Try My Life
I find the reality show Try My Life interesting. It’s probably similar to its progenitors Trading Spaces and Trading Spouses, but the program focuses more on the exchange between two people’s daily routines and their personalities and not merely superficial characteristics or space. Episodes of Try My Life usually end up with both subjects declaring "Your life was not as easy as I thought it would be blah, blah, blah." It really puts sense into the phrase "putting yourself in another’s shoes."
Recently, I found myself in a situation where there was a reversal of roles. I was
recently sent to the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi to attend a 2 week long pre-event coverage of the 4th China-ASEAN Expo. (The actual expo will be held on the last week of October and will focus on building economic and cultural agreements between China, which is opening its doors to the trade, share and transfer of goods and know-how with its neighbors, more specifically the 10 ASEAN countries.)
Over 40 journalists from all over China and ASEAN attended the event. The Philippines was represented by ABS-CBN TV News and DZMM Radio. During the event,
organizers went all out to show what China was capable of in terms of manufacturing, logistics, trade and even tourism. The attendees were brought to the seven developing cities of Guangxi, where ports, power plants, factories and tourist destinations were situated.
In my several years as a journalist, I was always the one to ask the questions. But during the event, I was the one being asked by local and foreign media about what I thought of the places we visited. I really found it surreal to be at the "answering end" of the microphone. I felt awkward, too, when the cameraman or reporter instructed me to position myself in a particular way in front of the camera while I was being interviewed or to pretend there was no camera in front of me as I walked with or talked to journalists around me, so the video would look candid or natural. Here I was, now the subject, but feeling more like an object.
I always thought being interviewed was as easy as giving an answer to the reporter.
But at the back of my head, questions like "Did I make sense?", "Can they pick out a good soundbite out of what I just blabbered about?", "Did I look good on camera? (well, that crossed my mind several times…)" or "Is this really happening?" suddenly pop out. Sure it was fun; a unique and worthwhile experience which definitely gave me a broader perspective of the 
interviewer-interviewee set-up. If anything, the experience taught me
not to be too overbearing or even mean to my interview subjects,
especially when I’m already pressured to get a good soundbite out of them.
