The Chinese Journal of the Americas, based in Sao Paolo, is distributed in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America, with a circulation of around 6,000. Founded in October 1983, the newspaper is now in its eighth year of operation, having maintained itself without any outside political or financial support, a rare achievement among overseas Chinese newspapers, particularly in Brazil, where the overseas Chinese situation is problematic and many newspapers have come and gone in the past.
The story begins with the heart and soul of the Chinese Journal--Yuan Fang, director and editor-in-chief--and how he happened to stumble on a new career in Brazil. He first went there in 1982 to visit his eldest son, Yuan Kae-sheng, who was a correspondent in Sao Paolo for the Central News Agency. Yuan Fang stayed in Brazil for more than a month and liked the climate, the scenery and the people, but he couldn't read Portuguese and he couldn't find a decent Chinese newspaper, which made him angry and frustrated.
"The Chinese newspaper in Sao Paolo back then only carried paste-ups of clippings from newspapers in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Needless to say, the type wasn't clear, and the beginnings and endings of words were cut off often, so you couldn't make head or tails of it. Also, the news was all a week or two old. . . ." What was particularly distressing was that most of the nearly 80,000 overseas Chinese in Brazil were recent immigrants from Taiwan who had arrived after 1950, who couldn't read Portuguese and whose understanding of the country was extremely limited. On the one hand, they needed news translated from Brazilian newspapers in order to adapt to local society more quickly, and on the other, they hadn't been away from Taiwan very long--many of them still had family, friends and property there--and they wanted more information about a place they were still emotionally attached to.
Yuan's altruistically motivated concerns became known to some well-meaning acquaintances of his in the local Chinese community--Liao An-i and Liao An-hsiung, managers of the Chantilly Travel Agency. The two brothers had thought about founding a newspaper for a long time and since they knew that Yuan had been involved with the newspaper business before, they implored him to work as editor. They even followed him back to Taipei and ambushed him outside his office at the Land Bank of Taiwan, finally winning him over with an appeal to both reason and emotion. Actually, he had been itching to have a go at it anyway.
Yuan, in his sixties, retired from his high paying position at the bank in April 1983, applied to immigrate to Brazil in May, received his papers in June, obtained a newspaper license in August, found a location and made a trial run in September, and officially began publishing in October. . . . He started his new career just like that, plunging full steam ahead with no second thoughts.
"When I look back on it now, I was really asking for it by jumping in like that!" Yuan Fang, who earned NT$40,000 a month at the bank when he retired and now makes just US$200 a month as "editor-in-chief cum gofer," quips that he "threw away a golden rice bowl for a broken one."
On the other hand, for a true-blue newspaperman like himself, his running a newspaper in a foreign land is more a case of his "newspaper bug" acting up than the sudden whim of a moment.
Yuan's ties to the newspaper business go all the way back to 1947, when he was a reporter for the Kung-lun pao (Public Opinion) in Keelung. When the mainland fell to the Communists and the government moved to Taiwan, he was transferred to Taipei to cover politics, and he scored a big scoop in February 1950 with a story that Chiang Kai-shek was about to return to the presidency. He was immediately promoted to deputy director of the reporting department and later to director.
Not long after, however, the paper ran into financial troubles. Not only was his own salary under the gun, but he also had to fight to come up with transportation and miscellaneous expenses of the reporters under him. Forced to find a more secure livelihood yet unwilling to switch to another newspaper after six years at the Kung-lun pao, he joined the Land Bank of Taiwan, where he served as spokesman, director of public relations and editor of internal publications, positions still related to the news business.
During his time at the bank he never lost his fondness for the press room. In 1960, after the Kung-lun pao was reorganized, he was invited back by his old friends to serve as deputy editor-in-chief. For three years, he worked at the bank during the day and then at the newspaper from eight in the evening until one A.M.
It was with all the confidence of a seasoned newspaperman, then, that he threw himself into running the Chinese Journal of the Americas. He brought in his youngest son, Yuan Shu-tzu, a journalism major, from Taiwan, and his eldest son, Yuan Kae-sheng, an outstanding journalist in Sao Paolo, to help him get the paper off the ground.
But in running a newspaper overseas, numerous difficulties cropped up that they hadn't foreseen. "The editorial side of it isn't the problem," he sighs. "The hard part, in Brazil, is all the rest of it."
Hidden currents were at work in the Chinese-Brazilian community at the time. After the Chinese Communists established diplomatic relations with Brazil in 1974, they stepped up their campaign to lure and coerce immigrants from Taiwan. Terrorist activities by Taiwan independence groups were rampant, and criminal elements also carried out kidnappings in their name.
An advisor with the R.O.C. Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission was assassinated in San Paolo in February 1984, as was the former editor-in-chief of the China Daily News and vice chairman of the Brazilian Chinese Association six months later. The Chinese community was terrified, and R.O.C. officials of any status whatsoever Stationed there had bodyguards with them at all times.
"Running a newspaper in that kind of complex political situation was really frightening," Yuan says. In the early days agencies from both sides of the Taiwan Strait were looking to back him financially, but he "could not and dared not" accept--first, he didn't want to compromise the newspaper's independent stance, and second, if even the slightest political meddling were discovered, he feared the result might well be catastrophic. So even today the newspaper is still totally privately owned and operated.
Be that as it may, Yuan's status as a member of the Nationalist Party for more than 40 years was liable to give people the "wrong impression." The newspaper's office was indeed vandalized in 1984, although fortunately no one was hurt.
Caught between Taiwan independence advocates on the one hand and the Chinese Communists on the other, Yuan confesses that "in doing business you've got to keep your door open. We can't afford offending anybody." The newspaper strives to be impartial and objective, avoiding emotional language, and has gradually won the admiration and trust of readers.
In recent years, as violence-minded Taiwan separatists have weakened in strength and the political unrest in the Brazilian Chinese community has blown over, the external problems in running a newspaper have diminished somewhat, but the internal ones remain, especially those related to manpower, money and equipment.
As for manpower, the newspaper still doesn't have a full-time reporter, so it has to rely mainly on material from abroad, the most important of which is articles faxed in every day from newspapers in Taipei. That task is handled by two of his daughters, who work in a bank in Taipei. They clip out articles of interest every day after work and fax them off to Brazil. If a major news story comes up they watch the nightly news on television to provide him with the latest reports.
News obtained locally in Brazil includes reports on events in China from the Communists' New China News Agency, Taiwan financial news from our Far East Commercial Center, reports on their activities by local Chinese organizations, freelance articles submitted by readers, and articles and interviews by the editor himself. He also has important news articles translated from the Brazilian papers.
In addition to manpower, finances are also tight. That's not all due to low revenue; the main reason is inflation. "When the inflation was at its worst, they used to change prices in the supermarkets three times a day," Yuan Kae-sheng's wife recalls. "The clerks were worn out just sticking on the labels." The newspaper paid its expenses in U.S. dollars, but its subscription income came in the form of shrinking Brazilian crosiers.
In addition, over the past eight years there hasn't been any noticeable increase in the number of immigrants from Taiwan, and circulation has hovered at just 5,000 to 6,000. Because of the low circulation, its advertising revenues are also low.
Last but not least is the shortage of equipment. Yuan recalls how they often got the Chinese characters wrong in personal and place names at first because they didn't have a fax machine and had to receive articles over the telephone. And since they didn't have the proper typesetting equipment, they had to find and paste up the proper characters for headlines one at time.
They have better equipment now, but maintenance is difficult because of the scarcity of parts and skilled labor. The electricity is unreliable and the circuits are so busy they can't send or receive copy sometimes, not to mention the wear and tear on the machines. Now that the Japanese technician who used to repair their equipment has moved back to Japan, as have many other Japanese Brazilians, maintenance is even more of a problem.
Because of the constraints in these three areas, the newspaper has never really been able to take off over the past eight years, and the physical and mental effort that has gone into keeping it on its feet is beyond the comprehension of outsiders.
"In trying to run the newspaper well, father's dropped in weight from 69 kilos eight years ago to 58!" his youngest son's wife says with concern.
"Father gets up every morning at six, sits at his desk until almost nine and then goes to the office. We never see him "gain until after seven at night," the wife of his second eldest son says. "It's less than a 15-minute car ride from the office, but he never comes home for a decent lunch or a nap!"
At 68 years of age, Yuan Fang isn't running the newspaper for fame or fortune, but simply out of dedication to his work. Now that his eldest son has gone to Chile and his youngest son, in view of the newspaper's shaky future, has returned to Taiwan to pursue his career, the heavy burden of running the paper is shouldered by this veteran newspaperman and his second eldest son.
Looking to the future, in view of the increasing number of second-generation overseas Chinese unable to read and write Chinese, Yuan intends to start up a version in Portuguese so that they can keep up with events in their ancestral homeland and their Brazilian friends can become better acquainted with China and Taiwan too. The idea is a good one, but given the current constraints of manpower and financing, putting it into practice will require a lot of work.
Future ideals there may be, but as the seasoned newspapermen grows older, the "crisis consciousness" at the newspaper remains. How much longer can it hold out? That's a question that Yuan probably doesn't want to think about and that others aren't callous enough to ask!
[Picture Caption]
To run the newspaper well, Yuan Fang, nearly 70, still works more than 12 hours a day.
The staff poses for a quick picture just before getting off work.
The newspaper has 17 employees, all of Chinese ancestry. Because of in sufficient manpower, each of them has to wear several hats.
With a six-page edition on Tuesday and Thursday and an eight-page edition on Saturday, the staff has its hands full keeping up with the work.
Kuan-yin Temple in downtown Sac Paolo is another powerful force in comforting the homesickness of overseas Chinese.
The Chinese Journal is known as "the largest Chinese language newspaper in South America." This is a copy of it from eight years ago.
The Chinese Journal of the Americas not only helps overseas Chinese relieve their thirst for news from home, it also serves as an excellent reference guide for firms in Taiwan thinking about doing business in Brazil.
The staff poses for a quick picture just before getting off work.
The newspaper has 17 employees, all of Chinese ancestry. Because of in sufficient manpower, each of them has to wear several hats.
With a six-page edition on Tuesday and Thursday and an eight-page edition on Saturday, the staff has its hands full keeping up with the work.
Kuan-yin Temple in downtown Sac Paolo is another powerful force in comforting the homesickness of overseas Chinese.
The Chinese Journal is known as "the largest Chinese language newspaper in South America." This is a copy of it from eight years ago.
The Chinese Journal of the Americas not only helps overseas Chinese relieve their thirst for news from home, it also serves as an excellent reference guide for firms in Taiwan thinking about doing business in Brazil.
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