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I grew up in San Francisco. My dad is Hong Kong Chinese, the youngest of 14 children.
As a child, I knew Hong Kong very well. We used to come to Hong Kong every summer. It really was a second home.
My fondest memories are of being on the water. I remember being on a boat in Repulse Bay, and you could actually see the fish.
When I graduated from university, I was looking for a reporting job. My dad said: “Why don’t you go to Hong Kong?”
I had no plans to move here. But I was kind of curious what a television station was like.
So we went by TVB. I left my resume tape there. I didn’t really think twice about it.
Four months later, I got a letter from TVB saying, “We have an opening.”
That was in 1993. I was going to small towns in places like Idaho, looking for jobs.
I thought, “It’s that or Hong Kong.” Within a minute, I decided I was coming here.
I remember my first live shot. It was in a typhoon. We were at Queen’s Pier.
The cameraman literally tied me to a post, because the wind was so strong. The light was in my eyes. There was wind and rain splashing.
The anchor in the studio asked me a question, and somehow the words didn’t sound right because there was an echo in my earpiece. I stopped and froze, then realized I had to go on.
I remember in 1996, there was a place called Rennie’s Mill [Tiu Keng Leng]. It was a former Kuomintang settlement, where soldiers who had escaped the Communists during the civil war had set up a village.
A year before the Handover, the government removed them in order to make way for development.
I thought it was such a symbolic piece of history. You have the Kuomintang sympathizers who were literally peeled from their homes, lifted and carried away.
One of the most eye-opening experiences for me was when I went to North Korea in 2008, with the New York Philharmonic.
We had minders. They followed us wherever we went. I had a particularly strict one who said, “Deborah, when we move, we move in groups!”
I wanted to understand and feel what regular North Koreans were like. I snuck out of my hotel to go jogging—which, in retrospect, probably wasn’t the best idea.
It was at 5:30am during the commute. They walk on one side of the street in one direction, and the other side in another.
The one thing that struck me: no one talks. You only hear footsteps.
I was so foreign to them, but nobody acknowledged me or stared.
If they looked, it was almost like they were seeing something that they shouldn’t. It taught me that there was a lot of fear in that society.
Journalism has changed so much over the last decade or two. People used to wait for the 7 o’clock news. That doesn’t really exist anymore.
It is all about adaptability. I’m working for what was once a print organization—we are digital now. The lines are no longer drawn.
When I came to The Wall Street Journal, we had to build the whole video network in Asia. That was a huge challenge, but it’s so rewarding.
The hardest thing about being a journalist is when you have emotions over a particular story—but you can’t show them.
I’ve learned to keep an open mind. If you are talking to someone whose views you are diametrically opposed to, understanding their side of the story and opening your mind to a different way of thinking is hugely important.
Out of the people I’ve met, I am one of the few people who really loves what I do. I’ve found what I want. My job is not boring and I learn every day. You don’t hear people say that.
Life sets you on a path, and as long as you learn and grow, it’s the right way to go. When you stagnate: that’s when it’s time for a change.
I am the mom who forgets about birthday parties. But you have to have realistic expectations—you can’t do everything well.
My kids come above anything in the world, but I also have to not beat myself up when I forget about something.
Hong Kong is an amazing place to work. You have so many interesting people coming in and out of here. A dynamic financial center. A place where you’re part of China, but you’re not really part of China.
There’s a vitality that keeps you constantly challenged, amused and stimulated. I couldn’t think of a place I’d rather live.
	 
See Kan’s work on WSJ.com.


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Deborah Kan

Magazines

Veteran journalist Deborah Kan has worked in front of and behind the cameras at TVB, Star TV and Reuters. She’s currently The Wall Street Journal’s executive producer, in charge of video news segments. She tells Andrea Lo about her first live typhoon report, what it’s like to go jogging in North Korea, and the rapid changes facing journalism today.
