Television Host Has Ancestral Roots in Zhejiang

Wu Xiaoli caught the attention of the Chinese audience on March 19， 1998 at a press conference held in Beijing. At the conference， Premier Zhu Rongji singled Wu Xiaoli out and answered her question about the central government’s measures to help Hong Kong combat the financial crisis sweeping the whole world at that time. This press conference was televised across the country. It was the first time that many people on the mainland came to know Wu Xiaoli， a leading journalist with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television.

Though Wu is now well known across the country， few know Wu Xiaoli has her ancestral roots in Zhejiang. She was born in September， 1967， in Taiwan. Her father Wu Zhenfa was born in Xinren Village， Changzheng Town， Xinchang County， Zhejiang Province. He was conscripted into the national army at the age of 18 and sent to Taiwan in 1947. After his army service， he worked in the Association of Zhejiang Fellow Provincials for a while before coming to work for the Taipei National Palace Museum. Her mother Wu Qiujin was from Fujian Province.

Her father once said to his daughter that he hoped she would be the magistrate of Xinchang County after she grew up. The daughter did not care about becoming a county magistrate， but her father’s words made her curious about her hometown in Zhejiang. In her middle school days， she located Xinchang and Zhejiang on a map and asked her father to tell her more about the place and life.

The sign of her future success as a journalist was seen when she was about to graduate from the journalism department at Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. Before graduation， all the senior journalism-major students were required to interview business leaders. Many classmates interviewed ordinary business people， but Wu Xiaoli said she would interview the CEO of Coca Cola. Nobody believed she would succeed. She was finally able to talk with the Coca Cola CEO for more than 30 minutes.

After her graduation from Fu Jen Catholic University in1988， she underwent fierce competition and got herself enrolled into Chinese Television System， one of the three major television networks in Taiwan. She hosted news and a children’s program at CTS. In 1989 she became the best hostess for children’s programs at CTS.

In July， 1993， she joined Phoenix Television in Hong Kong for a program on the finance and economy of Taiwan. In 1994 she hosted two other programs. In 1997， a year when Hong Kong came back to the sovereignty of China， Phoenix Television overhauled its programs in celebration of the epoch-making return. Wu Xiaoli was chosen to host News Express， a key prime program at the network. Later she hosted a talk show and invited many VIP guests to her programs. One of the guests was Zhang Junsheng， the director of the Hong Kong office of the Xinhua News Agency and a Zhejiang native. Zhang gave Wu Xiaoli many interview opportunities partly because she was a fellow native from Zhejiang. Wu had chances to learn more about Xinchang and Zhejiang from Zhang Junsheng. She hosted a 60-hour nonstop live program at Phoenix around July 1， 1997， televising Hong Kong’s return to the motherland to the world.

From then on， Wu Xiaoli did many important interviews. She covered the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing in September， 1997 and President Jiang Zemin’s visit to America in October， 1997.

Back Home

Wu Xiaoli came back to Zhejiang as a celebrity on the evening of October 6， 1998. She appeared at a Mid-Autumn Festival (which falls on the 15th day of eighth month on China’s lunar calendar) Celebration jointly hosted by HK Satellite TV， Zhejiang TV and Hangzhou TV. Wu was warmly applauded by the local audience. At the celebration， she ran into Zhang Junsheng， who had come back to Hangzhou and worked as the Party chief of Zhejiang University. Wu interviewed Zhang Junsheng at the celebration.

Wu Xiaoli visited her hometown Xinchang for the first time on October 11， 2000. She came with her father and some other relatives. Wu Xiaoli visited her half brother Wu Boding， now an entrepreneur running a factory and living with his family in downtown Xinchang. The next day， she and her father visited the Great Buddha Temple where a stone Buddha statue， the largest one in the Yangtze River Delta， measures 16 meters in height. After a visit to the temple， Wu Xiaoli and her father went to see their home village of Xinren. They were warmly welcomed in the village. She felt she was home. That evening， she as a special guest spoke at the opening ceremony of the 2nd Xinchang Tourism Festival. She described her home visit vividly. The home town people recognized her as a daughter.

Her husband Zhou Bingkun also has his ancestral roots in Zhejiang. His father went to Taiwan before 1949. After his graduation from a Californian university， Zhou Bingkun came to Hong Kong and worked for an investing bank. Their shared ancestral roots in Zhejiang brought them close. Zhou proposed three times and was finally accepted. They got married in California on April， 9， 2000 and a big wedding was held on July， 21， 2000 in Hong Kong. They have a baby daughter now. On the birth certificate of the daughter， they wrote Zhejiang as her ancestral homeland.