June Yee is best known for being one half of BBC Radio Merseyside’s Orient Express alongside Billy Hui, hosting a programme dedicated to Liverpool’s Chinese Community which has been broadcasting for over 30 years.
This Sunday, however, Yee is going national when she steps in front of the mic to host Radio 4’s Pick Of The Week.
Pick of the Week is presented by a different broadcaster each week, and this Sunday will see Yee share highlights from the past week from across BBC Radio.
Yee, who was born in Liverpool, began her broadcasting career at BBC Radio Merseyside in 1988, alongside Lawrence Ma and Mary Ng. She took on various roles including the production and planning of five-minute news bulletins, before becoming a main presenter for the station.
In 2014, Yee took part in a special broadcast for the BBC, based on the city’s Chinese Community, at Liverpool’s History Museum.
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Liverpool is famously home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe, with the first presence of Chinese people in Liverpool dating back to 1834 when the first vessel direct from China arrived in Liverpool’s docks to trade such goods as silk and cotton wool.
Many Chinese immigrants began arriving in Liverpool in the late 1860s as a result of Alfred Holt and Company employing large numbers of Chinese seamen while establishing the Blue Funnel Shipping Line, one of the UK’s largest shipowning and operating companies that operated for over a century and played a significant role in the country’s overseas trade and in the First and Second World Wars.
The city’s modern Chinatown is based in Great George ward in the south of the city centre, and is home to many Chinese businesses, restaurants and supermarkets, and facilities for the Chinese community. The area is also notable for its Chinese-style architecture, with the paifang on Nelson Street being the largest, multiple-span arch of its kind outside China.
Yee currently presents the weekly version of ‘Orient Express’, alongside co-host Billy Hui BEM, on Monday evenings on BBC Radio Merseyside.
Yee will present Pick Of The Week this Sunday (July 27), at 6.15pm on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
