Alumna
hosted
Chinese
TV network’s
top show
 By Matthew Fox
Trayah Zinger, BFA’01, travelled to China shortly after graduation
to teach English for six months and explore another culture. She never
imagined she’d end up staying nearly four years.
“Out of nowhere I was offered something I couldn’t refuse,” she
says, still in awe of the opportunity. “My own television show. Needless
to say, I stayed.”
Zinger was given full creative control to create, write, host
and star in a 52-episode series for advanced English language
learners on the Liaoning education TV station. Her program, “Free
Your Mind,” was
broadcast in the Liaoning province, with a population of 41
million. Her series soon became the network’s highest-rated show.
Not
only did Zinger’s fine arts background help professionally—“my
BFA gave me the tools to effectively teach in a dramatic and
creative way”— it
was critical to surviving everyday life in China.
A non-Mandarin speaker, she struggled while settling in Shenyang,
a city of seven million in northeastern China, and relied on
her dramatic skills to work, eat and make friends. “I learned in
my BFA that 80 percent of communication is non-verbal,” Zinger recalls,
laughing. “But
it wasn’t until China that I could really test that theory and prove
it true.”
Zinger recently returned home to Calgary and is taking Mandarin
classes through the U of C’s Continuing Education department. She’s
also entered the master’s program in intercultural and international
communication at Royal Roads University. An internship at Global
Television is set to follow once that is complete.
“I have not decided on a long-term career goal,” she says. “I
know that as long as I continue to do the best that I can,
keep an open mind and continue learning and experiencing—amazing
opportunities will come.”
Zinger offers a glimpse of the confidence and drive that the
China experience gave her. “I do have two solid lifetime goals. The
first one is to become fluent in both written and spoken Mandarin
and the second one is to be a Mandarin-speaking actor or extra in one mainland
Chinese movie.”
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