BEIJING, China – It may have been the image of CCTV producer Ray Chen jumping off the cliff at Rick’s Café during his show Travel Log; it may have been the five hours of programming dedicated to the island on Radio Beijing, but the Chinese media now can’t seem to get enough of Jamaica.

Last Tuesday, as Jamaica’s Embassy staff in Beijing put the finishing touches to the programme for its August 2 Independence celebrations, the calls came in. CCTV 9 International wanted to know if it could cover the cultural event. Then CCTV 6 called. They wanted to know how they could get to Jamaica to do a feature for their Mandarin- speaking audience.

The Embassy staff, eager to get the word out, isn’t complaining.

“One of the things that has been really amazing is the interest of the Chinese media in Jamaica,” said Jamaica’s ambassador to China, Wayne McCook, who personally handled the calls.

“What we have tried to do is bridge the languages that will reach the diversity of audiences that we wish to reach,” he said. “We had deliberately sought to do both English and Chinese.”

The media blitz began with Travel Log, an English programme.

“That was because we wanted to put the visual images in our language and so the enthusiasm of the presenters from that team has now had a spillover effect even beyond that which might have been imagined in terms of influencing other programmes,” McCook explained.

Weeks after he had returned from his trip to Jamaica, Travel Log’s Chen was still gushing about the great time he had there.

“It was wonderful, the best, very romantic. I was all over,” he told the Sunday Observer during the embassy’s August 2 Independence celebrations at the Kerry Centre in Beijing. “I started in Montego Bay, and then I was in Port Antonio, Kingston, and Negril. I jumped off the cliffs at Rick’s Café, where there’s the best sunset in the world. I loved it. And early in the morning, I woke at 8 o’clock and walked the seven-mile-long beach. Say no more. You never been there, you gotta go there.”

It was that enthusiasm that came across to his viewers who watched the two-part programme on Jamaica. Each show was half-an-hour long. With a crew of nine, including those from Radio Beijing, they travelled across the island for three weeks with transportation, a driver and a guide courtesy of the Jamaica Tourist Board.

While at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Chen was just in time to catch StyleWeek’s swimwear show by the pool. He got another pleasant surprise when he caught an episode of his show on the TV in his room.

While Chen may have peaked the interest of his English-speaking viewers of Travel Log around the world, Radio Beijing has done nearly five hours of Chinese language programming on Jamaica.

“In addition, they have done several individual interviews and programme activities around Jamaican events, largely through the exposure that their leadership (which also joined the team to Jamaica) had,” Ambassador McCook said. “So in both cases (TV and radio) we had the technical and host personnel. And, in the Chinese tradition, a leader in the departments went from Radio Beijing and CCTV. Their own excitement about their experience in Jamaica has had a positive effect on their approach to further work with us on Jamaica.”

So it came as no surprise that both CCTV 9’s Biz News and Culture Express carried pieces on the independence celebrations.

The next step is to do more Mandarin language programmes. That’s where CCTV 6 comes in.

“We have an expression of interest from CCTV 6, the film channel, to go to Jamaica to do a feature on our culture and other aspects of Jamaican life for their audience,” McCook explained.

CCTV has been instrumental in getting the word out about Jamaica and there has been a commitment, from its highest levels, for even greater cooperation. This includes a one-week series of programmes, next November, to coincide with the 35th anniversary of relations between Jamaica and China.