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Indonesia's New TV Station Airs News in Chinese
A new private television station, Metro TV, will become the first in Indonesia to use Mandarin Chinese, or putonghua, in its daily news broadcasts.
The TV station, launched Saturday by President Abdurrahman Wahid, has scheduled a 60-minute Mandarin news broadcast twice a day on weekdays and two half-hour wrap-ups on weekends, besides Indonesian and English news.
The use of Mandarin was banned nationwide from 1965 when former president Soeharto overthrew the country's first president Soekarno in a military coup.
Up until now, there has been no news in Mandarin on Indonesian television because several bans on the language have not been lifted by the House of Representatives.
There are lots of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia who rely on the Chinese language to get news.
"I don't speak English, so I watch Beijing TV for international news," said Hendrik Linan, a China-born Indonesian.
Metro is one of five privately-owned TV stations to go on air in the near future. It is expected to air its first broadcast on November 25.
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