On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Sinorama, we could look back at the 238 issues, which make a pile taller than a person, and examine the record they have maintained as well as the changes in style. But more importantly, who are the people who set its roots, altered its direction, and broke new ground? What kind of people are they? And how have they worked and organized to make this magazine our readers' choice?
For a long time, you only had to mention Sinorama and people would ask about Lisa Kuan. And, before she wrote the book Sincerity for presidential candidate Lin Yang-kang, you only had to mention Lisa Kuan and people would think of Sinorama. There seemed to be an unbreakable bond between the two. Chen Shih-chi, now an advisor to the Government Information Office (GIO) and then director of its Printed Materials Department, insisted on putting Sinorama in Kuan's hands. He says, "Without Lisa Kuan, Sinorama would have never become the magazine it is today."
In Chen's eyes, Kuan is a highly talented person with a passion for work. "She often put her work even ahead of her family." When Sinorama first came out, the GIO had to take over responsibility for publishing it, and Sinorama lacked both money and manpower. Without a "work-mad" figure like Kuan, putting in more than 16 hours a day, it would have been absolutely impossible to make something out of nothing and establish the structure of a magazine publisher.
But Kuan herself says that she was only able to do what she did because she was pushed to do so by then-GIO director James Soong and by Chen Shih-chi.
Many people are very curious about Kuan. Where did Soong, now the provincial governor, find such a talent who could pull off the miracle of turning a government propaganda magazine into a colorful magazine which could sell in the market, attract advertising, and build up an overseas sales network? By 1982, when she left Sinorama, Kuan had made countless achievements. Where did this "magical talent" come from?
Uncovering a hidden talent
This kind of question always makes Kuan think back on those days with a smile. "It was really an accident that I came to work in the GIO. One of my father's friends gave me an introduction to the Printed Materials Department. I had nothing to do at that time, so I thought I would see what it was like to be a civil servant."
Kuan entered the Printed Materials Department in January of 1977, when Sinorama was at issue 13. She didn't get to enjoy the easy life of a civil servant for long before her superior, finding out that she had graduated from the Department of Journalism at National Chengchih University and had worked in the print media, asked her to also take on the task of editing Sinorama, making her, in a manner of speaking, half a Sinorama staffer. At that time her only two colleagues, in charge of finding photos and doing the layout work, were also assigned to Sinorama only part time.
It was something of an accident that the GIO ended up publishing Sinorama. At that time there were three different government journals for overseas distribution:Victorious (by the Ministry of Defense), Taiwan Pictorial (Taiwan Provincial Government), and Taipei Pictorial (Taipei Municipal Government). The Executive Yuan ordered that the three be amalgamated in order to save money and manpower. The various agencies hemmed and hawed, with no one willing to take on this great responsibility, and everyone was supposed to get together with the GIO and work out a solution. But nothing got decided. Once then-Premier Chiang Ching-kuo went to the GIO for an inspection, and he happened to come in just when discussions were being held. On the spot, he declared that overseas propaganda work came under the purview of the GIO, so there was no need to further discuss the matter--the GIO would be in charge of the new publication.
Breaking the mold
There's nothing difficult about running an official publication: "Just handle it like a regular official document." Topics were set out by the Printed Materials Department, which handled all government publications, and relevant agencies were asked for material and photographs. A suitable person was found to piece together the information, and the early Sinorama issues, covering topics like "Booming Cities," "Sun Moon Lake," and "The Ten Big Projects--After Three Years," were published and sent overseas; distribution was around 10,000 copies.
But after several issues editing and rewriting, Lisa Kuan felt that this pattern was meaningless, lacked the least creativity, and was a waste of resources. She decided to resign this uninteresting job. And James Soong, then still the deputy director-general of the GIO, also felt that it would be difficult for the GIO to do a good job producing a specialized magazine, and that it would be better to contract the task out to the private sector. Indeed, agreement had already been reached with Chang Jen-fei, publisher of Scooper and other periodicals, to take over the job. Chang was perfectly willing to have Kuan stay on at Sinorama, though she would have to do her work over at Chang's publishing company.
It was just at this time that Chen Shih-chi took charge of the Printed Materials Department. Chen strongly opposed contracting the magazine out, for several reasons. First, he had been through a bad experience with Vista, which ended up halting publication shortly after being contracted out. Secondly, he had his own ideas about format, having once translated an English language book on publication layout. And from his daily contact with Kuan, he was convinced that she could do an excellent job if only she could be freed from layers of bureaucratic limitations.
Relying on his confidence in Kuan, Chen persuaded Soong, and he convinced Kuan to stay on as editor. He also lobbied for support from Kuan's superiors so they would give her maximum flexibility within the system. In this way, Kuan began her enterprise, and Sinorama began a new life.
Like a general
Kuan's classmates and co-workers all have been astounded at her command of language. Nor does she herself deny that she has a knack for writing and editing, and it wouldn't have overwhelmed her to ask her to write and edit the whole magazine from front to back. It's just that as a publisher, Chen knew that a magazine with only a single style just wouldn't do. But the GIO had no money to hire reporters. So Kuan went back to her alma mater, and got journalism students to become low-paid "student trainees."
In those days Kuan was the only one at Sinorama with editorial and "real-world" experience, though there was also a GIO photographer able to work on his own and Chen Shih-chi and James Soong would occasionally offer suggestions. Otherwise all the others at the magazine were completely inexperienced university seniors. Kuan had to teach them everything, from how to select a topic, collect material, contact sources, write articles, and build up a store of knowledge to how to conduct an interview and how to dress for the job. Sometimes she even ended up advising them on their love lives.
Later on these once-starry-eyed women all achieved success in their own right, some even going on to be editors-in-chief at Sinorama, but when they talk about Kuan it is still with a mixture of respect and trepidation, and everyone has a basketful of stories to tell.
Hsu Li-hui worked at Sinorama for two years before passing a special examination into the GIO; she is now an office chief in the Domestic Information Services Department. She says that after 15 years, it is only in the last couple that she has stopped missing her days at Sinorama--when life was intense, but full, and she was always learning new things and gaining new experience.
Hsu recalls that once she was instructed to do a story about women in the military, for which she needed to visit the school for political warfare cadres. She met with the information officer there three times, but still he refused to allow her to come and do a report and take photos. She steeled herself and reported this to Kuan. Kuan replied with a single sentence: "To catch a bandit, first catch the chief." Hsu, who is very quick on the uptake, immediately went to find the chancellor of the cadre school, who made special arrangements for her. Hsu and the photographer arrived at Fuhsingkang (where the cadre school is located) before 6:00 am, and worked straight through until evening roll call, finally producing a very good exclusive report with texts and photos.
Once Kuan thought a report Hsu had done on potted miniature plants was poorly written. So Kuan told Hsu to go to a tea house on Hsinsheng South Road which was filled with potted miniature plants so that Hsu could understand first-hand the role that potted plants could play in the lives of modern urban residents. Hsu thus went to the shop to "get in the right mood." She doesn't remember now how the article turned out, but if you ask her about whether she would characterize Kuan as an able boss or a strict teacher, she responds with sincerity, "I think she was like a general!"
Take-off and growth
Although it may be painful sometimes to recall the growing pains of those days, no one says that they have no appreciation for Kuan. "Miss Kuan taught us everything she knew without holding back anything. She told us what to read and how to get the most out of it, held all kinds of lectures, and gave us the opportunity to go abroad to report. My reading habits were developed in that period," says Yang Hsiao-ping, who was in the earliest group of student-trainees to come to Sinorama, and who became deputy editor-in-chief at only 25.
Former editor-in-chief and current contributing editor Wang Jiafong, who specializes in problems of East-West cultural interaction, makes a special point of the sense of responsibility and mission that Lisa Kuan imparted. "We were always thinking, 'how is it that here I am writing for a magazine that represents the country--we can't let Sinorama look bad!' Also, we always wondered, 'caught between specialists and general readers, how can we fulfill our responsibility to write in an easily comprehensible way yet cover a topic in depth, transmit information, and serve as a communications bridge?'" At that time, "it seemed that to do this job well was the highest goal one could have in life. The greatest achievement was to write a good article."
What caused Kuan and her subordinates to want to put so much into their work? "A major reason was the inspiration we received from Mr. Soong," says Kuan.
When Soong was deputy director-general of the GIO, he was deeply concerned about Sinorama. Besides often discussing the layout, contents, and plusses and minuses with her, he also personally went through the finished articles. Sometimes he would be very busy, and the magazine couldn't wait, so he would have to stay up all night to read it before publication. One occasion in particular left a deep impression on Kuan. First thing in the morning, she went to Soong's office to pick up the copy of the magazine that had been left there for him to look over. He looked unhappy and he asked straight out, "Do I even have to proofread it for you?" She looked carefully at Soong, and he looked red-eyed and exhausted, as if he hadn't slept all night. Then she looked at the galley proofs, and saw that Soong had circled a number of misprinted characters. After that the editors were exceptionally careful not to let a single misprinted character slip through.
Broadening Sinorama's exposure
In terms of topics covered, Kuan feels she learned a great deal from Soong. Soong pointed out to her that Taiwan was still at that time a developing nation, and many projects or achievements that people in Taiwan looked on with pride would not seem especially impressive to people in advanced nations. On the other hand, people would be moved by the indomitable spirit of the ill-equipped engineers overcoming all obstacles. Human interest topics, "small stories writ large," would never go out of style, and could be boundlessly interesting.
Moreover, what most people don't know is that putting on Sinorama on the newsstand, taking on advertising, and building up a sales network were all Soong's ideas. The goals were to find even more readers, to develop competitiveness in the market, to give the editors incentive to do even better, and to continue to progress without interruption. As deputy director-general, when he wasn't so busy in the office, he would even go out and promote Sinorama personally. He would put copies of Sinorama on the busses for government employees, and give it away to people at every opportunity. Or he would talk to the owners of newsstands who didn't have and copies of Sinorama on display, tell them how good and how economical Sinorama is, and urge them to sell it. He also asked big businesses to sponsor Sinorama, emphasizing that the magazine has a global distribution network; he asked them to place ads and/or to subscribe to it for their overseas employees.
In those days salaries at Sinorama were low. Soong made up for this shortcoming with emotional and spiritual encouragement and concern. On the last day before printing, when all the staff were burning the midnight oil in a race to finish the articles, he would always come by in person to have a look. Sinorama's editors also grew to deeply respect his insider's knowledge, his insistence on high quality work, and his emphasis on the response of outsiders. They felt that he really understood the business, and knew "the real thing" when he saw it. The editors' feelings could be well-described by the old adage: "The man of letters would gladly die for someone who appreciates him."
James Soong once said that he regarded the staff at Sinorama like family. Therefor he often went to the offices of Sinorama to share information and ideas with the staff, thereby broadening the writers' perspectives.
If Kuan gave her subordinates a great deal of pressure, she put even more on herself. By nature a forceful and demanding person, Kuan gave herself even less room for error because of the trust and high expectations her superiors had for her, a trust so high that they broke down bureaucratic procedures for her. What's more, beginning in 1981 Sinorama, previously only available by subscription, went on the domestic market through a general sales agent, took on an advertising agent, and moved into the Southeast Asian market. Faced with growing numbers of readers, Kuan became even more the courageous soldier, knowing only how to push forward.
Don't look back
In April of 1984, in her remarks on the occasion of the 100th issue of Sinorama, Kuan wrote, "Looking back, it seems like these last 100 months, more than 3000 days, have flashed by. But thinking more carefully, the days were busily chased away rushing to print month in and month out, year in and year out."
"We have exchanged this time for 100 issues of Sinorama. These 100 volumes are a record for the country and society left behind by us working maniacs."
Nevertheless, a record of events was not the only thing Kuan left behind. She sparked a sense of responsibility and of pride in a group of people, drove them to fulfill their potential, and developed in them an inexhaustible working spirit. She made everyone feel that they could do better, and she cultivated in them a sense of modesty to endlessly pursue new knowledge, and an almost childlike curiosity and joy in their work. Of this group, Chrissie Lu, Wang Jiafong, and Sunny Hsiao all eventually became editors-in-chief of Sinorama, while Chang Ching-ju produced two books on the environment that are in no way inferior to those by scholars. . . . Their professionalism has created a model for all those who have since come to Sinorama, planting deep roots for this magazine.
In Sinorama's second decade, there were great changes in the topics and style of coverage. For one thing, by the early to mid-1980s, times were changing: People were wealthier, there was a growing middle class, and the rigid political and social structure was loosening up. Everyone was reassessing and challenging the conventional value system. Meanwhile, the new editor-in-chief, Wang Chi, brought a higher level of reflection to Sinorama.
"Transition to democracy"
Kuan resigned after James Soong left as GIO director-general. Chang King-yuh, the new GIO head, put a lot of emphasis on Sinorama, and he brought in Wang Chi, a professor at National Chengchih University who had edited Scooper under the respected publisher Chang Jen-fei. Interestingly, the staff that had been brought up on Lisa Kuan's strict demands at first found it a bit difficult to adjust to Wang, who is relaxed, has a lively sense of humor, and is warm and genteel in her personal relations. Sunny Hsiao said it well with a metaphor from ROC history: "It was like going from the period of tutelary authoritarianism to that of constitutional democracy."
When Wang Chi first took over at Sinorama, initially she largely followed the patterns set by her predecessor, so people would feel at ease. As the group of young writers gradually became accustomed to her leadership style, she began to construct her own ideal of what a government publication should be like.
First she changed the format. Each month a very in-depth "Cover Story" report (or series of reports) would be done on a single topic. Also, photos would be selected for quality rather than quantity, with the best photos enlarged. Sinorama thus soon became one of the favorite places for local photographers to display their work.
In addition, Wang Chi also assigned the writers specific "beats" depending upon their personal interests. She required that they build up a store of specialized knowledge and of contacts with experts. Her aim was to insure that, even as Sinorama remained a general interest magazine, each field could be covered with a high level of expertise. She also brought in a data cross-checking system such as that used in international level publications like Time and Readers' Digest, with one person specifically responsible for double-checking the accuracy of every fact reported in every single article. She also broadened Sinorama's coverage to include overseas Chinese, the environment, and in-depth travel reports, and also introduced a series exploring the place of Chinese in the contemporary world.
Wang Chi also conducted the first ever questionnaire survey at Sinorama, to find out about our readers. This was the first time the editors had access to such concrete information.
Readers in your hearts
Virtually every time there was an editorial meeting, Wang Chi would remind the writers to ask themselves, "Who am I writing for? Where are they? What story do I want to tell them? Why should they want to hear this story?" She instilled an unforgettable principle in all of Sinorama's senior writers: That the writers, after having explored an issue in depth with experts and insiders, should bring themselves back to practical reality and put themselves in the same boat with the readers, rather than throwing around half-understood "jargon."
Sunny Hsiao recalls that when the Chernobyl nuclear accident happened in the USSR, media around the world focused in on it. She had only a week to write up her article: How could she find some new angle for her readers amidst the wave of newspaper, magazine, and TV reports on the subject?
She began an arduous week, "camping out" in the office. She carefully read everything she could about the incident, as well as about previous nuclear accidents like Three Mile Island in the US, and she interviewed scholars and experts. But what was most important was that Wang Chi was always there to remind her that she had to find out how the incident related to the lives of people in Taiwan, so readers could appreciate the full significance of the event for themselves, and from this feel concern about it. Thus Hsiao was able to delve to the root of the problem, and, from the point of view of Taiwan's resource situation, look at Taiwan's options and determine how this tiny island could avoid disaster.
Chrissie Lu played a key role under three editors-in-chief--Lisa Kuan, Wang Chi, and Yu Yuchao--and later took up that post herself. She repeatedly told herself, and constantly reminded incoming reporters, "you have to go in deep and put out shallow--you must understand the subject in-depth, but present it so that ordinary readers can understand it. The definition of a good reporter is one who can judge these depths well."
She also quoted the well-known expression of Chin Wei-chun, publisher of Business Weekly. A good reporter "must neither deceive nor be deceived." That's easy enough to say, but you must be able to spot the smallest detail, to get to the heart of an issue with your questions, to seek out the answers whatever the difficulties, and to not be led around by the nose by interviewees. That takes constant study and command of one's main beat, as well as of auxiliary lines of related information, building up relationships with experts, strengthening one's skills of observation and judgment, establishing a personal viewpoint. . . . It is a winding road without a visible destination. But for many who run publications or write for a living, this road leads to endlessly fascinating treasure houses of knowledge, and it ends in their idea of Heaven.
A true "service" industry
A magazine is part of the service industry. Almost all those who found magazines have the ideals of the man (or woman) of letters. But in a capitalist commercial society, only government-run magazines do not suffer from the demands of the market, since their goal is not profit. They can truly serve the readers; they are the service industry within the service industry. Take for example the articles on Taiwan's aboriginal peoples that Sinorama began running in 1980. At that time there was little interest in them, but if those early reports had not been done, by the time society began to get more interested in the topic in the late 1980s, much cultural information would have already been lost.
Of course government publications have their own burdens. They are ordinarily attached to the executive branch and lack flexibility. They are mostly run by civil servants with no special training. And the fact that government publications don't have to face the market means they are generally uninspired.
Fortunately, right at the start Sinorama had the help of James Soong and Chen Shih-chi, two men who understood publishing, knew talent when they saw it, and had the courage to make innovations within the system. They put Sinorama into the hands of Lisa Kuan, with her abilities, commitment, and iron will. She in turn brought in a group of naive greenhorns with no experience in the "real world." This was truly work of "plowing the ground without asking how big the harvest will be."
Then came the second ten years. Wang Chi brought out the best in the staff and gave them room to move to a higher level, thereby creating in embryonic form the style that Sinorama has retained to the present day. She was followed by Yu Yuchao, who brought a broad global perspective. And successive GIO chiefs have all allowed Sinorama room to grow, giving the editors a free hand. Former GIO director Yuming Shaw was himself a historian with special expertise in East-West cultural exchange. Shaw spent 17 years abroad, and so deeply understood that international understanding of Taiwan needed to transcend economics alone, and include culture. Only then could there be equal, mutually beneficial interaction. He also saw the growing number of second and third generation Chinese abroad who were curious to know more about their roots.
What is visible is that the common ideas and hard work of these people over the years have created the achievement of today's Sinorama. What is invisible and cannot be quantified is the support of countless readers. This issue's cover shows Lai Yong Mark of Canada and the Sinorama magazines he has accumulated. Meanwhile, to commemorate our 20th anniversary, Brazilian reader Sun Wen-huan donated his complete set of magazines that he had kept since he began subscribing in 1978. Taiwan reader Chi Ko-ching, has never subscribed to any other publication but Sinorama, and she refuses even to watch the TV news that now "just gives me a headache." And Taipei reader Chang Wen-te in one giant leap subscribed to Sinorama all the way through February, 2000.
The support of the government and our readers for a non-traditional government magazine has carried Sinorama through its first 20 years. And ahead of us we still have the second, and the third. . . .
Sinorama articles have been collected into books, and our book series has been well received by consumers. （photo by Pu Hua-chih）
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