I was just 1 year old when my parents left China. We moved to Hong Kong, and I was raised there until I was 16 years old, so I`ve spent half of my life in Asia and half of my life in this country.
After living in Hawaii and attending college there until 1972, I moved with my whole family, my parents and three younger sisters, to New York. I was really intimidated by that city. Hawaii had been a very easy place for me to assimilate. But New Yorkers seemed to know so much about music, the opera, everything. I had always prided myself on being a very sophisticated young woman, and now I felt like I was from the village.
At first I was planning to visit New York for three weeks only, for a holiday. I wasn`t intending to stay. The first week I was there I went to see ”Death of a Salesman,” and Arthur Miller (the play`s author) was sitting right in front of me. Then I went to a concert and Leonard Bernstein saw me and asked to meet me. Those are semigods to me. I said, ”I`ve got to stay here.”
So I decided that the only way to really live in America was to be better than the American. I meant this in the sense that I would have to read twice as fast as anyone because I had to know more. I had to learn what makes the American mind function. I learned that I would have to speak very good English, better than the Americans because this is a society where the best excel.
You want to be the best, or there`s no place for you in this society. So I worked very hard at it. I don`t believe in doing anything unless I do it the best I know how. It is all the people who strive to do well here who make America move.
So for my first year in New York I didn`t speak. I read. I went to an opera and a concert every week. I wanted to catch up on all the things I didn`t know. I noticed that New York had many Jewish people, so I got a history of the Jews to read and ”The Joy of Yiddish,” by Leo Rosten. I wanted to understand what they were saying. When someone called me a
”shiksa” (gentile woman) I wanted to know what it meant. New York is a city that forces you to grow up very fast; the exposure you get is enormous.
I had been trained as a concert pianist. Let`s say I had a pretension of wanting to be a concert pianist. There`s a big difference between what you want to be and what you really are, and I just wasn`t good enough. So when I felt I was ready to be a part of New York I worked in a fundraising organization and in public relations for a while.
After a few years my sister and I started an importing business. It was a natural transition. Asia was just opening up, and we started the business with $25,000 we borrowed from our parents. So I learned first-hand all the trials and tribulations of doing business in Asia.
I always wished we had some mentor to turn to for advice on doing business with Asia, which is, after all, very different from doing business in the United States. But we had to learn everything on our own.
In 1972 a good friend of mine started a cable show for the Chinese in New York. I decided to volunteer my time and for one day a week. For about eight years, I did newscasting and interviews in English and Chinese. It was a wonderful experience, and I learned how little Americans knew about Asia, especially then. Then in 1980 I sold my interest in the trading company to devote full time to television. So by the time I really started in television I had eight years of experience.
The first two years I used my own money to fund the shows. I learned real fast in this situation. When you have to pay for it, you learn. Every time you make a mistake it`s very expensive, so you don`t forget. The show was syndicated from a public access cable station in New York. Later we graduated to nationwide syndication and we began to sell advertising.
Today we`re seen on the Discovery Channel three times a week. Three years ago we did ”Journey Through a Changing China,” sponsored by American Express, which got exceptional ratings for a one-hour special. Last year I hosted a show for ABC network for which we won an Emmy.
One of the biggest surprises we`ve found in working on this new series concerns women doing business in Asia. When we talk about Asia we tend to think these are very chauvinistic countries and women are apprehensive about going there. But I`ve found over and over again that this isn`t the case, though it does depend to some extent which country you`re talking about.
If you`re talking about Hong Kong, Western women have absolutely no disadvantage whatsoever. They have exactly the same opportunities as men. Taiwan is a little bit more conservative, but women are very respected in the Taiwan society. They run a lot of companies, and there is no stigma against them.
When it comes to Korea and Japan, there`s a big difference. They are far more chauvinistic. There are golf courses that a woman can`t go to and places men go to drink where you really wouldn`t want to join them. There are situations where women aren`t asked to join, just because they are women.
But we`ve also found that American women get a lot of attention just because they are American women. It`s often easier for American women to do business than it is for American men.
The key is, when you get this attention, to know how to use it to your advantage. But always remember that Asian men do feel uncomfortable if women become very domineering in a conversation. So act a bit more conservatively and you won`t threaten them.
Of course, in 1986 I had the series that I did in the People`s Republic of China, which was most incredible from a political standpoint. Imagine an American speaking every week to 400 million Chinese. I talked to them more than their leaders talked to them. It was a documentary series about other places and lifestyles in the world. When I go to China I am recognized everywhere.
Everything I`ve done seemed so difficult at first. When I first started in television, Mike Wallace said to me, ”You can`t last two months with that. You underestimate how much it will cost. Asia is not chic. Cable is not chic.” And then we lasted 10 years.
It`s not something that someone handed to me. I struggled every bit of the way. I had no mentor in anything I have done so far. How can you have a mentor when you do something, like the show in China, that no one has ever done? That`s why it`s so important to me to help others when I can.
My advice to women who find themselves in situations where they are pioneers, where they`re doing something that has never been done, is to analyze the situation carefully. There are lots of women who are changing from one business to another, or from being a housewife to being in a business situation.
Ask yourself what you are lacking, what knowledge you need to fill the gaps to be comfortable in the new role you`re going to play. I had to do this in changing from one culture to another, so I knew how to do it in changing jobs.
When I started my television production company I realized there were many things I did not know, even though I had been in television for eight years. I had to learn about cameras to be able to hire a cameraman. I didn`t want anybody to be able to fool me. But what is wonderful is that in this country it is so easy to acquire knowledge.
It is also essential to be really single-minded about what you are doing. You can`t possibly achieve something big without being very focused on what you`re doing. When I was working on the series for China, I had absolutely no life at all. But I knew that I would make a difference in the lives of many Chinese people. I knew that I was presenting them with images and concepts that they would never have a chance to meet any other way.
So I knew I was into something big in terms of the contribution to a people. With that mission in mind, I didn`t mind working very hard. I knew when I signed the contract that I would have to be totally devoted to this project for a few years. But what I did not know was the many layers of color that this particular project would add to my life.
Being a woman does not need to hold you back from anything. In many ways it`s very much of an advantage. If you think of your disadvantages as disadvantages, they will always be disadvantages. If you think of your uniqueness as an advantage, you will be utilizing it correctly.
Lots of Asians have asked me whether I found discrimination here because I`m an Asian woman. Frankly, I have never. I`ve always thought what an advantage it is that I`m an Asian, bringing the background of an old, traditional culture that has some wonderful values and coming into a society where I`m learning new values that can make me into a much better person.
So I`m in the best of two worlds. How lucky I am. You have to think to yourself, ”What do I want to be?” And then be what you want to be. Do it.
