Confessions of a phony traveler 山寨旅人的招供

(Beimen salt pan, Tainan, Taiwan)

I love my job of storytelling, and I especially love what I get to do these days - travel feature stories. But I have a confession to make. I really don't know much about travel. Because of work, I have pictures from all over Taiwan and occasionally other countries, but honestly I have yet to feel like a traveler. What I do feel like is an information center. People come asking me for ideas of where to go and what to do.

Perhaps the problem is, when I am on location filming feature stories, I'm generally quite stressed out. Surprised? In addition to dealing with the usual bag of problems that come up, making sure we have enough to shoot, figuring out how to things come to life on camera, talking to our guide, talking to the locals, remembering to get in front of the camera to say interesting things or make transitions, etc etc etc, I am also greedy and try to take pictures. Not to mention our work hours are often well over 12 hours a day when we're in filming and post-production for these stories. Of course what we show in the story is how a normal person would enjoy themselves while they're there. See? I even have to get in front of the camera and act "normal." So how do I enjoy traveling when I am doing all of that? I haven't figured it out yet. The beautiful sights, wonderful people and interesting things end up in my mind to be all but a faint memory overshadowed by fatigue and stress.

Sometimes I find myself looking at the most amazing sight but worrying about the next itinerary. I feel like such a phony traveler.

Maybe when I get better at my job and I can do it with my eyes half closed, I'll be able to "travel" and work at the same time. Wanting to go home when I'm looking at something beautiful is just not right.

So in an effort to make myself more efficient at hosting, reporting, writing and field producing these features, I started watching travel shows...last week. This means I still have a long way to go, but I think it is a good start. And it was also really good to realize that my job has gone from mostly daily reporting to mostly travel feature reporting, while still anchoring Saturday morning news. I should learn to enjoy this before it is over.

我很愛我這份講故事的工作，
尤其是最近的旅遊專題。

但。。。我想要招供。

其實我對”旅遊”這回事，幾乎什麼都不懂。
因為工作，我常有機會拍一些台灣各地，
甚至其他國家景色的照片，
但是我一點都不是所謂的旅遊達人，
只是偶而變成大家的遊客中心，做專題外，
也成為親朋好友或同事的旅遊諮詢服務。

或許是問題在於拍旅遊專題時，
壓力通常很大。
很驚訝嗎？
因為經常得處理一些出乎意料的狀況，
擔心拍攝內容是否足夠，
想辦法讓要介紹的東西在螢幕上活過來，
跟協拍單位討論，跟當地民眾互動，
記得在鏡頭前說話，做轉場，
還有，因為我很貪心，還想順便拍照，
所以工作時，真的是忙翻了。
更不用說我們在拍攝和後製的時候，
工作時間經常超過12小時，
所以那些漂亮的景色，好玩的地方，
有趣的東西在我腦海裡，
一大部分都被勞累和壓力的土石流掩埋，
幾乎要拿出身命探視儀去尋找才寫得出稿子。
當然，新聞畫面呈現的都是正常人的感受，
好玩的反應。
我還得忙著在鏡頭前裝個正常人。。。
這樣怎麼可能享受旅遊？

有時候看著山明水秀的景色卻想著下個行程，
我覺得我是個山寨旅人。

因此，我決定趕快讓自己在旅遊專題上進步，
有效率的主持，採訪，撰稿，現場製作，
要能至少閉著一支眼睛做事，
或許這樣就能稍微享受到工作給我的旅遊機會。
所以上禮拜開始研究不同旅遊節目，
參考別人怎麼做，讓自己早一點發現”我進步了！”

說到發現，最近感覺到我的工作內容好像稍微轉型了，
之前主要跑每日新聞，現在主要做旅遊專題，
也維持週六晨間新聞的播報，
想一想，雖然睡得更少，但這樣。。。非常好！
不知道現在的狀況能維持多久，
但希望能快點上手，享受邊工作邊旅遊。

(Chihkan Tower, Tainan, Taiwan)