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Five million see Hastings on TV

A television programme about Hastings was beamed out to more than five million viewers in China last week, as the final preparations for the visit of Le Sha, The Face in this year’s The Amazing China Face Race, were put into place.

And that programme is just the first of many opportunities to show off the region that the competition has brought.

Le Sha arrived in Hastings yesterday (September 6), accompanied by a television director who is filming her visit.

Competition organiser  and Hastings District councillor Kevin Watkins was interviewed on video link by Mianyang TV last weekend and the resulting programme aired on Wednesday. He was also asked to send photos of Hastings and the schools Le Sha will be visiting, as well as pictures of Parliament and Te Papa to be broadcast during the programme.

The media company covers the entire Mianyang city, 5,400,000 people, and programmes on Le Sha’s visit to New Zealand will be broadcast on their most popular current affairs programme Tiantian 800. It airs nightly at 8pm.

In preparation for further programmes, the station has started on a documentary focussed on Le Sha at home.

When the winner of the Amazing Face Race competition, Hastings 14-year-old Nesta, visits China, the station plans to interview her for its radio station, and film her both for the Tiantian 800 programme and the documentary.

Competition organiser Kevin Watkins says it sounds like Nesta will be in the “hot seat” representing Hastings in China, with so much media interest. She will be accompanied by her mother.

During his interview at last week, Mr Watkins was asked about the competition, why he chose  Le Sha as the face, his reasons for running it, and about Hastings and what Le Sha would see during her visit.

He said the reason for the competition was to foster Hastings school students’ interest in China, and he chose Le Sha because her home town of Mianyang suffered a devastating earthquake in 2008, as Hawke’s Bay had in 1931. Le Sha, despite losing very close family in that earthquake, had acted with “extreme bravery in rescuing others,  and then been closely involved in the rebuilding of the city”.

While in Hastings, Le Sha will visit some of the schools whose students took part in the competition, including Havelock North High School attended by the winning student, tour Hawke’s Bay, take tea with the Hastings mayor and councillors, and star in the Blossom Parade on a float built especially for her. Nesta will also ride on the float.

What was The Amazing China Face Race

Hastings secondary school students solved the answers to 32 questions on China that helped them knock out the regions in China where The Face did not live and hone in on her city. They then had to use their own initiative to find a way to contact Le Sha, whose name they did not have, to get a code to submit to council. The winner, Nesta Lade, received an all-expenses paid trip to China, which she is taking this month. 

4 October 2017

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