Part 1 Media? No, I Can’t Do It
- My Early Days in China
This month is very special to me. I reached a milestone, launching my podcast, MY OWN!
I never thought I would be able to do this. Unreal. Many people asked me: “Why do you want to do that? You must have stepped out of your comfort zone so much.” Yes, they are right. I am not going to lie: for a person like me who didn’t study media and English is not my first language, this is a pretty scary move. A lot of courage, self-talk and external push needed. Thanks to all the people who’ve supported me!
Looking back, the past one and a half years have been my transformational journey. I finally got the courage and started to chase my media dream. I even got so emotional that I cried a few times, merely talking to people about this journey. Now, I have decided to go to the next level, reflecting and sharing with you this personal story, because I sincerely hope that you could get inspired to follow your dream too or at least to learn some interesting cultural facts. Ready?
I was born and raised in Chizhou, Anhui province, China. Like many traditional Chinese people, I always sought advice from my family and teachers and listened to them. I was conservative in many ways. However, two things that I knew and was confident about were - my voice and storytelling skill.
Voice
At school, for Chinese lessons, every time when we studied a new article, our teacher would ask a student to read that article in front of the whole class. I was always that student and received a lot of positive feedback after reading it. Besides, I had a peculiar hobby - I loved listening to myself reading or singing. Back then, we used a repeater to learn English, so we could hear back and compare our pronunciation with the audio. For me, it has one more important function too, to record my singing to play it back. I couldn’t help getting lost in my beautiful voice, haha.
Storytelling
Growing up, I always had stories to tell my mum and grandparents, and I found they enjoyed listening. Also, at high school, my friends loved me reporting back about the TV drama that I watched. You may wonder why they didn’t watch TV themselves. In China, Gaokao (National Higher Education Entrance Examination) is very competitive due to our huge population, so many parents don’t allow their children to watch TV. Students are buried in mountains of homework, but I wasn't. Why? My parents trusted me so much that they left me at home in the evenings, usually from 7-9, so I used that time to secretly watch TV. In hindsight, I really regret doing that. Because of that, I wasn’t able to go to my dream university. That’s another reason why I am working so hard to make up for time wasted.
Apart from the TV drama, I loved to watch two types of shows. One is travel programs. I thought, to be able to explore new places and cultures and get paid would be the best job ever (I still think it is). The other is interview shows. For me, hearing people’s stories was fascinating, and we can always learn something new from every single human being. One of my favourite Confucius quotes is:
“Walking among three people, I find my teacher among them (三人行必有我师)”.
My curiosity was fed well after watching those shows. So, I thought, it would be so cool to work in media, however, deep down I felt I couldn’t do it.
Back then, I didn’t like writing at all. For my Chinese subject, students were required to write a weekly journal, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I just thought I didn’t have any exciting things to tell people outside of my school. My weekends were always the same - at my grandparents’ houses. Therefore, usually on Sundays, I would sit in front of my desk, scratching my head, drawing, or simply staring at the window without any word on paper. Painful.
Also, I was so shy that I didn’t even dare to raise a hand to answer questions in class. In China, ‘face’ is a big thing, and we are so afraid of ‘losing face’. A Chinese idiom goes:
“Men can’t live without face, trees can’t live without bark (人要脸，树要皮)”.
Why? For us, relationships between people are vital, and face is closely tied to relationships. When you ‘lose your face’, it means you have lost your influence and injured your reputation. Meanwhile, we try our best to ‘save face’ for others (preserve dignity) too, as we want to keep a harmonious environment. Therefore, if you work with Chinese people, you will be very popular if you can be humble.
Can you believe that ever since year one at primary school, I had not wanted to lose face (earlier than my other peers)? When my classmates were fighting to answer questions, I would rather keep my mouth shut if I was unsure of the answer. I didn’t want others to laugh at me if I got a question wrong. Even sometimes, when we answered questions together, I would adjust my volume, so teachers wouldn’t know the answer came from me.
East VS West
In Australia, I felt I had stepped into a different world, ‘face’ seemed not to exist here. In my uni classes, I noticed my local classmates asked and answered questions so actively and freely. Some questions could be common sense, and some clearly indicated that they were not listening in class. To my surprise, lecturers and tutors were pleased to answer their questions at any time. Why? I discovered later: for them, there is no silly question, and asking questions shows that you are engaging in class. Furthermore, making fun of others or yourself, socially, is even a signal of mutual respect, equality and closeness. Wow, I like that playfulness.
Back to my story, what about my family’s opinions towards the idea of doing media?
Unfortunately, I got zero encouragement. They thought it was too competitive and:
“To work in media, you have to be very talented. Unfortunately, you don't have that, especially in writing. Also, it’s a very demanding career. We don’t want to see you living a life without much leisure time.”
You might feel a bit shocked. Aren't Chinese parents supposed to be 'tiger parents' according to the media? They usually push their children to study very hard when they are at school. That’s true. However, their end goal is to see their children having a secure job and live a stable and comfortable life. I think this value comes from our culture, our long agricultural based civilisation. Ancient China is far away from other countries, and our ancestors were able to work hard on the same land to survive without moving around. Therefore, seeking stability and being content are part of our core values which are very different from westerners, maritime civilisation: people tend to be more up to adventures and exploration.
Back to my story again, I decided to give up my media dream. Because I saw my family’s best intention for me, and I trusted them: they had much more knowledge and experience than me. This mindset also reflects another interesting cultural difference.
East VS West
In China, we respect our elders deeply. There’s even an idiom:
“An old person in a home is like a treasure of a family (家有一老 如有一宝)".
At a young age, we are told to speak softly when interacting with seniors. The advice or opinion from them should never be contested, so talking back is very rude.
While in Australia, I noticed this is not the case. Everyone is equal. Therefore, it’s common to address older adults by their first name which I would never dare do in China. Furthermore, as a society, seniors are categorised as just part of disadvantaged groups instead of being seen as constructive members of society.
That decision of giving up my media dream had led me to randomly choose my bachelor’s degree in Public Administration in China. However, luckily, I was selected to be a radio host at my uni radio station. I really enjoyed that experience: listening to my voice coming out of the radio speakers from every corner of the campus was magical. It also helped me to increase my self-confidence gradually. But when I finally took the courage to ask the teacher who oversaw our radio station:
“Do you think I have the potential to work in the media industry in the future?”
“No, you are too shy to be a host on the stage,” he answered instantly.
That moment, I was devastated, losing hope again, badly. Thus, I didn’t study Media again, for my master’s degree in Australia.
But what happened that made me change my mind? Stay tuned for Part 2.
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