Yvonne Webb

In­for­ma­tion Min­is­ter Neil Parsan­lal has laud­ed the Chi­nese peo­ple for the over­all con­tri­bu­tion to this coun­try over the past 204 years. The com­men­da­tion came on Thurs­day night as Parsan­lal of­fi­cial­ly launched The T&T Chi­nese Week­ly News, the first such pub­li­ca­tion in T&T in the Chi­nese tongue in al­most 40 years, at the Dim Sum King Restau­rant, South­land Mall, San Fer­nan­do. The first edi­tion of the pa­per which is to be dis­trib­uted free of charge, fea­tures Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning with for­mer ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T Calder Hart at page five.

It makes men­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Wood­ford Square and al­so high­lights the prowess of in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­claimed T&T foot­baller Dwight Yorke. The last Chi­nese news­pa­per pub­lished in this coun­try, the Shing Pow Chi­nese Week­ly, went out of print in 1974, John­ny Chow, ed­i­tor-in-chief of the new pub­li­ca­tion, said at the launch. Oth­er pub­li­ca­tions dat­ing back to 1940, in­clude the Chaio Sheng Week­ly, Chaio Sheng, The Chi­nese Week­ly News, The In­de­pen­dence Chi­nese News and the Cheng-Chi Chi­nese Week­ly, all now de­funct. "We have wait­ed too long for an­oth­er Chi­nese news­pa­per to resur­face," Chow said as he not­ed the in­creas­ing Chi­nese pop­u­la­tion lo­cal­ly.

"Chi­nese na­tion­als in T&T have been long­ing for a Chi­nese lan­guage pa­per in T&T to keep them abreast of what is tak­ing place around the world, in Chi­na and in T&T," he said. He said the aim is to pro­vide a qual­i­ty pa­per, one that is ac­cu­rate and rel­e­vant. Parsan­lal ex­pressed in­ter­est in learn­ing the lan­guage to en­sure news per­tain­ing to his Gov­ern­ment "is re­port­ed ac­cu­rate­ly and ob­jec­tive­ly." He al­so took a jab at the lo­cal me­dia ex­press­ing the opin­ion that news­pa­pers could take ex­am­ple from the Chi­na Cen­tral Tele­vi­sion (CCTV), which he said had de­vel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for be­ing truth­ful and did not re­port hearsay. In his ad­dress, Parsan­lal not­ed that T&T and Chi­na had long en­joyed a warm re­la­tion­ship and the launch marked an­oth­er mile­stone in ce­ment­ing that bond.

Parsan­lal not­ed that for over 204 years, the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty has con­tributed to the sus­tained de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try, in busi­ness, sport and in arts and cul­ture, iden­ti­fy­ing the likes of Sybil At­teck, Carlisle Chang and Amy Leong Pang, all artists; Patrick Chu Foon, artist, sculp­tor and de­sign­er; mas man/de­sign­er Stephen Lee He­ung and Willie Chen who wears many hats in­clud­ing those of artist, de­sign­er, sculp­tor and writer. He re­mind­ed the au­di­ence, which in­clud­ed Chi­nese Am­bas­sador Yang Youm­ing and Sco­tia Bank's Richard Young, that a Chi­nese de­scen­dant Sir Solomon Ho­choy en­joyed had the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing this coun­try's first Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al.

Am­bas­sador Yang de­scribed the oc­ca­sion as very spe­cial for the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty. He said af­ter years of wait­ing and ex­pec­ta­tions, the dream had fi­nal­ly come true and he con­grat­u­lat­ed John­ny Chow and news­pa­per Chair­man Chiu Sang on the ini­tia­tive.