“Hi, I’m Alana. I was born profoundly deaf. But that doesn’t stop me from trying new adventures!”

This is the opening of Follow Alana, the travel show hosted by Alana Nichols. Nichols, a 28-year-old of mixed Taiwanese and American parentage, has overcome physical obstacles to let the world see the vibrant energy behind her alluring smile.

As both hostess and one of the producers, this past June Alana garnered four Telly Awards, known as “the Oscars of television,” besting such formidable competition as TLC travel host Samantha Brown.

                       

Since debuting in 2017, Follow Alana is already in its sixth season. The first four seasons were all produced in Taiwan, featuring Alana taking on all sorts of outdoor adventures such as tree climbing, kayaking, and snorkeling, hiking the Alangyi Historic Trail, discussing forest conservation, strolling around Lukang and exploring aspects of the local culture and cuisine like roasted wheat tea and sky lanterns. Season Five saw her venture to Australia, where she slept under the stars on the Great Barrier Reef, went deep into the rainforest, and learned about endemic animal species. For the latest season, she journeys to Switzerland, where she sits on the lawn with the President of the Swiss Confederation during National Day celebrations, and got up close and personal with Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer. And while filming the interview with Federer, she received an unexpected invitation to become the first 2019 Switzerland Summer Promotion Ambassador.

Alana gives off a fresh, vivacious air on her show, and she has a knack for taking viewers inside ecological conservation and reflecting on historical and cultural settings, earning her major TV programming honors such as a Silver Remi at WorldFest Houston and becoming a finalist at the New York Festivals International TV & Film Awards. Most recently, Alana garnered four Telly Awards, two Silver and two Bronze, in the Travel and Nature/Wild Animals categories, also earning the distinction of being the only winner from Taiwan.

Born severely deaf in both ears in Taiwan at a time when newborn hearing was not routinely screened, Alana missed the zero- to six-month optimal treatment window. As a result, she was unable to hear even the roar of a jet plane flying overhead.

Her father, businessman Kenny Cheng, and mother Joanna Nichols, an American, consulted with top doctors around the world, ultimately leading to a cochlear implant when she was two and a-half. The procedure saved her hearing in her left ear and gave her the capacity for speech.

“Alana once described the sound through her cochlear implant as murky, like listening to people speak on land from underwater. She underwent extensive therapy as a child, sharpening her cognitive acuity. Quite often out of a 10-word sentence she would be unable to make out six words, forcing her to lip read and guess what was being said,” relates Lin Juo-hsuan, who serves as an interpreter during filming. Lin states frankly that the process is not easy, and that outsiders would have a hard time understanding how difficult it is. For instance, in contrast to the higher pitched voices of typical women, the lower baritone in which middle-aged men often speak is very difficult for Alana to distinguish.

Another issue is ambient noise when out shooting on location. “She has to constantly respond to her surroundings. For instance, on a boat, if noisy background sounds suddenly appear, even with her cochlear implant, she can’t hear what the other person is saying. She has to make split-second judgment calls and change the setting to do her summary.”

However, Lin further observes that the need to constantly ask questions, organize, and summarize due to communication difficulties has honed Alana’s extraordinary powers of observation and hosting skills: “She’s often the first to notice certain details, which she points out and shares with the audience.”

Do not let her native-level English fluency mislead you, for Alana was actually born and raised in Taiwan. The tonal nature of Chinese made learning Mandarin difficult for Alana, while English pronunciation is easier, so her parents made the decision to raise her with English as her native language. Before losing her battle to cancer, Alana’s mother, American Joanna Nichols, devoted her efforts to running the Children’s Hearing Foundation. The foundation works to help children develop listening and spoken language through the auditory-verbal approach, successfully aiding over 4,000 hearing-impaired children step out of their silence to date.

Alana regularly takes part in foundation events, sharing her experiences with hearing-impaired children and encouraging everyone to “give your all to every day of your life, and never give up.”

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In late June, at a book signing event at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, a hearing-impaired girl sheepishly handed Alana a drawing. On the front was Alana with a turtle, and on the back were words of gratitude written in the crooked scrawl of a child, moving Alana to state, “I’m so happy to be a force to encourage her to overcome her disability!”

The story behind how Alana became a television hostess is quite moving in itself.

A graduate of university in Australia with a background in business, Alana had never imagined that she would end up in television. But when opportunities to make appearances arose, she considered how lucky she was to have a cochlear implant compared to others that have to use sign language in their daily lives. She wanted to help more people, and bring her influence to bear.

“I was different from others growing up, so there was no role model to follow when I encountered difficulties. I’d be more than happy if I could help inspire those ‘minorities’ through the shows,” she says.

Attending a regular elementary school, Alana had to sit in the front row to hear the teacher, and constantly ask questions to verify information. This also required the assistance and patience of classmates. Nearly every day of her life she has faced challenges stemming from her hearing impairment, like talking to a taxi driver, speaking on the phone, or listening to someone direct her to a restroom.

Despite being shunned by classmates for her disability, Alana managed to maintain a positive attitude. Apart from her mother’s encouragement, this can be credited to her positive faith.

“Whenever I encounter difficulties, I truthfully face my own feelings. After all, saying ‘don’t worry’ or ‘you can do it’ to someone experiencing setbacks isn’t helpful. I think logically, that people who find ways to change, and even if they can’t change the situation, they must still keep going forward; if at least you’ve tried you won’t have any regrets.” Alana speaks resolutely, her conviction born from honing herself in the crucible of countless setbacks, to exhibit maturity well beyond her years.

“I love coming in contact with all sorts of people through hosting. Hearing what they have to say gives me more ways of thinking,” says Nichols. Throughout the series, from the first through sixth seasons of Follow Alana, she has worked assiduously on pre-production and research, often planning out the next season’s content while shooting the current season on location far from home.

“The team and I are almost always on the move. In practice, when language barriers come into play, we use editing techniques to attain continuity for a smoother viewing experience. This requires extensive real experience, so I’m always learning while doing, because experience is the best teacher,” she says.

“Alana is very logical. During meetings, although the writers have conducted surveys in advance, she goes over the script first, and a lot of discussion and adjustments follow as she points out whether certain transitions between scenes make sense,” notes Lin. For instance, if the main topic of focus for the season is the environment, then if a restaurant does not operate in an environmentally friendly way, Alana would likely nix it.

Over the process, in spite of auditory limitations that require more time to ascertain certain matters, Alana never does anything halfway.

“The only person you should look forward to surpassing is yourself. And this is the only comparison you should make to help you constantly improve,” she says.

Never one to set limitations on herself, recently Alana has gotten into underwater photography, and learning about various audio production techniques. As she says, “There’s so much I want to do, and I’m always looking for ways to combine these things.”

Seeing most of the younger generation feeling that“life is difficult,” Alana exhorts everyone to squarely take on environments that you might not like, “find people who support you, and never stop trying to change; there’s always another way you’ve never tried.”

Nichols stresses that you should make yourself someone capable of changing, not a complainer. Because, “in this world, there are so many more people even more disadvantaged than we are who still find success.”

Translated by David Toman
Edited by TC Lin, Sharon Tseng