Jennifer Pak is a Canadian journalist.
She got her start as a reporter and news reader at a radio station in northern Canada, where she experienced -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit) weather for the first time.
In 2006, Jennifer arrived in Beijing without many journalism contacts but quickly set up her own news bureau. Her work has appeared on the BBC, NPR, and Financial Times. She was part of the first team of western media journalists to reach the worst affected area in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and covered the Beijing Olympic games later that summer. The following year she moved to Kuala Lumpur to be the BBC’s Malaysia correspondent and covered the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370 extensively. She moved back to China in 2015 and set up a news bureau for the UK Daily Telegraph in Shenzhen, the so-called Silicon Valley of hardware.
Since joining Marketplace in 2017 as the China correspondent, she has covered the U.S.-China tensions, the property bubble burst, and the zero-COVID policy. In 2022, Jennifer, along with 25 million Shanghai residents, was locked down for over 61 days and scrambled for food. Her and her team’s coverage of the pandemic helped earn them a Gracie and a National Headliner Award in 2023.
Jennifer speaks English, Cantonese, Mandarin and gets by just fine in French and Spanish.
When she got her first job in journalism in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Jennifer drove a half-ton pickup truck to fit in. She’s been trying to neutralize her gas-guzzling ways ever since by taking public transport and cycling in China. Jennifer enjoys roaming grocery markets on her travels. You can can keep up with her tasty finds across China on Instagram.