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去年AFR有一篇关于女主角的新闻，应该采访她以后写的。
Why Hong doesn’t call herself Julia any more
Hannah Wootton
Reporter
Feb 3, 2021 – 12.00am
If you had met Shao Hong, a high-flying partner at professional services giant PwC, in the early stages of her career in Australia, you would be forgiven for thinking her name was Julia.
After arriving in Sydney in 2005 from Liaoning province in China, and having never spoken conversational English, the then Ernst & Young auditor was desperate to fit in.
Her name – distinctly Chinese instead of Anglo – seemed to her an obvious place to start.
Chinese-born Shao Hong went by the name of Julia and feigned an interest in rugby to fit in when she first moved to Sydney. Dominic Lorrimer
It took six months before Hong* – who is the first native Chinese audit partner appointed at PwC Australia – felt comfortable using her real name.
“When I migrated here, my perception is I need to fit in, and the obvious thing is, I need to change my name to fit in,” she says.
As well as helping socially, Hong says it played into her early professional success.
“I got better responses to job applications when signing off as Julia. It helped at the beginning, people perceived me as one of them,” she says.
But after six months in Australia, Hong “got her confidence back” as she became more comfortable in Sydney and started doing well at work, and she asked to be called Hong.
“At a point of time I really felt, ‘I’m Hong, not Julia’, and I wanted to change back,” she says.
While several of her friends also changed their names when emigrating from Asia to Australia – it was actually on advice from one of them that Hong realised doing so could help with job applications – her husband, Di Wu, did not.
For that, Hong admires him: “He never felt a need to. He’s my role model and my biggest support,” she says.
Speak up more
It wasn’t just her name she changed in her attempt to fit in – Hong also spent about six months feigning interest in rugby.
“I did my research about rugby, even though I wasn’t interested in it, and went to every social event I could and talked about it,” she says.
With the benefit of hindsight, Hong wishes she had been more assertive about her heritage when she arrived, even though her actions helped smooth her transition into Australian life.
She now encourages Chinese immigrants or Chinese Australians to get involved in the local culture, urging them to “say what they’re thinking and speak up about their view”.
“Nobody asked me about my views at the start, and it’s not my culture to put my hand up and say ‘I’ve got a view’,” she says.
“So there’s a perception that Asians – especially women – are quiet and I perpetuated that. But if there’s an Asian at the table, there’s a reason they are there, so they should speak up and others should also ask them their view.”
Hong has always differentiated herself in her career. Growing up in the Chinese city of Dalian, which has a population of more than 5 million, she was one of just three graduates at a big four consulting firm.
A similar ambition and willingness to go against the pack drove her to Australia.
“When I came to Australia, I was well established in China, had a bright future at the big four – people thought I was crazy, and maybe I am,” she reflects.
“I’d never even been to Australia and I’ve never worked as hard as in those first six months. I even forgot my husband’s birthday!”
Then, just as it started getting easier, she decided to do her chartered accountant qualification – a gruelling course that typically takes a couple of years – while working full-time.
Again, people told her she was crazy. “I’ve heard so many times, it’s impossible. People said, ‘You’ve got a foreign qualification, the big four is impossible, Julia.’ Then they say it about the CA.”
She proved them wrong, gaining the qualification and passing several modules with merit.
It was a welcome confidence boost. “The fact that I passed a few modules with merit made me realise not only I can achieve something that my Australian colleagues could, I can actually do it better,” Hong says.
She then made manager at EY – one of just two promotions in 2008 when the global financial crisis meant the firm only promoted “exceptional” staff within the audit division – and became a partner at PwC in 2018.
Hong believes corporate Australia would be well served by viewing the cultural differences between Chinese and Australian staff as a positive for their businesses.
“On every level, we need to work closely and with China more,” she says.
“So for any business, it’s beneficial to have people who know Chinese markets and understand Chinese culture. |
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