There's no such thing as a typical day for me. Part of the reason is that I do so many different things. If I have a favourite time to get up every day, it's about 9.30am. I have a simple breakfast - it's usually something my ayi [housekeeper] prepares - with protein, especially since I am trying to lose weight.
I have a home in Shanghai and I have a place in New York. This year, I am spending a lot of time [in Shanghai] because of my TV series, Yue-Sai's World. It started airing on October 2 [last year] on Channel Young in Shanghai and has continued to roll out across the rest of China. The TV show is produced in the United States and all over the world because I have to go and interview people such as [singer] Julio Iglesias, Queen Noor of Jordan and Hillary Clinton. The people I interview are my friends. Boutros Boutros-Ghali [former United Nations secretary-general] is my neighbour. [Actor] Adrien Brody, for example - I know his mother; I know his best friends.
Here, I do a lot of promotion for the show. I am also the vice-chairman of Yue-Sai Cosmetics, so I work on that too. The first thing I do when I wake up is drink three big glasses of water, no matter where I am. Then I try to get onto the computer, because all my e-mails come during the night.
I am an Audi ambassador, so, for example, I had to go to a press conference at 8am recently for Audi. I am also involved in some charities. Education is a cause I really believe in. I just built a school in Guilin and I haven't had time to see it. I was born in Guilin, so I built a school for a poor area. I am also on the board of the Song Qingling Foundation; it's a big education charity foundation in Shanghai. I will meet the secretary-general at lunch. I'm usually at meetings during lunchtime.
In the afternoon, there's marketing and promotion work again. At night, I might attend a private dinner given by the president of Chloe and there will a big fashion show afterwards. Last night, for a few hours, I had a meeting with the top management of L'Oreal; today L'Oreal owns the Yue-Sai brand.
A day in Shanghai for me is very different from a day in New York - a day in New York will be spent primarily on production. I think the hardest part of my work is not the actual work, it is combating jet-lag. I do the usual things like adjusting my schedule to the time of the destination and I try to sleep on the plane. It still takes a long time to adjust. But when I recently travelled from Shanghai to Paris and stayed for two nights, then to New York for three nights and to Los Angeles for one night, I had little jet-lag.
It's rare I can go [to any one place] for a week. I recently had to go to Paris for my job, go home to New York and to Los Angeles for the screening of The White Countess. I was the associate producer. The White Countess is a Merchant Ivory movie with Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson. They shot for three whole months in China - it was fascinating. I wanted to see everything and do everything. I am intellectually curious and I make myself go crazy sometimes - it's stupid. But I love my life, I love what I do. That doesn't mean I don't have a lot of hassle, a lot of problems. I suppose it comes with the territory.