Advice to girls: Make your own money
Print Edition
In a society where much is changing but marriage and children are still expected of women, Mercedes Yao is telling young Chinese women to be independent, take risks and make money.
“I’d love to convey the idea that young people, especially women, need to rely on themselves,” said Yao who recently published “Girls, You Can Do It Too!” which contains advice on starting small businesses.
“They cannot expect to find stable and well-paid work or to marry a wealthy man to make fortune. It’s okay to take some risk when they are young,” she told Shanghai Daily in an interview.
The book in Chinese was recently published .
Yao, 41, is director of sales and marketing for the Mercedes-Benz Arena, a major entertainment venue in Shanghai.
“There is no shoulds or shouldn’ts,” she said. “If your ambition is to support your husband and educate your children, it’s okay to be a housewife. But if you want to pursue career, you don’t have to be bound by traditional ideas that women should return to their families.”
Yao’s book is based on Yao’s personal experiences of starting small businesses for the past two decades.
After graduating from high school in Shanghai, Yao attended college in San Francisco in the early 1990s. majoring in tourism and hospitality.
At that time, not many families would support their children in studying abroad but she wanted to lead a different life and to go abroad for college. She just wanted to live a different life and learn about the world.
At first she stayed with her aunt and uncle in San Francisco, but she soon moved out. “I really hated to be controlled with tight discipline and my aunt was very strict with me,” she said.
Yao returned to Shanghai in the late 1990s and instead of becoming a “gold-collar” professional, she started her own business. First she opened a bar and restaurant in downtown and later an egg tart shop that was a huge success at first.
She had been inspired by a Hong Kong shop where the egg tarts were all freshly made in front of customers and the lines outside were very long. The pastries were delicious.
“I believed they would be very popular if I introduced them in Shanghai and my shop would make money,” she said.
The store owner declined Yao’s suggestion of opening a Shanghai branch, but he agreed to send staff to train her employees once she opened her own store in Shanghai.
Yao used the best ingredients and invested in publicity, and it all paid off.
Then she made the mistake of entrusting the business to her middle-aged mother who had volunteered to operate it, along with some friends.
“But their generation had very different ideas from ours — they were keen to save money, they used lesser quality ingredients and reheated leftover tarts.”
The business took a nose dive, thanks to mom.
“It was a very good lesson to me,” Yao said.
She went on to operate several other businesses after the egg tart shop closed, including a massage parlor and an English-language training center.
Two years ago, her career took a different turn: She became an employee instead of an employer, going to work for Mercedes-Benz. She thought long and hard, for around six months, before taking the job.
“It’s quite hard to be an employee after being a boss for such a long time, because you get used to freedom. There are pros, of course, since employees worry less than bosses.”
It’s coincidence that she and the arena share the same name, but the similarity was attractive. She was also drawn to the center because of its focus on entertainment. The arena is a top performance venue in the city.
“I love music very much,” Yao said. “The coincidence about the name and my love of music made the decision.”
Asked whether women should focus on family or career, Yao replied, “Follow your heart.”
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