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During the week I had the pleasure to speak to a group of great students at Nanjing’s University of Finance and Economics. Whilst there I met one bright young fellow, a Mr. Chen – English name Bill, who asked me the following favor, “Could you write an editorial column about the language and cultural barriers you must overcome as a Chinese journalist in an English speaking country.” So with this in mind – I thought it best actually to ask for the help of one of my Chinese colleagues here, who himself spent time at a US newspaper, Mr. Zhao, referred to here as Frank. Now regarding the first question which concerned the language barriers needed to be overcome as a Chinese journalist in an English speaking country for Frank this wasn’t so much an issue as he had already had years of studying English, at an undergrad and later as a post grad. What he did mention was that he began to pay more attention to the subtleties of the language and nuance, the finer meaning often lost by intermediate language learners. In terms of the cultural barriers one may encounter Frank remembered two incidents that stood out. The first was when he covered a story about a group of animal rights protestors who in this case were women and took off their clothes and put themselves in a cage. (What a great story I thought!) Second was during Independence Day when many co-workers clad themselves in the national flag which Frank mentioned was less common or acceptable here. | 
