by Zhao Hong and Feng Yuan
The woman who changed Chinese perceptions of the world more than a decade ago with a ground-breaking television series was in Beijing recently to promote another new look.
Chinese-American entrepreneur Yue-sai Kan's line of cosmetics products already leads all its competitors in China. She shared the secret of her success in an exclusive interview with Beijing This Month.
"I have set the image in this country," she said. "I am my brand. My image is the sum total of everything I have done."
Kan gives the impression of an entrepreneur who knows how to seize whatever opportunity arises. And that flair and personality, coupled with her Chinese identity, have won the trust of the Chinese government as well as that of consumers and ordinary people as a whole.
Kan was in town partly to attend to business, and partly in her role as a cultural ambassador, which may land her a part in the 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of New China.
Her road to success in China is marked by sharp intuition, pioneering spirit, strong dedication and a bit of luck. Chic and warm as ever, in her favored black attire, Kan summed up her past experience in one pithy phrase: "Opportunity is your own creation."
Back in 1984, when China was just starting to open its door to the outside world, Kan came to host coverage of the Chinese National Day Parade for the American Public Broadcasting Service in cooperation with China Central Television (CCTV). Afterwards, CCTV invited her to make a television program for Chinese viewers, which later became the famous "One World."
"To me, it was a signal that they really wanted to open their door to the outside world," recalled Kan. "And to a lot of Americans, it was a very important signal, too. "
To
show the Chinese people the world through the eyes of someone from abroad was a completely
novel idea at the time. So the show represented a big risk for CCTV and the Ministry of
Film, Television and Broadcasting, and a very big risk for Kan because she had to find the
money to do all the programs since CCTV was very poor.
"I felt it was a incredible opportunity to do something for China. If I did the program very well, I had this opportunity to really play a very important role in opening the eyes of my Chinese friends, because this was the first time they would see the world. It was an obligation and a privilege to be able to do that."
Her broadcast captivated the entire nation and made her a household name. Both the scripts and videos from the series were later used as teaching materials in schools across China. Besides being trusted and loved by millions of Chinese for being the first to bring the world to them, her easy television style has also influenced a generation of TV journalists in China.
Did she think of doing business in China at that time?
"Certainly not," Kan laughed. "Particularly not cosmetics business. At that time nobody used cosmetics. Even a television anchorwoman did not use cosmetics. At that time I was struggling with my time so that I could finish producing the series. I had no time to think about anything else, except that I did not lose so much money so that I had to declare bankruptcy."
The opportunity to run a cosmetics business in China came at a time when most foreign businesses were pulling out of the country after June 4, 1989. Kan, who happened to be on a visit to China at the time, met a senior Chinese leader. Kan had an intimate talk with the leader and learned that China was in a very difficult situation and there was very little confidence in the investment environment. There was a belief, she said, that China was going to reverse back to a very conservative stand. Kan took it as a challenge and came up with the idea of starting a cosmetic business of her own.
"There was a niche in the world of cosmetics," she said. "There was not a line of cosmetics that was made for Asia. I don't care about being an American, I care about being a Chinese, I care about being an Asian. I want to be able to extract and to combine both worlds."
When asked why she did not stick to TV production when she was best known as a
successful producer, Kan said: "I get tired if I do the same
thing all the time. I want to do things that nobody has done before."
She said she was still interested in television, but she might do a fiction film instead of repeating her previous experience with documentaries.
Kan said her pioneering personality was the product of her upbringing by a Chinese artist family as well as of an American education.
"My parents always encouraged me to be very aggressive, and materialistic, meaning that you should strive to be successful, apart from teaching me all the virtues of being a Chinese.
"On the other hand, I have lived part of my life in America, where they teach you to be very entrepreneurial, to think of all the possibilities, and encourage you to be very free in your attempts." Though a college graduate of music and political science, Kan has never been seriously involved in either. Instead, she has followed her own career path through learning by herself. As a television producer she never went to college to study making a program.
"You read as much as you can and that is all," she said. She remembered there was TV journalist that she really liked. Her program was at six in the morning. Every morning for a whole year Kan set her alarm clock at 5:55 so that she could catch the program every time to learn how she asked questions. "When you are not following a prescribed way of learning, you have a broader area to explore."
Now it is Kan who is the teacher. She is completing a video project entitled "How to Do Business in China."
"I want to get this message across -- if you don't know the Chinese way of doing things, even if you have a very good product, you cannot get it done." She is also writing a book called "Celebrating Asian Beauty" in which she discusses the ground-breaking work she did in the creation of the first cosmetic color system for Asians.
What will be her next pioneering expedition?
"I could expand maybe to garments, or maybe making a fiction movie."
To Kan, nothing is impossible.