One Door Built for Chinoy TV

Long ago and faraway, enamored of my own voice (ahem), I began my odyssey of writing–in my personal handwritten diary and after a while in private, public and commercial typewritten blogs.

The number of views by my visitors from around the world in a day is decent enough to suggest that I’m not talking only to the mirror. But I am no Xiaxue, on the other hand.

Anyway, somewhere in between, I realized that though I might be expressing myself good enough through this medium, I have not practiced to speak up verbally with total confidence upon an audience.

In my third year in secondary school, I remembered famous inspirational broadcaster Francis Kong came to our school as an honored guest for a program. He gave us enlightening advice about overcoming shyness and the power of communication. He conveyed that getting noticed and making a mark is very important in all courses of life and that staying mediocre will never get us to success. So moving forward, I thought I should repackage myself and get away from this shyness that once enveloped me.

That happened mostly in college where I headed almost every group assignment and project we had, when I led and represented teams and presented in class with [fake] sheer of tenacity, and when I opened up to more social groups, organizations and forms of media. More verbal presentations, trainings and speeches came my way after graduation when I worked with corporations, as required by my job post. I became more confident in speaking in English as well as in Chinese.

When I returned home from Singapore, I saw an opportunity for me to grow in this ‘speaking’ / ‘self-presentation’ field once again. I saw one episode of Chinoy TV and thought maybe I can also qualify to become one of the hosts of the Filipino-Chinese program. I sent my application through email and later was invited to attend a workshop.

That was three weeks ago. Today, I completed the TV Hosting and Personality Development camp and also auditioned (VTR) to be the next star of Chinoy TV 菲華電視台. Yup, I just did. Hahaha. Here’s the program flow:

1. Invocation and Welcome Remarks by the President of Fil-Chi Media Productions, Alvin Tan;
2. Inspirational Talk (about success) by Motivational Speaker, Wealth Coach, Author and TV Personality, Chinkee Tan;
3. The Perks of Voice Acting and Dubbing by Creativoices’ the voice master himself, Pocholo Gonzales;
4. Importance of Mandarin by a Filipino who studied Mandarin for two years in Beijing and now can fluently speak in Chinese, a teacher and coordinator of Confucius Institute of ADMU, Cris Garcia;
5. Open Forum on TV Hosting and the Showbiz Industry by GMA7 TV Host, Valerie Tan and Editor-in-Chief of WhenInManila.com and Radio DJ on Mellow 94.7, Vince Golangco;
6. Sound of Music excerpt (Act 1, Scene 1: “16 Going on 17”) by Marvin Ong (Rolf) and Tanya Manalang (Liesl); and
7. The Main Activity: Integrated TV Hosting and Personality Development Workshop by Archie Geneta of John Robert Powers (JRP)

Venue was at the Ramada Hotel, beside Binondo Church.
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For lunch, butter vegetables, pan-seared cream dory with lemon butter sauce, leche flan and ice tea were served. Here’s a screen cap (together with Val and Vince):

From the program, we learned how important it is to have a vision to turn our dreams to reality, how to do ad-libs and banters, project in front of a camera, take in character as a performer on TV, improve our voices and postures, brand ourselves to be remembered and stand out on a much bigger stage.

I’m happy to have experienced this first-time event and to have tried auditioning for the TV hosting opportunity. In or out? I’m totally clueless but I’ve done my best and of course I’m hoping for the best.

Just like what my lock screen states:  

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”

So yes, I’ve just built one!

About Rochkirstin Santos-Sioco

Health and technology freak. Food and lifestyle blogger with a large appetite for food and travel.