As a renowned and experienced host in Taiwan, Bowie Tsang has always felt the need to schedule and plan ahead for her hosting assignments, including preparing the questions she needed to ask.
But while filming the upcoming Singapore-Taiwan collaboration travelogue show Rail Life Story, where she embarked on a pilgrimage to Spain’s Camino de Santiago, she realised it was the first time she didn’t have to prepare beforehand.
Speaking to AsiaOne recently while she was in Singapore for the Asia TV Forum & Market to promote the show, the 52-year-old said: “During this trip, I wouldn’t know ahead of time who I would meet, so I couldn’t prepare beforehand. In addition, because of the language barrier, we had to communicate through a translator most of the time, so I also became more relaxed.
“Usually when I host, I would be fixated on asking certain questions to make myself feel like I had completed the task, but this time round, I didn’t have a mission to complete, I just had to travel to the destination.
“As to who I would meet every day, what questions I had to ask and what reactions I must show to obtain an outcome, I didn’t plan and it was impromptu. I think it was a very interesting experience for me.”
Asia TV Forum & Market, held on Dec 3 to 5, is a part of Infocomm Media Development Authority’s (IMDA) Singapore Media Festival.
In the show, Bowie conversed with pilgrims on the journey, asking them the purpose of their trip.
When asked if she had any reflections after speaking to them, she shared: “No reflections. Everyone is walking their own unique path in life. I am just a passerby on their pilgrimage, spending time with them for about five to 10 minutes. That’s all.
“I think there is no need to put meaning into everything in life. Sometimes, it’s just about enjoying a short period of time with people we meet and leaving some good memories. I think that’s good enough.”
One challenge she met during the trip was the blazing heat, which could reach over 40 degrees Celsius in the afternoon.
“We couldn’t really film much in the afternoon because it was too hot and difficult for the camera crew and everyone. There were also less people walking in the afternoon so we had to make different filming adjustments every day,” she said.
She added she also had to do her own makeup and had to get up as early as 4.30am if filming started at 6am.
We asked if there was something important she brought on the trip besides her daily essentials and she said: “It’s myself; there were many times when even while we were travelling physically, we were not there mentally. I think during this trip, I was fully present.”
Rail Life Story will be available on demand for free on Mewatch from Dec 11 and premieres on Channel 8 on the same day, airing every Thursday at 8pm. Other hosts include Kit Chan, Mark Lee, Darren Lim and Danny Yeo as well as Taiwanese artistes Pets Tseng, Lulu Huang and Kaiser Chuang.
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