Titling your autobiography The Most Famous Woman in China immediately tells your audience being “shy” and “retiring” are not part of your lexicon — a fact for which Yue-Sai Kan is completely unapologetic. At 77, in good health and still looking like a million bucks, the Emmy-winning TV host, producer and entrepreneur is, to borrow the popular Gen Z phrase, living her best life.
During a recent stop in Kuala Lumpur en route home to Hawaii, Kan (who was sworn in as a US citizen in 1978) took the opportunity to catch up with old friends Axel Cruau, the incumbent ambassador of France to Malaysia, and his wife Dourène. The couple thought it a grand idea to host a little tea party coinciding with the launch of Kan’s autobiography, her first title in English. She has authored 10 books in Chinese, on topics ranging from self-help to modern Chinese etiquette and even a guide on Asian beauty.
Oriental trailblazer
Breezing into the verdant grounds of the ambassador’s official residence in Jalan Langgak Golf, Kan is a burst of colour in a hot pink kaftan top from Tabla, a luxury resort-wear boutique in Hong Kong’s Landmark Prince’s building that she particularly loves frequenting. “I love colour. I always wear colour,” she states. Having just travelled from the US to China for a long food tour, Kan is a regular visitor to KL where her niece Jaimie and grand-nephew Adrien (her “favourite person in the world”) live.
“US-China relations today are so poor, so it’s nice to come to Asia where there’s no palpable anti-Chinese sentiment,” Kan says while signing copies of her book. On its title, she admits “it is boastful but, luckily, I didn’t say it. Others did”, she winks.
“A French movie producer told me he wanted to introduce us the most amazing woman he knew,” says Cruau when asked how they met. “I was then consul-general in Los Angeles, so he brought her to the function we had organised at the French residence in Beverly Hills. You could say that night, we had one friend walk in but two friends walking out. The last time we met Yue-Sai was in Paris, when Covid was still not totally over, and I did not know as yet where I would be posted to next. So we made a promise to see each other wherever the winds took us. And, as you have it, it is Kuala Lumpur.”
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And while those in Malaysia might not be immediately familiar with Kan’s name, rest assured she is an icon in every sense of the word. TIME magazine once dubbed her “Queen of the Middle Kingdom” while People hailed her as “the most famous woman in China”. Having cemented her role in TV since the mid-1980s, after hosting the first-ever live broadcast from China on the occasion of the republic’s 35th anniversary, Kan upped the ante (and her viewership by 400 million in one fell swoop) by creating the hugely successful and groundbreaking bilingual series
One World, which began airing on the national Chinese network CCTV in 1986. “It was the first documentary series produced in the West and shown in China,” she says, still sounding surprised and in awe of how it all happened.
The show gave many mainlanders their first glimpse of the outside world. Till today, Kan is hailed as the first TV journalist to connect East and West in such a major way. She remembers sobbing 30 seconds into the show’s introduction on Feb 24, 1986, at 9pm as “I knew then that my life would change irrevocably. China at the time was still a self-contained, mysterious place and no show like mine had ever been on Chinese TV before”.
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For the first episode, Kan chose New York, her home for several years, as she longed to share how so many different nationalities lived together on the bustling island of Manhattan, a vastly different concept from the then very homogenous China. “I escorted viewers through graffiti-strewn subways, past blinding lights and yellow cabs, and into its wildly diverse communities, from Hasidic Jews to men selling pretzels on crowded street corners.”
One World naturally made Yue-Sai Kan a household name overnight in the world’s most populous country (until India overtook it just two years ago). For decades, women held her up as a role model and studiously copied her look: trademark bright red lipstick and bobbed hair. In fact, a “Yue-Sai cut” was a common request in most hair salons. Despite the frivolity associated with having a signature ’do, the Chinese government issued two commemorative postage stamps in Kan’s honour: in 2002 and 2005, when she sported a chic new hairstyle.
From Yue-Sai to Yvonne
Born on Oct 6, 1947, in Guilin, the Chinese city famous for its picturesque limestone karst hills on the west bank of the Li River, Kan was the eldest of Kan Wing-Lin, a traditional Chinese painter and calligrapher, and Li Hui-Gen’s four daughters. Fleeing their home for Hong Kong after the Communist Army took Canton from Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalists, the family left everything behind to rebuild from scratch. “Many Chinese had to pay smugglers to sneak them into Hong Kong, with some even swimming over,” she says.
Despite the hard times, the family made good. Wing-Lin taught at a high school before joining the Hong Kong Department of Education as an inspector while Hui-Gen, with her little wins from games of mahjong, began investing in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. “My mum soon moved into property investments, resourcefully diversifying and teaching me good money habits by example,” she beams.
Displaying a natural talent for music early on, and despite not owning a piano herself (“we had to rent time on a neighbour’s piano so I could practise”), Kan easily passed all seven grades by the age of 15 and won every competition her teacher signed her up for. At 16, the opportunity to pursue a degree, majoring in piano, at Brigham Young University in Hawaii, came up. “It was a cash scholarship, plus two additional work scholarships on campus. I seized the moment and begged my parents to let me go.” It was a pivotal decision.
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The first in the family to travel so far, Kan settled into life in beautiful Hawaii. She also anglicised Yue-Sai to Yvonne, making pronunciation easier for her new American friends. Her first brush with fame came after she was placed second runner-up in a beauty pageant sponsored by the local Chinese chamber of commerce. “It was a terrific and exceptional experience for a 19-year-old,” she says happily. “I got to visit many places, including San Francisco and the west coast of Canada.” This would signal the start of her life-long love affair with travel, cultural exchange, fashion, beauty and communication.
Four years after leaving home, Kan finally made it back to Hong Kong in 1967. “Parents now go so far as to travel with their kids, buy an apartment and shop for them,” she observes wryly. “We didn’t have that kind of luxury. Moreover, there was no money for intermediary trips back and forth. It was wonderful to return home and see my baby sisters all grown up and emerging as lovely young women in their own right. Four years is a long time to be apart.” In fact, Kan’s face visibly glows as she recalls reuniting with siblings Brenda, Vickie and Yu-San, all of whom she remains extremely close to.
After mulling things over and deciding that her future belonged in New York and not laidback Hawaii, Kan made her way to the east coast in 1972, armed with just US$150 in her pocket and a small suitcase containing a few belongings. Five years later, after trying her hand at various jobs, including working as an assistant for Kakia Livanos, former wife of shipping magnate George M Livanos, and PR maven Robert Taplinger, Kan took the plunge and produced Looking East, a groundbreaking TV programme that introduced topics of Chinese interest to the American mainstream viewers for the first time, funding the project and hosting the show herself. “Once I had taped a handful of guests with recognisable names, including designer Mary McFadden, actress Joan Chen and writer Gore Vidal, I put together a showreel with testimonials and started to shop it around. Fear was never part of my vocabulary.”
With her vivacity, its fresh perspective and engaging content, Looking East began to attract attention, along with a few big-time sponsors. But nothing quite prepared Kan for what lay in store.
Eastern promise
For those among us not well-versed in modern history and politics, or are simply too young to remember key events that took place in and around the region, Kan’s 420-page autobiography is a literary time-travel capsule that takes readers on a journey that starts before China introduced its Open Door Policy in 1978. It contains snippets of her extraordinary life, including being neighbours with Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis (the shipping magnate lived nearby on Sutton Square in New York) and going to celebrity dinner parties with the likes of Hollywood star Cary Grant and conductor Lorin Maazel in attendance, to interviewing legendary names such as Mother Teresa, supermodel Natalia Vodianova and singer Julio Iglesias.
For the business-minded, Chapter 3 is particularly interesting as it documents Kan segueing into the megabucks industry of beauty, documenting her transformation from media personality to mogul. It was during this phase of her life that Forbes wrote a commentary on how she was “changing the face of China, one lipstick at a time”.
It seems a lifetime ago from the luxury goods and style-obsessed images many have of mainland Chinese today, and readers are reminded of an altogether different country where the use of cosmetics was limited to stage actors and certainly not for the everyday woman. “China then was physically dreary, dull and colourless. Everyone looked the same — the same clothes, the same hair. It was only after the country opened its doors that people’s imagination of beauty began to emerge. Moreover, there were no cosmetics made for people like me then,”
Kan adds. “My colour needs and techniques are totally different from what a blonde, blue-eyed girl would want. Only after 1978 did some Chinese people dare consider wearing brighter clothes. I believed these women would soon embrace make-up. And I was right. After I launched Yue-Sai Cosmetics in 1992, many told me it was the first time they were holding or owning a lipstick.”
As far as success stories go, Yue-Sai Cosmetics has its special place in the industry annals, achieving the mind-blowing annual sales figure of US$27 million and a brand recognition rate of 95% in the short span of three years. After initially being sold to Coty in 1996, the company is now owned by L’Oréal, which beat rival Procter & Gamble in the acquisition bid.
Never stop giving
It would be remiss not to mention Kan’s lifelong dedication to charity work, from building schools and libraries in underprivileged or remote regions of China to setting up scholarship programmes and even her own philanthropic initiative, the Yue-Sai Kan One World Foundation. “Giving was first taught to me by my parents and, early on, I established doing charity as part of my life,” she explains.
Kan is also co-chair of the board of the China Institute of America, which celebrates its centenary next year. “Its objective is to create a deeper understanding of China through programmes in education, art, culture and business. And my devotion to the institute is the culmination of my life’s work, which is centred on truly connecting Chinese culture to the world, far removed from social stigmas and politics.”
She shares how the non-profit organisation built the first culinary centre to promote Chinese food in the US, which opened in July 2024. “It’s big — about 50,000 sq ft, near New York’s Freedom Tower. Why did we do this? Because, despite having over 45,000 Chinese restaurants in the country, only one has a Michelin star — Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco. Only one Chinese, compared to so many Japanese and Korean restaurants winning stars. We have never properly championed our culinary and food culture which, in China, is brilliant and rich. It is our responsibility to publicise it.”
To advocate for something, one has to be well-versed in the subject. And Kan, who is clearly no slouch, personally led a group of friends on a quest to find (and enjoy) authentic expressions of the Middle Kingdom’s varied and exquisite cuisine. “The food scene in China today is truly amazing, better than pre-pandemic standards, I feel. We ate our way through Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, and the things we tried, the restaurant décor, the service … everything was mind-blowingly good.”
Never stop learning
Having filmed in over 25 countries and befriended the who’s who of the world, Kan stresses how a sense of curiosity and consistent learning is key to success and living a rich, full life. Allan Pollack, her partner of over a decade, shared how she learnt to swim during the pandemic. “She was so scared at first and would scream if she slipped, even if the water only came up to her waist. Now, she easily swims out to the buoys in the ocean.”
Despite making it all look effortless on screen, Kan confessed to not even being able to say her own name in Mandarin at the point of signing the contract for One World. Three crack tutors were immediately hunted down and hired. “In those days, there were very few Mandarin teachers in New York,” she grimaces. “For six months, I worked with each of them separately, exhausting them all and immersing myself in the learning process to the brink of insanity. The responsibility weighed heavily as I felt a tremendous sense of mission to help educate a billion people who had been cut off for 35 years from the outside world. It was a rare opportunity and I needed to produce each programme the best I could.”
“Yue-Sai also studies Spanish for half an hour daily, determined to master all three of the most-spoken languages in the world fluently. That’s just who she is: someone who always strives to improve herself,” Pollack says proudly.
“In short, the book, like Yue-Sai herself, is unique,” adds Cruau. “It is a fascinating read about a fascinating person; an icon who took part in the transformation of China by empowering women through beauty — a remarkable entrepreneurial success story in itself — and is an inspiration for generations of girls and women while tirelessly building bridges between China and the US. Dourène and I have three children, and I will treasure this book for them to read once they are bigger.”
But cheeky as the autobiography title is, one should not miss the significance of its subtitle either. “If you read closely, there is a second part: And how she did it. That is the actual story, the real reason I wrote it,” Kan states.
And lest you think of merely flipping through the pages, making a beeline for the last chapter, the author, sharp as ever, has this to say: “This book has no end because my life has not ended. Memories and lessons continue to materialise each and every day. As you continue on your life’s expedition, remain mindful of the past, hold on to the present and keep striving for the future. Every moment is a chance to be strong, just as every moment is not guaranteed.”
What does one do with words of wisdom from the most famous woman in China?
You treasure them, of course.
