Mei Yi, deputy director of the Central Broadcasting Bureau
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Inscription: In December 1966, before the "Cultural Revolution" began, the Red Guards implemented a large series, and at that time, I was working on the broadcasting front in my twenties, and I went to Beijing with the Red Guards of the unit, and the first place to bear the brunt was the Central Broadcasting Bureau. We lived in the "Red Chamber" and were received that night by Mei Yi, deputy director of the Central Broadcasting Bureau. He wore a black tweed coat, was elegant and talkative, and was accompanied by American expert Li Dunbai. Decades later, in 2009, I went to Beijing for an exclusive interview and learned that the interviewee's husband, Mr. Gao Yuwu, was a full-time driver of Mei Yi. Because of his work experience when he was young, he felt kind to Mr. Gao, Meiyi's driver, so he talked a lot about Meiyi's past with Mr. Gao...
Mei Yi (January 9, 1914 – September 13, 2003), formerly known as Chen Shaoqing, was an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China, a famous propaganda activist, a translator, a former member of the Central Advisory Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the former first secretary of the Party Group of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. [1] He is a deputy to the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, a deputy to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 6th National People's Congress, a member of the Standing Committee of the Sixth National People's Congress, and a member of the 1st and 5th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Encounter[2]
He was the deputy director of the Broadcasting Bureau and the editor-in-chief of the Central People's Radio.
In 1958, Mei Yi built China's first television station, and at 19:00 on May 1 of the same year, Beijing Television Station (the predecessor of CCTV) was piloted, and the history of China's television industry development entered a new historical period.
Commenting on Mei Yi's personal experience, he said that Mei Yi was born in 1914 to a family of ordinary citizens in Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province. In 1929, he was admitted to the China Public School (University) in Shanghai, and during his studies at the school, he was influenced by revolutionary ideas. In 1935, he joined the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union in Beiping, and at the end of the same year, he was assigned by the party organization to work in the Shanghai "Left Alliance" and the Cultural Salvation Congress. In August 1937, he joined the Communist Party of China. In 1942, Mei Yi was transferred to the Propaganda Department of the East China Bureau of the Communist Party of China. In 1945, he returned to Shanghai under the instructions of the central government and was responsible for organizing the Xinhua Daily. At the beginning of 1946, he went to Nanjing Meiyuan New Village to work as the director of the Information Department of the CPC Delegation in Nanjing and the director of the Nanjing Branch of the Xinhua News Agency. In March 1947, he withdrew to Yan'an with the delegation and served as an editorial board member and deputy editor-in-chief of the Xinhua News Agency. In March 1949, he continued to preside over the new Chinese broadcasting work renamed Beiping Xinhua Radio.
On December 6, 1949, the State Council of the Central People's Government appointed Mei Yi as deputy director of the Broadcasting Bureau, in charge of propaganda work, and concurrently served as the editor-in-chief of the Central People's Radio.
On October 1, 1949, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Beijing Xinhua Radio broadcast live broadcasts on the entire process of the "Founding Ceremony" on the upper floor of tiananmen Square in the capital, and people's radio stations in various places also broadcast it at the same time. The voice of "Chinese stand up from now on" has since spread to all of China and the whole world. This was the first time in the history of Chinese broadcasting that live broadcasts were broadcast simultaneously throughout the country. It was Mei Yi who hosted the live broadcast at the Tiananmen Tower that day.
On December 6, 1949, the State Council of the Central People's Government appointed Mei Yi as deputy director of the Broadcasting Bureau, in charge of propaganda work, and concurrently served as the editor-in-chief of the Central People's Radio. In the 1950s, according to Liu Shaoqi's instructions to develop television, he led the scientific research and technical personnel of the Broadcasting Bureau through unremitting efforts to greatly develop the broadcasting industry of the Chinese people, and the relay station 554 of the Central Radio Station in Xingyang was built at that time.
As a translator, Mei Yi spent four years from 1938 to 1941 to painstakingly complete the Chinese translation of "How Steel is Made". The book soon became a sensation, and bookstores in the Liberated Areas reprinted it one after another. Although there have been many translations of the book, in the end, Mei Yi's translation was the most widely circulated, influencing generations of young people in China.