers feel fashionable. Poor decisions like hiring the likes of Diva and other annoying DJs whose English is good enough to fool Taiwanese into thinking they’re native speakers have hurt them, since it shows they are simply going for the $$$ they perceive the Young Taiwanese Woman market can give them. It’s like the old China market myth of yore, but ICRT should not try to compete with Chinese/Taiwanese language stations and concentrate on their (former) strong point: A real radio station that the International Community likes to listen to. These days, with broadband and Internet radio letting you listen to just about any station around the world you want to, it’s even less relevant. I realize that there are some people at the station who are trying to return to the good old days, but it seems like their hands are tied by bad management (like we haven’t seen that a million times before).

27

I stopped listening to ICRT about 5 years when thanks to twats like David Wang and Charles Mac (sorry, can’t bring myself to type his lame stagename) It was in Taiwanese more than English. It was obvious they had no intention of appealing to the foreign communtity and that I was not in their target audience. I don’t know what the I stands for, but it’s not ‘International’. Even then 95% of listeners were local, no idea what it is now ? As I say, I haven’t even listened to it for 5 years, so I have no idea what it’s like now, I can’t imagine it’s got any better.

And back then when I had to call them about something, there were no English speakers available…

28

My major gripe is not the ESL angle, but that the DJs are too self-indulgent. Too much focus on the personalities, too little on giving a quality product…

29

Rick Munday is the only guy on ICRT WITH a personality; whoever does the news sounds like a particularly monotonous Mormon with a speech impediment; and they’re all TOO OLD and stuck in some late 80s expat time-warp, so much so that young Taiwanese seem to think Foreigner is contemporary American music :shock:

30

one of my majors in university was journalism, specifically radio… i studied and worked full and part time at many radio stations, during and after univeristy… i listen to many international radio services daily, and i have never heard a radio station that makes me cringe more than ICRT… the DJs without exception are talentless and self absorbed loudmouth yobs who never tire of the sound of their own voice although gawd knows we do… fortunately their incessant nattering has a silver lining since it blocks out the juvenile trailer-bog music they invariably play… and their programming actually re-defines the words “irrelevant” and “off target”… i really don’t know what kind of amateur hour pretenders run that station, but they’d be better off looking for a job in one of those psy-ops military units that play psychologically disturbing sounds at holed up hostage takers to scare the bejeezus out of them…

31

Plasmatron wrote:

Have to agree. I stopped listening 5 years ago because of the awful music, shitty ads and wanker DJs. Since then I have occasionally caught it in taxis and thus far nothing I’ve heard has changed my opinion.

I have to say I find the american accents on that station particularly grating. Having said that it may just be the way americans like their radio stations. The G’day used to play a Hawaiian station they get through cable and I couldn’t tell the difference.

HG

32

I will say this about ICRT. It does satisfy my need to hear Mariah Carey or Boys Zone played incessantly by cretins who do nothing but spout drivel everytime a microphone is put in front of their faces. :shock:

33

That’s my major gripe, but maybe it’s because they are appealing to Taiwanese, who listen to radio stations where the DJ hums or sings along to songs…

34

alleycat, if it’s an informal poll, here’s my two centimes:

  1. ICRT is a radio station for Taiwanese people, mostly office ladies with disposable income, and this is as it should be.

  2. When people say ICRT should for "us,’ the foreign community, they really mean, in that selfish Western way again, it should be for English-speaking natives from USA, Oz and Canada and UK, and screw the Germans and French and Italians and Japanese who are also PART of the international community in Taiwan. ME ME ME, they want the ICRT to be for them them them, as if the whole world should cater to them. No, ICRT is for Taiwanese office ladies. Enjoy.

  3. And if you don’t enjoy it, change yr dial. I see my two centimes is up.

Question: why are some Westerners so self-absorbed and self-involved. They travel to foreign countries and then they want everything THEIR way. This is how the legend of the Ugly American started. The poison has spread worldwide, and it’s now the Ugly Westerner Who Wants Everything His Way.

35

I have but two words for you: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY…

And as far as I know, those two words are English.

36

I think you are mistaken alleycat. I believe that I.C.R.T. initially (no pun intended, well, no, i will let that stand…) stood for International Christian Radio & Television, and it was funded way back when by missionaries from the West who wanted to use the radio waves to enlighten the heathen hordes in Asia. So given that ICRT is now teaching lyrical sex games rock and roll and double entendres to tender young things, it’s an improvement.

ICRT is NOT for foreigners in Taiwan, never was, never will be, never was supposed to be. Foreigners are just pieces of sand on the beach of Taiwan life. Why do you always want everything to be done your way, alleycat? And I thought this was a poll, not a lecture. Maybe I am the one doing the poll now.

Anyway, to make a long story short, you’re right, alleycat. ICRT sucks and does not live up to its billing. All the Taiwanese should go home and let the foreigners enjoy their lives there more…

37

Thanks Forumosa, I wasn’t aware that ICRT was initially an evangelical tool.

Anyway, it’s NOW called International Community Radio Taiwan (Taipei).

An ICRT DJ, a personal friend, asked me to gather up some opinions.

And so far, most, if not all, have been negative. He will be disappointed, but I think he knew that already.

And as to your point about it’s always about me, me, me: No foreigner goes around decrying the lack of English programming on Taiwan’s other stations. It’s only ICRT that takes stick. And the reason is clear. It calls itself a station for the international community but instead programs for Taiwanese listeners.

It is quite understandable then that foreigners dislike ICRT.

I do too. I listen in the car in the morning because Rick is a friend and I catch some news, weather, and the music is halfway decent. No scratch that last one.

Jeff’s show is terrible. I can barely listen to it on the way home. He truly sucks; his show does. What a theme he has: Call in a talk about the days news. The dimwits who do call in can hardly muster a “hello.”

ICRT, therefore, is by no means what it says it is.

I don’t know how others feel, but judging by their responses I think they’d like a real station. I, for one, would like to hear a real community radio station discussing and playing EXCLUSIVELY for foreigners.

Most of all, I want that fucking EasyNews off the air.

38

[quote]I think you are mistaken alleycat. I believe that I.C.R.T. initially (no pun intended, well, no, I will let that stand…) stood for International Christian Radio & Television, and it was funded way back when by missionaries from the West who wanted to use the radio waves to enlighten the heathen hordes in Asia.[/quote]If ever (more) proof was needed that Formosa speaks bollocks, here it is

Alleycat, you pretty much got it there. If it said it was a Taiwanese station I don’t think anyone would have a problem with it. But it is claiming to be something it isn’t, a station for the international community. How many ours per day are set aside for English teaching ? How many for teaching Chinese ? How much output as a whole is in English ? Not a lot when I listened to it, it was Taiwanese, Chinese, English, in that order.

39

i agree, alleycat, it would be really cool for someday to have a radio station really targetting foreigners there, almost exclusively, a real community radio station. maybe some posters here with the money and talent can start it. But ICRT aint never gonna change its stripes…

Even in big cosmo intlnal tOKYO, there is no radio station aimed directly at English-speaking foreigners. If Tokyo can’t do it, how can puny Taipei? We’re talking numbers, alleycat, listener ears, advertising revenues. Just can’t work in Taiwan. Not now, not ever.

I think Poagoa has best idea: just use INTERNET to listen to whatever radio you want around the world. Forget about ICRT. It is not for you, me, us, them, whomever. It is for the Taiwanese. Yes, maybe ICRT should change its call letters, but get this, the local girls LIKE listening to what they think is an intl station. It’s sound marketing, again no pun intended.

40

[quote=“formosa”]I agree, alleycat, it would be really cool for someday to have a radio station really targetting foreigners there, almost exclusively, a real community radio station. maybe some posters here with the money and talent can start it. But ICRT aint never gonna change its stripes…

Even in big cosmo intlnal Tokyo, there is no radio station aimed directly at English-speaking foreigners. If Tokyo can’t do it, how can puny Taipei? We’re talking numbers, alleycat, listener ears, advertising revenues. Just can’t work in Taiwan. Not now, not ever.

I think Poagao has best idea: just use INTERNET to listen to whatever radio you want around the world. Forget about ICRT. It is not for you, me, us, them, whomever. It is for the Taiwanese. Yes, maybe ICRT should change its call letters, but get this, the local girls LIKE listening to what they think is an intl station. It’s sound marketing, again no pun intended.[/quote]

Yes Formosa, but my wireless Internet doesn’t transmit as far as the Chienkuo Expressway.