编者按：今年是中国改革开放40周年。中国日报推出系列专访，报道那些经历或见证这一重要进程的人物。
靳羽西：将中国介绍给世界
——靳羽西80年代的旅游节目打破常规，之后推出的化妆品系列激励人心
记者：王林艳
如今，中国人去国外旅游、留学，在电影院看好莱坞大片，在网上购买国际时尚品牌，与世界各地的人做生意。但在32年前的1986年，中国人主要是通过看一档电视节目——靳羽西制作并主持的《世界各地》，才看见外面的世界。
《世界各地》每集时长15分钟，每周用中文和英文各播一次，是中国第一档电视旅游节目。它将西方社会面貌呈现给3亿中国观众。观众从节目中看到了埃及的金字塔、希腊的雅典卫城、英国的泰晤士河和美国的棒球比赛，等等。
这个节目还汇集了各种想法和各种社会问题。
“在那个年代，我们在节目里讨论生态问题、环境问题、穷人住房问题、瑞典妇女平权问题。我讨论诸如此类的问题，这都是那个时候他们（中国人）从未想过的，”靳羽西说，“我的目标就是为中国人提供全球视野。”
《世界各地》播放了一年，在中国中央电视台共播出48集，内容涵盖14个国家。它使靳羽西成为在中国拥有最多观众的电视名人。
靳羽西说，最称奇的事是，在她的节目播出之前，这么多中国人从未看到过外面的世界。她说，这个节目改变了中国人的“视野和心态”。
“很多中国人对我说，‘我从来都不知道外面的世界原来是这样的。你真地启发了我’。有时候我走在纽约街头，会有女性过来对我说，‘我想要谢谢你。因为你启发了我，我才来到这里’。”
《世界各地》使靳羽西成为焦点人物，她不仅赢得了媒体报道的盛赞，而且收到了观众无数的来信。一家杂志称她为“当代的马可·波罗”，《纽约时报》则写道：“靳羽西的节目对中国、美国乃至世界其他地方都有积极意义。”
“在去年几次对中国的访问中，我感受到了中国人极大的热情和喜爱，就好像我是一个回国探亲的亲戚，或是一个久未谋面的朋友。”靳羽西在她同样名为《世界各地》的回忆录中写道。“每到一处，中国人给予我的真真切切的温暖都令我深深感动。”
《世界各地》这本书于1987年出版，写作的起因是当时的广播电影电视部部长艾知生请她写本关于怎样制作电视节目的书。“他说，我们不知道如何制作电视节目，这本书能教会中国人怎么做。”靳羽西回忆道。当时中央电视台每天只播出6个小时的节目，所以她觉得“这是我听过的最棒的事情之一了”。
在《世界各地》得到官方批准之前，靳羽西需要做三个样片。为了尽力表现得“非常礼貌”，她学着当时电视上中国记者的着装风格，在样片中穿了一件衬衫，配黑色外套，画了淡妆。靳羽西回忆道，艾部长看了样片后问她：“你在美国主持节目也这么穿吗？”他鼓励她在中国主持节目跟在美国主持节目一样，“因为我们想向你学习”。
“那种感觉太棒了，”靳羽西笑着说。
赋予女性能力
《世界各地》播出之后，靳羽西便成了中国家喻户晓的人物。
她的经典发型——被称为羽西头——和她的西式妆容与服饰令上世纪八十年代的中国人着迷。那时候人们的穿衣风格类似，看起来也一样，留着短发，不化妆。
“那时，在嘴唇上涂口红着实是个怪异的想法。那时候只有女演员才涂口红。现在，在嘴唇上涂口红就跟早晨把牙膏挤到牙刷上一样平常，”靳羽西在她纽约公寓里进行的一个采访中说。
靳羽西于1992年9月在上海推出了第一批羽西品牌化妆品产品系列，这是她在广东深圳注册了一家公司两年后。
专柜开幕仪式在上海第一百货商店举行。当天，商店内挤满了想要看靳羽西的人们，人多得让警察难以维持秩序。靳羽西不得不把活动挪到一个更大的场地——华联商厦，她在那里与粉丝交流，并向他们示范怎样化妆。羽西品牌专柜首日销售额达到2万人民币（当时约3千6百美元）。
“这就像是一缕新鲜空气，就像我们的电视节目，”靳羽西回忆道，“我们用颜色装点了整个国家。这让人感到愉悦——你可以有自己个人的打扮，你不需要跟其他人一样。你就是你。我们的想法是赋能。这种精神比其他任何事情都更重要。”
中国化妆品市场的潜力随着改革开放的进程得到了释放。靳羽西的化妆品公司从最初的上海3家店扩张到中国250个城市的800多家店，在市场份额和销售额方面，公司很多年都位居行业第一。
“我们的销售额是百货商店其他柜台的十倍。我们的影响力很大。并且这种影响力赋能于女性，”靳羽西说。
此后，她从1200位中国申请者中挑选出30位参加化妆技巧课程。这些人是中国第一批美容顾问，他们在销售化妆品时为顾客化妆，与他们分享化妆技巧。
“在我的化妆品面市之前，中国人从未听说过‘时尚’这个词。我们将时尚带到了中国。这时，中国女性开始说‘我想变漂亮’。这是中国时尚的开始，”她说。
如同《世界各地》电视节目，靳羽西的化妆品也影响了数百万中国女性，远在互联网来临之前。
靳羽西说社会发生改变的原因很简单。
“第一，中国政府想要改变。他们想要在多个方面发生改变，他们想要改革开放，”她说。“但是如果人们对外部世界一无所知，你怎么能开放呢？所以他们很聪明，他们用电视……他们想用电视来教育人们。这是最重要的。”
第二个原因是，中国人已经准备好迎接改变，她说。“我曾担心有人会说我做的事对中国是有害的。我非常害怕。但事实恰恰相反，因为中国女性已经准备好要让自己看起来不同。”
靳羽西说，关键词是“准备好”。她补充道，她只是在合适的时间出现在合适的地点。
“人们很好奇，他们也准备好了，而我刚好是做事的那个人。一切都是恰到好处，”她说。“如果我现在制作一个新的电视节目，它不会有当时那么大的影响力。如果我今天推出新的化妆品，它也不会有当时那么大的影响力。它们会很成功，但是不会有当时那么大的影响力。”
中国游记
获奖周播电视节目《看东方》在美国播出之后，靳羽西被誉为第一个连接东方和西方的电视记者。这是她制作的第一档主要节目，也是第一档向美国观众介绍包括泰国、马来西亚和新加坡等亚洲国家文化的节目。
靳羽西发现西方人对亚洲，尤其是对中国，不甚了解。她认为帮助美国和中国更好地了解彼此是她的职责。她在1988年制作并主持了一部电视记录片，名叫《变化中的中国》。
靳羽西从她的家乡广西壮族自治区的桂林开始，北上到上海、杭州，最后来到中国东北黑龙江省哈尔滨市。每到一个城市，她都拍了纪录片来展现当地人的日常生活，以及他们在改革开放过程中所经历的变化。
1988年6月22日，这部时长一个小时的纪录片在华盛顿的WUSA-TV电视台播出。为了成为连接中美沟通之桥，靳羽西付出了种种努力。她的努力获得了美国国会的认可，被载入《参议院国会记录》，同时她还被授予“平民大使”称号。1988年7月27日的《参议院国会记录》写道，该节目“在规模和主题上都是无与伦比的”。
“靳羽西的纪录片让我们开了眼界，里面介绍的好多地方我们之前都只是在书里读到过，”美国参议员Daniel K. Inouye在记录中写道。“她对中国的描绘充满魅力、深度和热爱，让我对这片古老土地正在发生的变化有了新的认识。”
“我希望《变化中的中国》也能被美国其他地方的观众看到，因为它对于中国改革开放带来的社会、经济和文化方面的变化的研究令人着迷、给人启发。”
回顾过去，靳羽西说，她认为她的角色以及媒体的作用就是教育。
“那个时候，......,中国不了解世界。西方不了解亚洲，”她说。“我的角色就是促进东方西方之间的思想交流。我觉得这是一项使命，是一个重要的工作。”
将中国时尚出口到西方
在上世纪八十年代初，涂着口红、留着自己独创发型的靳羽西在中国女性眼里是独树一帜。然而今天，在靳羽西眼里，中国女性看起来很现代，打扮与西方女性没什么不同。
靳羽西说，中国已经改变了很多，因为中国服装生产商都在时尚一线。中国服装生产商为法国和意大利等国家的品牌服务多年。今天，她说，中国公司都有了自己的品牌。
“因为他们长期为外面的世界制造商品，他们非常清楚外面的世界要什么。然后突然之间，你看到很多时髦精致的品牌在中国出现，”靳羽西说。
为了将中国时尚带到西方，让美国了解中国设计新秀和艺术新秀，靳羽西在纽约首创了“中国时尚盛典”活动。
过去三届中国时尚盛典重点推出了几位中国新秀，比如定制时装设计师郭培、时尚摄影师陈漫和设计师陈野槐。
“中国时尚盛典”活动中筹集的资金还用作奖学金，专门提供给在纽约时装学院就读的中国学生。
靳羽西设立的慈善基金会在中国修建学校和图书馆，设立奖学金资助中国高中和大学里的贫困学生，包括她的家乡桂林一所学校的学生。她两岁的时候离开家乡。她和父母先搬到香港生活，后来搬到美国生活。
今年三月，靳羽西第一次回到她出生的地方——雁山园，这座清朝风格的建筑如今已成为一座风景如画的公园。
靳羽西说，看到家乡和中国发生的发展她感到高兴。
“中国下个阶段的发展将会令人惊奇。习近平主席将会完成他的使命，也会实现他的愿景，”她说。她指的是中国提出的在2020年全面建成小康社会的目标，以及习主席在博鳌亚洲论坛上所做的中国进一步开放的承诺。
“我相信中国会成功，”靳羽西说。
原文：
TV HOST AND FASHION ICON WHO INTRODUCED CHINA TO THE WORLD
Yue-Sai Kan broke the mold with her '80s travel show before launching an inspirational cosmetics line
WANG LINYAN
Editor's note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of China's reform and opening-up policy. China Daily profiles people who experienced or witnessed the important drive.
Today, Chinese people travel and study abroad, watch blockbusters at cinemas, order international fashion brands online, and do business with people from other countries.
But 32 years ago, in 1986, Chinese people mainly saw the outside world only by watching television at home－starting with Yue-Sai Kan's One World.
The 15-minute show, which aired twice a week in Chinese and later in English, was the first travel program on Chinese TV. It brought Western society to an audience of 300 million Chinese.
Viewers saw the pyramids in Egypt, the Acropolis in Greece, the River Thames in Britain, baseball games in the United States, and much more. The show was also packed with ideas and issues.
"In those early years, we talked about ecological problems, environmental problems, housing for the poor, equal rights for women in Sweden. I talked about things like that, which they (Chinese people) hadn't even started to think about at that time," Kan said. "The goal was to give a global view to the Chinese audience."
The show lasted a year, running for 48 episodes on China Central Television, the State broadcaster, and covering 14 countries. It made Kan the most-watched TV personality in the country.
The most remarkable part, Kan said, was that so many Chinese had not seen anything about the outside world before her program. It changed "the vision and mindset" of the Chinese people, she said.
"So many people would say to me, ‘I never knew the outside world was like this. You really inspired me.' Sometimes when I walked in New York, women would come up to me and say, ‘I want to thank you. I'm here because you inspired me to do this.'"
The program put her in the spotlight, winning rave reviews in the media and countless letters from fans. One magazine called her a modern-day Marco Polo, while The New York Times wrote, "Yue-Sai Kan's work augurs well not only for China and the US but also for the rest of the world."
"During my trips to China in the past year, I have been greeted with such great hospitality and affection, as if I were a returning relative or a long-separated friend," Kan wrote in her memoirs, also titled One World. "Everywhere I went, I was deeply touched by the genuine warmth I encountered."
The book, published in 1987, came after Ai Zhisheng, then minister of radio, television and film, asked her to write about how she made the TV program.
"He said, ‘We don't know how to make TV shows. This book will teach the Chinese people how to,'" she recalled. At the time, CCTV broadcast for just six hours a day, "so that's one of the most outstanding things I'd heard", she added.
Before the One World TV show received a green light from the authorities, Kan had to do three pilot shows. She wore a shirt and black jacket and little makeup, trying to "be very polite" and following the style of Chinese broadcast journalists of the day.
Kan recalled that, after watching the pilots, Ai asked her, "Did you dress like that in the US?" He encouraged her to present the program like she would in the US, "because we want to learn from you".
"That's amazing, you know," Kan said with a grin.
Empowering women
The show made Kan a household name. Her trademark haircut－known as the Yue-Sai hairdo－and her Western makeup and clothes fascinated people in the '80s, when women dressed in a similar style and looked the same, with short haircuts and no makeup.
"It was really an alien idea to smear lipstick on your lips. Only actresses at that time used lipstick. Now it's as common as adding toothpaste to your toothbrush in the morning," she said in an interview at her New York apartment.
Kan launched her first cosmetics products under her Yue-Sai brand in September 1992 in Shanghai, two years after she had registered a company in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
The product launch at Shanghai No 1 Department Store was so crowded with people wanting to see Kan that police found it virtually impossible to maintain control. The event had to be moved to a bigger venue, Hualian Department Store, where Kan was able to talk with fans and show them how to apply the makeup.
Sales on the first day hit 20,000 yuan (about $3,600 at the time).
"It was like a breath of fresh air, just like in television," Kan recalled. "We basically colorized the whole country. This is happy－you can have your individual look. You don't have to look like anybody else. You are you. So the idea is empowerment. The spirit is more important than anything else."
The potential for China's cosmetics market was released with the country's opening-up. Kan's company expanded from three stores in Shanghai to more than 800 in 250 cities across China, becoming No 1 in both market share and sales for years.
"We were doing 10 times the business anyone else was in the department stores. The impact was very big. And it empowered women," Kan said.
She went on to select 30 people from 1,200 applicants for a course teaching them makeup skills. They became China's first beauty advisers, doing makeovers for customers and sharing makeup tips while selling cosmetics.
"Before my cosmetics came out, the Chinese had never heard the word shishang (fashion). We brought fashion to China. That's the beginning of saying ‘I want to look beautiful'. That was the beginning of Chinese fashion."
Like the TV program, Kan's cosmetics influenced millions of Chinese, well before the arrival of the internet.
Kan said the reasons for the changes in society were simple.
"No 1, the Chinese government wanted to change it. They wanted change in a number of ways. They wanted reform and opening-up," she said. "But how can you open when your citizens don't know anything about the outside world? So they are very smart. They used TV.… They wanted to use it to educate people. That's the most important thing."
The second reason was that the Chinese people were ready for change, she said. "I was afraid that someone would come up and say what I did was really bad for China. I was really scared. But it was the opposite because Chinese women were ready to look different."
The key word is "ready", Kan said, adding that she was simply in the right place at the right time.
"People were curious. People were ready, and I happened to be the person to do it. Everything was just right," she said. "If I were to produce a new TV program now, it would not have the same impact. If I launched a cosmetics line today, it would not be as impactful. It would be very successful, but it wouldn't have that impact."
Journey to China
Kan is also credited as being the first TV journalist to connect East and West with the creation of her award-winning weekly show Looking East, which aired in the US. The program was her first major production and the first of its kind to introduce American audiences to Asian cultures in countries including Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Having observed that the West didn't know much about Asia, particularly China, Kan believed it was her duty to help the United States and China get to know each other better. She also produced and hosted a documentary in 1988 called Journey Through a Changing China.
Starting from her hometown in Guilin, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, she crisscrossed northward to Shanghai and Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, until she reached Harbin in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. Footage was shot in each city she visited, to display people's daily lives and how they had changed during reform and opening-up.
The one-hour documentary aired on June 22, 1988, on WUSA-TV in Washington.
Kan's efforts to be a bridge between China and the US were recognized in a Senate Congressional Record, and she was given the title of citizen ambassador. The record entry dated July 27, 1988, said the documentary was "exceptional in its scope and subject".
"Kan opened doors in her documentary to places most of us have only read about," Senator Daniel K. Inouye wrote in the record. "Her charming, insightful and loving portrait of China gave me a new perspective toward the changes now occurring in that ancient land.
"I hope that Journey Through a Changing China will be seen by other audiences throughout our nation because of its fascinating and revealing study of the social, economic and cultural changes being brought about by China's version of the glasnost."
Looking back, Kan said she felt her role, and that of the media as a whole, was to educate.
"In those days,... China didn't know anything about the world. The West knew nothing about Asia," she said. "My role was to exchange ideas between East and West. I feel that's a mission, an important job to do."
Exporting homegrown fashion
In the early 1980s, Kan looked different with her lipstick and self-styled hairdo in the eyes of Chinese women. But today, in her eyes, Chinese women look modern, and they no longer dress differently to Western women.
Kan said China has changed a lot, as now its manufacturers are up-to-date. For years, they worked for brands from other countries, such as France and Italy. Today, she said, Chinese companies have their own brands.
"Because they're so used to producing goods for the outside world, they know well what the outside world is asking for. All of a sudden, you see a lot of brands coming out of China that are quite chic," Kan said.
To bring Chinese fashion to the West and introduce emerging designers and artists to the US, Kan created the China Fashion Gala in New York. The past three galas have highlighted couture designer Guo Pei, fashion photographer Chen Man and designer Grace Chen, to name a few.
Funds raised through the gala are used for scholarships for Chinese students to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Kan's own charity has also built schools and libraries, and provided scholarships to underprivileged students in high schools and universities in China, including in her native Guilin, where she lived until she was 2 years old. Her family first moved to Hong Kong and then the US.
In March, she returned for the first time to where she was born, a Qing Dynasty-style building called Yanshan Garden, which has been made into a picturesque park.
Kan said she was happy to see the development that has taken place in her hometown and across China.
"The next period for China will be extraordinary. President Xi Jinping will be able to fulfill his mission, fulfill his vision, too," she said, referring to China's goal to become a moderately well-off country by 2020 as well as Xi's commitment at the Boao Asia Forum on China to further opening-up. "I'd bet on China," she said.
