Creative Director of Shanghai Tang Joanne Ooi
Joanne Ooi, the Creative Director of Shanghai Tang, has just opened an avant-garde art gallery in the middle of a Wan Chai wet market. She talks about her philosophy of wackiness and why it’s important to always use complete sentences in emails.
I was born in Singapore. I moved to Ohio in the U.S. when I was four years old. My parents were ambitious immigrants.
I had a horrible childhood. I became a typical self-hating Chinese kid, trying to be more western than a western person. The last thing I wanted to do was to be surrounded by Chinese people, things or culture.
Now I am the opposite. It’s a typical story where the American self-hating Chinese person comes full circle to passionately embrace their roots and rediscover
their heritage.
I didn’t go to law school against my will. But if I could do it all over again, I would skip it.
My younger brother is exceptionally brilliant. He was a finance superstar and retired at 32. Then he decided to give something back to the community and became a high school math teacher.
The path of least resistance is not for me. Taking the easy way is less enriching. It’s the difference between eating a bag of Doritos and going for a meal at Joel Robuchon.