Long-distance call
Annette Shun Wah has been a television and radio presenter and producer, written newspaper columns, published a book and starred in a film.
'It's true. I've done a little bit of everything. I've got a short attention span,' laughs the Australian personality.
'I got my first job while I was at the University of Queensland, studying social work. A group of us decided to look at talkback radio as a form of community psychology and our paper was published in the Australian Journal of Psychology.
'When I finished my degree, they asked me if I'd like the job [of radio presenter]. I'd had absolutely no experience, so it really was a baptism of fire.'
That was in the 1970s and Shun Wah became Australia's first female announcer on a commercial radio station. 'It's not widely known, nor was it trumpeted at the time.
'I was pretty naive back then. I wasn't paid well and I was asked to fill in when people were sick for no extra money. For a time I presented a show from 6pm to midnight then I'd get up at 5am to read traffic reports. In the end, I took to sleeping on the studio floor, it was pointless going home. But at the time I thought it was great and a fantastic opportunity.'
Born and raised in Queensland, she describes her background as working class.
'My mother died when I was born. She was from Guangxi [autonomous region] and had been fostered by an Australian couple. My father was born in Australia but had been brought up in Hong Kong before returning here. He remarried and his second wife was Cantonese. My upbringing was traditionally Chinese. My father was very old-fashioned and very conservative. He wouldn't allow me to do any of the things my friends did. It was so awful. I hated it and rebelled against it.'
Despite her inauspicious start in life, Shun Wah has forged herself a successful career, including starring in a film, which earned her a nomination for best supporting actress at the Australian Film Institute awards.
'Floating Life was a highlight for me. I'd never done any acting, I just kind of stumbled into it. I was asked to audition and I thought, 'Why not?' It was very difficult because the script was in German and Cantonese. I'd only ever done German at high school and my Cantonese was pretty bad. Growing up in Australia, I had a terrible accent. But I worked hard and I was very proud to be was nominated for the award. It went to Toni Collette. I didn't mind losing out to her.'
Shun Wah's next project was a book called Banquet - Ten Courses to Harmony. '[I wanted] to educate people about Chinese culture in a light-hearted fashion. Banquet is social history, dressed up as a cook book. I didn't want to write a dry history lesson, I think this is a much more appetising way of getting the message across.'
