Transcript

String Nguyen

Because having my own voice is super important. My mum ran away from Vietnam because she couldn't control her narrative and living in Australia, would probably feel like a pressure to be even more white. We grew up in a white society, think like a white person, it's not enough, we're not Australian enough.

Jay Ooi

Growing up as an Asian in Australia is almost like growing up in a different Australia to white people. What are some tips around these invisible walls that asians face on a day to day basis? And how can we find and use our own voice?

Hello and welcome to Shoes Off, stories about Asian Australian Culture. I’m Jay Ooi.

Now this being a podcast about Asian Australian culture, it’s often too easy to be negative, and to point out all the racial issues out there. 

Well on today’s episode we talk to someone who’s taking a different approach to this. Today I’m bringing you a conversation with Suzanne “String” Nguyen. She’s a video evangelist at Shootsta, a subscription based video production service, a top voice on LinkedIn in 2017 and 2018 and Australia’s top Meerkat user, a live streaming video app, before it shut down. She also won the Shorty Award for her Snapchat series Women In Tech and she’s part of a startup accelerator Collider for her business Master Your Video.

String Nguyen

You forgot the most important part. I love fried chicken.

Jay Ooi

Of course, you love fried chicken...where is the best fried Chicken in Australia?

String Nguyen

It's actually Mary's. You have to have it with the what's it called? Mashed potatoes. So mashed potatoes, because it's all about the sides. The secret of enjoying fried chicken is the side dishes that goes with it. Otherwise, you're eating something very dry all the time.

Jay Ooi

But let’s take it back to a time before fried chicken was such a thing for her. String’s mum was the oldest of 9 siblings and grew up working on a farm to support her family, so when she fled to Australia as a refugee she was illiterate. 5 kids later and being a single mum and you can imagine String had an interesting childhood in Melbourne.

String Nguyen

We weren't very wealthy at all, if anything, she was super resourceful. She couldn't afford childcare, so what she did was she'd chuck us into the local library and that was our childcare, and she would pick us up after she finished work. The librarians didn't mind at all because we seemed to get along with them very well, and my brothers would play chess, and go on the internet if they wanted to. I'd go around and hang around and read the books and things, and so I was a massive bookworm. As you can tell, I'm wearing glasses right now. 

Jay Ooi

Yepp, two things that are definitely iconic to String’s visual identity: fried chicken and big glasses.

String Nguyen

Childhood was pretty much playing soccer with the boys or learning and hanging out in the library. That was my Google.

Jay Ooi

Did you get along well with your siblings? What was that like?

String Nguyen

Really well. My older brother and I were 11 months apart, poor Mum. My sister and all my younger brothers, there was almost like a generation gap with me and my youngest brother. Actually, I felt like I was his mom, so we get along better now than we were younger, because I felt like I had to look after him a little bit and that caused quite a lot of friction.

Jay Ooi

Was there pressure from your mom to take care of your younger siblings, or did you just sort of take it on yourself?

String Nguyen

I just took that on myself, I guess, because she didn't really emphasise it. You just could tell that she needed help, but we were very close in that regard.

I guess my mom's not really a typical Tiger mom. She's very supportive in the choices that we make. I remember I was 17, [foreign language 00:08:28], which is like a word for very naughty, and I was going nightclubbing, like adult nightclubbing. I was leaving the tram stop, and my auntie and my mom would drive down, and say, "Hey, where are you going?" I was like, "I'm going nightclubbing, Mom, I'll be back home." She was like, "Okay. See you later." Crazy stories like that.

Jay Ooi

And I thought my parents were pretty relaxed. Very atypical if you ask me!

String Nguyen

Well there are all sorts of parents, but I realised when growing up that my mom wasn't typical.

Jay Ooi

Why do you think your mom was so relaxed about a lot of things that Asian or Vietnamese parents are usually not so relaxed about?

String Nguyen

I think it's just her attitude with life. It's not like we were bad kids, it's not like we were taking drugs when we were younger, if anything, she just us being experimental. She didn't act like she was our friend or anything like that. She gets upset and stuff, but she would never go out of her way to reject us either. If anything, she's always been there is probably the better way to describe it.

Jay Ooi

Yeah, got you.

String Nguyen

She's not a typical mom, if you look at me now, I'm on the newspaper talking about fried chicken and she shows that off. Now she has an excuse to talk about me now. That's still a very Asian trend, she wants to show off about her kids' success.

Jay Ooi

Yeah, was there a time where she was worried about and what you do with your career in life?

String Nguyen

She still worries now. She still doesn't understand what I do as well. She like, "She's online and seems to be traveling around the world and making money." She's like, "At least I'm making money." She thinks I'm working hard actually now, she's like, "You work a lot." It's like, "Yeah, but it didn't even consider it work because it's something that I love doing."

Jay Ooi

That's awesome. Did you ever feel any sort of career pressures from maybe not your mom but any extended family or family friends?

String Nguyen

Yeah, when I first started, because I had a really good job as an interior designer. When I became an artist, it's like, "When would you get a real job?" 

Jay Ooi

String once did art installations that got exhibited on won awards, but didn’t really earn her a living.

String Nguyen

When I was hanging out online, doing all my social presence, "When are you getting a real job?" What I was doing before, it didn't even exist. Social media producer, online marketer, it did not exist, it just didn't.

Jay Ooi

String realised in high school that creativity was a big part of her life. After trying to do the quote unquote good asian subjects, she realised she hated it in year 11 and pitched her way into doing year 12 art and ended up loving it.

String Nguyen

If you meet me now, you probably realise that I have a creative background, but the only difference is I'm more business-orientated than most creative people.

Jay Ooi

So what exactly does String do now? If you check out her LinkedIn page, you’ll see a ton of video content up there. Many of them are short, around 1min, and what is she talking about? How businesses can make better videos, as well as other social media tips for businesses. She lives in the startup space as well, and has interviewed over 300 startup founders and CEO’s. She now also has her own startup, which is again about helping businesses share their value to the world through video.

Your business, I guess, b2b now it does scratch that creative itch of yours?

String Nguyen

It does because it's like learning a whole new thing, right? It's creative in a different way. It's solving problems or simplifying things.

Video started for me about four years ago, when Meerkat happen, then it died. Twitter and Periscope squished it within six months, but because of that, it gave me another gateway for me to control my narrative again. Because having my own voice is super important. My mum ran away from Vietnam because she couldn't control her narrative and living in Australia, would probably feel like a pressure to be even more white. We grew up in a white society, think like a white person, it's not enough, we're not Australian enough.

Jay Ooi

Did you feel that a lot growing up?

String Nguyen

Yeah, I did. That's why I did The Two Chairs.

Jay Ooi

The Two Chairs was a blog that String created about racial issues in Australia.

String Nguyen

There was like, I call it the friction, every time you go against expectations, or society, there's an unconscious wall or glass ceiling that they don't want you to pass. You feel like, "How come I can't see to pass this invisible wall?" Because there's probably an invisible wall surrounding us that we don't know about. If you think about if you're playing a game of passes or Monopoly, right? The white person will pass through the whole thing will probably get into jail a few times. So they have a golden pass just to play Monopoly the easy way. Whereas non-white people would have to play the game of stop and start all the time, or even go back a few steps. How I describe racism in many ways, all white privilege.

So I had to talk to white people to understand what racism is, because the academic gave me what it was. It's like micro aggressive behaviours where they call your name wrong, if there were two Asians next to each other, they thought you were the same person. They call you Chinese when you're a different ethnicity, so just all these little things. What I call things that poke at you, that are heard over a long period of time, they are little needles that just hurts and you feel like there's something wrong.

When I first started thinking about those behaviours, they're very like the way we see racism is still on a very personal level. If you have a very foreign name on your résumé, there'd be a highly likely chance that they won't call you back.

Jay Ooi

More on names in a future episode. But, okay, String had realised there was definitely a disadvantage to being Asian in Australia. So what do we do about this?

String Nguyen

When you play the game of bringing awareness of differences, I guess you had to play the Trump game, right? The Trump game means bringing disparity into things. You have to highlight the differences more and play the game out here. I didn't want to play that game. Even online, I'm always going to be the point of difference. I'm already the foreign object on a white people's feed.

So they're always like, "Oh, there's this cute Asian girl with an Australian accent." Instead of like, I'd rather like, "Oh, she's the one who likes fried chicken now." So that's my way of planting a different narrative on people's head now.

Jay Ooi

Right, yeah, got you.

String Nguyen

I didn't want to be the Asian girl with the green hair. I'd rather be the girl that likes fried chicken, like "She's the one who talks about fried chicken all the time, how does that even relate?" I don't know but it's great.

Yeah, I think that's because if we don't do it that way, if we just highlight our differences, and I guess I play the game of how to be more relatable, instead of highlighting our differences, it could backfire on us in a different way, right? In one way, it will eclectically put us together and say, "Hey, we're Asians, high five. That's awesome." Then, from an outsider point-of-view if you don't fit that Asian stereotype, not even Asian stereotype, the Asian label or the Asian tribe, it's like, "I want to be part of that."

After that, these little behaviours, all it does is just brings society down and human people down.

It's part of my heritage and my identity, being Asian, but I just think it's just me, instead of something that I want to highlight. It's like okay, it's part of my DNA and who I am as a person and I'm very proud to be Asian, but it took me going for The Two Chairs... I guess The Two Chairs was my way of understanding the world, did not work out, actually because I felt like there was lots of walls kept us from growing.

Jay Ooi

Yeah, and that's definitely still prevalent today and even say the startup worlds or the worlds that you're in?

String Nguyen

I just accepted that I'm always going to be an outlier and recognize where I sit in the world. I just do it subversively now. There's no point in playing that, like recognise the game but also understand the rules of the game, but break the game.

Jay Ooi

How do you break the game?

String Nguyen

Just being number one.

Jay Ooi

Be the best.

String Nguyen

They can't ignore you then.

Jay Ooi

Pardon?

String Nguyen

They can't ignore you then, right?

Jay Ooi

Yeah.

String Nguyen

They will come to you.

So I guess being number one or what's driving me to be the best means you're like the top 20% in the world, because very few people strive to be the best in something, because they say it's too hard. But if you continue to be the best, I feel like that would just attract money and success anyway.

Jay Ooi

Just be number one. Or not even number one, just be great at what you do. That’s how String is breaking the game of life. Instead of playing up her race and highlighting the problems that genuinely do exist, she’s just being exceptional at what she does and being different, which makes it much harder to overlook her when you enjoy her content and might actually need her help. I asked String what diversity is like in the startup world.

String Nguyen

Very little, I'm not going to lie at all, but I don't mind. Even if you're the only girl in among the sea of men, everyone will remember you. That's now how I play the game, or personal branding, if you're the quirky one, if you're the most business one among the creative people, they will remember you. So I play game of try to be the different one in the group.

Jay Ooi

Yeah, got you.

String Nguyen

If you're in a panel of four people, and they're all the same-same, how can you be different, same-same, but different?

Jay Ooi

Now that’s a new way to think about that phrase. So String has done a lot - from working as an interior designer, artist, social media producer, live streamer and start up founder, and all her hard work is paying off.

String Nguyen

If you look at the common thread of what I was doing, I was telling a story and I was a story teller. Creatively, I was able to create a story through string. I created stories and art through videos now. I have always been a communicator from the start. It just came in different forms. Commercial success is dependent on your label sometimes that you call yourself. I call myself a storyteller, and now I call myself a video evangelist, it's just another fancy word. Now, if I want to be known as a... Even my startup now, is just exploring ways to how to better enable people to communicate better on video.

Fundamentally, that's a very human trait. If we're able to share with what we have to say, whether it be our expertise or our personal stories, how to tell that story where it resinates and gives energy to other people, it will attract like-minded people. Instead of focusing on our skin colour, I focus on more the values that we share.

Jay Ooi

Sharing value. That’s what String does, and that’s how she’s sort of indirectly combatting racial stereotypes in a way.

Now having you're in interior design, you are an artist, you're in the startup space now, in the b2b world, do you think that we should pursue what we love?

String Nguyen

If it has commercial success, go for it. You need money to do things, unless, I always say that creative people should learn how to be more business minded. If creative people were just a little bit more business minded, they could do what they love. If business minded were just a little bit more creative, they'd probably stand out more.

I'm just very practical because I see people who are passionate and very impractical and then they complain to me all the time, I don't need complainers around my life. Just do it.

Jay Ooi

Yeah.

String Nguyen

There are so many resources around you, that if you complain, I just think you're lazy now.

Yeah, I'm just saying, and I'll repeat it again, there are so many resources around right now and people are telling you how to do things, if you just execute 20% of what they do, you're already probably on the way to momentum, but because you don't have your quick wins, you just give up easily. That's what it is.

Jay Ooi

And String’s advice for those of you trying to build your own brand?

String Nguyen

Be a trusted voice on video. Meaning, you have all the knowledge in your head. Whether it either be an artist or whether you're creative with your entrepreneur, or you're a professional, you should start developing your personal brand. I think, my prediction is, people probably want to run their own businesses, because I feel like the corporate world is not giving the soul nutrition that you want for life and you probably realise you want to live your own life. So be on video and start documenting or articulating your story.

Jay Ooi

This episode was hosted, produced, written and edited by me Jay Ooi

Special thanks to Suzanne String Nguyen for the great chat

If you liked Shoes Off please subscribe, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts, and if you know someone who needs to hear stuff like this, make sure to let them know. Thanks for listening, and catch you next episode.

String Nguyen

I'd just find hipsters now to hang out with and talk about how white they are.

Jay Ooi

That is fun. I do that too.

String Nguyen

They seem to get that humour, there are people who want to bring diversity onboard and then will work. So I guess the question is, I think now the woke, the symptoms of race and diversity is more prevalent now because of what America has done. Going back to your answer, I do think we're a bit behind because we never had that awakening or that friction point for us to change. We never had a revolution for us, so our way of doing things is always going to be a slow burn compared to America.

Jay Ooi

Yeah.

String Nguyen

They had those awakenings or they had to fight for what they had to believe in, and we never had to do that. Australia is pretty complacent in that regards.

Guests

String Nguyen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stringstory/, https://www.thetrustedvoice.co/