I have a total of 26 stations: 4 French, 2 Chinese, 2 Arabic and about 10 in various African Languages that sometime provide English programming and the rest in English. When I do turn on the tube, I generally watch Al Jazeera/English. I am very impressed with the scope of coverage and professional reporting. To me it is more informative than the BBC Africa (I do not get CNN International). I find they spend more time on each story so it is more like PBS due to in-depth reporting. They also are not as repetitive as the 24 hour stations in the US. Their investigative reports have helped me to understand some of the issues facing nations and people that I knew little or nothing about.
I also get a geography lesson each time they do the weather. I try to memorize 5-6 new cities and make the change from Celsius to Fahrenheit as my daily brain teaser! One of their major Bureaus is in Doha and I had to look up where that is (in case you don’t know either, it is the Capital of Qatar).
I recently watched a report on the tunnels being built in Myramar with North Korean support and how the missiles they will house will change the balance of power in the entire region. I am sorry to say that I know nothing about this until I watched the report. It made me realize that I need to broaden my list of new sources everyday to be better connected with the world and not just the US and our issues and politics.
I have also watched a portion of a Chinese soap opera with English sub titles that was too difficult to follow all the characters and interconnections and a two Bollywood films. Needless to say I do not watch much TV (the same in the US) and thank God I downloaded over 50 books on my Kindle before I left. I just started Crime and Punishment last night. I intersperse a classic in between novels and business books.
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