Introducing A Seat At Our Table
EPISODE 1 — 31 OCTOBER 2021
“The more we talked, the more we realised that the impact we want to create is within the industries we work in, that is, the creative industry.”
ABOUT THE EP
There's a new kid on the block! Introducing A Seat at Our Table, by your friends from the area, Tracy & Wendy.
We're two friends from South-West Sydney with dreams to make the creative industry a more diverse and inclusive place.
In our very first episode, we share our friendship story, chat about why this podcast is important to us, and discuss being Asian Australian in the creative industry. We also have some nervous laughs.
THE DETAILS
The significance of 'A Seat at Our Table'
Our 13 year friendship story
Being the only Asian in the room
Surprising diversity and inclusion stats from the creative industry
Asking each other some fun questions
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Wendy
Hey, friends. Welcome to our very first episode of A Seat at Our Table. We're currently at Tracy's house, in her bedroom, filming. We've got pillows all around us to try and make it soundproof. But Tracy, how do you feel?
Tracy
Yeah, I'm really, really excited. We've been talking about this for so long that I'm just really excited that we’re finally recording an episode, getting it off the ground.
Wendy
Yeah. So some of you might know us really, really well. But for those who don't, maybe we should introduce ourselves. Tracy?
Tracy
I'm Tracy. I'm currently 25, from Sydney, and I'm currently working in a digital advertising agency as an Account Manager.
Wendy
I'm Wendy. I'm 26. I'm a Design Consultant at a service design consulting firm. And I also live in Sydney, Australia.
Tracy
Nice. So, let's talk about our cultural background, where we grew up in Sydney, where we came from.
Wendy
Sure. So, I grew up in South-West Sydney in Cabramatta. I was born here and grew up here for all 26 years of my life. I am Chinese-Vietnamese Australian. I was born in Australia, but my parents are from Vietnam. But at home, we speak Cantonese. How about you, Tracy?
Tracy
I'm very similar to Wendy. I'm also Chinese-Vietnamese Australian. My grandparents came from China, they moved to Vietnam, had my parents, who then came to Australia had me and my sisters. I also was born in the Fairfield Cabramatta area and have been living here all my life. In terms of what we speak, we speak a Chinese dialect at home called Teochew but also a little bit of Vietnamese. So, for this episode, we want to talk about what this podcast is and why it exists.
Wendy
This was two plus years in the making. We just went back to our Google Doc to look at when we first had this idea and started talking about it. It was actually first created in January 2019, which was much further along than we thought it was.
Tracy
Yeah, we were having discussions beforehand as well. We just never really documented anything until January 2019. This has been a long time coming. I think our friends, our family, our close ones, have been asking us ‘Where’s the podcast?’.
Wendy
We did the classic millennial thing and had like a placeholder Instagram page for a while. But what it really started out as was a conversation between Tracy and myself, talking about wanting to open up the dialogue around our Asian Australian experience, specifically to try and find common ground with other people who might be sharing a very similar experience. And then in doing so hopefully bringing people together and really discussing topics within mainstream media. We came up with a name two years ago called Something in Common. Some of you may have seen a really blank Instagram page. But this has since changed to A Seat at Our Table, which is what you're listening to now. Tracy, do you want to tell us a little bit about how it came to be?
Tracy
Yeah. Like what you said, we initially wanted to talk about our Asian Australia experience, which was quite broad. But the more we talked, the more we kind of realised that the specific impact we want to create is within the industries we're in, the spaces that we're in. And for us, that is the creative industries.
Wendy
I think we are one or two of a handful of people from our high school that actually embarked on a creative career post high school. It wasn't really something that was, I guess, emphasised in high school, that this was a route.
Tracy
Yeah, that's right. As high school students, you don't really get exposure to certain industries or careers. You kind of see teacher, engineer, doctor, nurse. That's what we've been fed our whole lives. But I think for us, we were fortunate enough to be exposed to industries like design or advertising or marketing in other aspects of our life, like UTS Design School. And that opened us up to a new world that we never really had exposure to as young kids. I think diversity and inclusion is a big issue or topic in our industries, we don't really see a lot of people who look like us, sound like us, from the same areas as we are. And that's something we're both quite passionate about. We want to bring that dialogue and that's how we came up with the name A Seat at Our Table. Because in our industry, in business, you kind of hear the term ‘a seat at the table’ thrown a lot around a lot. And personally, for me, I feel like that sounds quite intimidating. It sounds like there's this one exclusive table, where you have to work your ass off and to try to get into this room, and to have a seat at the table. But for us, we want to create a space that is quite inclusive and open for anyone. Anyone's welcome, which is why we wanted to call our podcast A Seat at Our Table. There's not just one table that we as minority people have to work our way towards. We want to create a space where everyone's welcome. There'll be multiple tables, multiple people, anyone can join. And that's the conversation we want to start.
Wendy
Yeah, and building on that, I think the concept of a ‘table’ is quite significant here. It's not just the boardroom table and climbing the ladder, which is, obviously a lot of people's goals in the industry that we're in. But I think it's like thinking about the table that you sit in, in the office, your individual table, and the meeting rooms that you go into. It's making sure that we as a minority feel like we have a place regardless of what table we sit at, whether it's the table that you sit at for lunch as well. We really wanted to highlight that we want to create a safe space for everyone, everywhere.
Tracy
Yeah, and on top of that, I think coming from Chinese backgrounds, or Asian backgrounds, the dinner table has always been very important for our family. You know, I think dinner time, eating, culturally is very significant in Asian households. So that's kind of a nod to our heritage as well, because I feel like the dinner time is the time where all the family comes together, you know, Chinese New Year, dinner is very important for us. So, this is kind of like us sitting around our dinner table, having conversations with our family and friends.
Wendy
Yeah, and it definitely creates space specifically for my family. Dinner time is the one time that everyone is in the same place at the same time. And it's almost the time and place where you don't have your phone as a distraction as well. You're kind of forced to talk with your family about what has happened during your day, during your life, and anything new that's coming up as well. And I think that's kind of the atmosphere that we want to create, with our listeners as well.
Tracy
And amongst each other as well. I think having Asian parents, like when they have guests over, there always make them feel welcome. Like when I come to your house, I’m welcome to your dinners. You're welcome to my dinners. I think it's the culture we want to create.
Wendy
I think it's very clear that this is a candid conversation, you know, much like our strap line. We just want this to seem like you guys are a part of this conversation that we're having. So often, Tracy and I are always talking about this, whether we're travelling together or just having brunch together, we always end up talking about something relating to this particular topic area. So, I guess we really wanted to open the space up to include other people. But also, we're still learning as well. We want to learn from other people, we want to be able to inspire other people as well. So yeah, that's the whole premise of this podcast. And we're so grateful that you could join us and you're spending the time to listen to us.
Tracy
The next thing we want to talk about is our friendship, how we came to be. So how did we meet?
Wendy
Well, Tracy and I have been friends for 13 years, we just counted before this, which feels like a long time, but we have been through so much together. Where it really started, well, my earliest memory was moving groups and Tracy was in this friendship group that I moved to, which was a big thing in high school. And I think we got close because we shared Year 8 math class together. I think that's how we started to get to know each other and realised how similar we were in so many ways. I think I used to call you my twin from another bin. Yeah, but our lives and the trajectory that we went on, even just like the first job we had, to where we went, like going on exchange and everything like that, everything just seemed to fall in place. I think that's why we get along so well, because our lives are seemingly so aligned that it’s scary sometimes.
Tracy
Yeah, I remember meeting you and all your interests were my interest. Really scary, like, you would say things, and it’s like ‘Oh me too!’, like we had the same interests. And I think that's where it started. We’re very, very similar like Wendy said. I feel like we are like soul sisters. I feel like nobody really is so similar to me as Wendy. But we're also very different as well. But we have common ground, and we just understand each other and what we want in lives. And we've always been very passionate and pushing each other to chase our dreams.
Wendy
Yeah, I think that's a really important point that you just touched on. I think friendship to a certain degree, really also relies on being able to push each other, but also challenge each other in terms of your perspectives, and providing advice as well to one another. And I think Tracy has always been that person for me where I know if I go to her for advice, it's never going to be like, oh yeah, you're totally right, 100% I agree with you. It's more so Tracy understands me to the point that she knows what I'm going through and being able to ask those questions that I might not see upfront.
Tracy
I feel like we can be very open with each other, no bullshit. Like, we're very similar but we're not going to be each other's Yes Women. I feel like we did high school together, basically. We had the same subjects. We both did textiles and visual arts.
Wendy
Yeah, and then we ended up getting – well I got a job at our local Woolworths, which is a supermarket for those who are not from Sydney, for any international listeners. But yeah, I got a job at Woolworths. And then like three weeks later, guess who else got a job at Woolworths? Tracy! And so we were literally inseparable from like, school, nine to three then after school, like doing five hour shifts together.
Tracy
Weekends. Public holidays.
Wendy
We loved working. It was our first job. Well, it was my second job but it was kind of like my first job. We were branded the ‘dream team’ at work. And I think that's a testament to how much we were truly stuck at the hip. Yeah, exchange was also another really poignant time for our friendship.
Tracy
In 2017, Wendy went on a year exchange in France, and I went on a half year exchange to London. It felt like a really special time for our friendship and I think it really took our friendship to another level, in the sense that it was our first time in Europe full stop, being overseas, halfway across the world, no one we knew really except each other. So, it felt like for me that the year on exchange was very formative for our adulthood. It was us learning to live independently and figuring out what we wanted to do with our lives, our careers post university. And I feel like that was where the inception of this podcast actually came from. We had a lot of deep conversations, a lot of big conversations about what our passions were, the impact we wanted to create in our industries, and why we feel that representation of the Asian Australian experience was important. And yeah, I think the initial talking and thinking for this podcast came during that year on exchange.
Wendy
Yeah, I think if I remember what those conversations were like, we spent so much time or so much of our downtime in between travels, just discussing what was really important to us post exchange and what we wanted to do. I think when you're travelling the world, and having all these new experiences, naturally, you start thinking about what the future holds for you as well. And we talked a lot about creating impact with the job that we had and the degree that we had, and really wanted to embark on a career that would allow us to have the creative freedom, but also create impact for people who may be in low socio-economic statuses, and also bring to the forefront what our experiences are and how these have shaped us.
Tracy
Yeah. So, I think that's a nice segue into maybe more detail into our careers so far, and what industry we're in. So, I work in the advertising industry. I've been there for about three, three and a bit years now. I'm currently at a digital creative agency called Orchard as an Account Manager there. I think for me, this podcast is very important to me, because I feel like in my industry you don't see a lot of people who look like me, from the same area, sounds like us. Oftentimes, I'm the only Asian in the team or in the meeting or in the room. So I think it's really important to, you know, voice our opinions about this matter, and kind of shed a bit more light and start the conversations about diversity and inclusion in the industry.
Wendy
Yeah. And I think some people might think ‘Sound like me? What do you mean by that? We all speak English, all speaking the same language,’ but actually, I think I've been told before that I don't – like when someone met me for the first time when I started my job. Just for context, I first started out as a consultant at Deloitte Digital. And I was there for about two years. And I recently, in the past couple of months, moved to a smaller consulting agency, called The Customer Experience Company, and I do service design consulting. And that sounds like a whole lot of buzzwords, but essentially, I help clients create better customer experiences, whether that's for customers that are buying a product or service or their employees. So going back to what I was saying before, I think, when you go into the industry, when I first met one of my colleagues, he was like, ‘You don't sound like you're from the area, you sound like you're from the north.’ And I think, you know, this is a really maybe touchy subject for a lot of people. But I just laughed it off, because I was like, ‘Really?’. I've never heard someone say that to me before so it was a bit of a bit of a shock that people make correlations in terms of like, how Australian you sound to where you're from? And I think that's what Tracy was touching on in terms of like, you know, you could walk into a room, and you might not see people who look like you but you already make assumptions of where they might be. I think I've felt that at times, where I've kind of sat in a room with people and realise, like, crap, I'm the only Asian in the room. And I think when you have that realisation, and you're actually start to notice those things, you just like spiral out and start thinking about 10 million other things like, oh my god, what if like, people don't see me as being someone who's like quite senior, or someone who doesn't believe in my abilities, because of where I'm from, or what I look like. And you just have an existential crisis.
Tracy
Even things like having lunch at work, and everyone brings their lunch, and I feel like I'm back at school, like you bring your lunch boxes. I realise I take away leftover dinner from the night before and it's like rice with like, meats and veggies, and everyone else is eating salads and sandwiches and things like that. I always get comments on my food, I feel self-conscious when it’s like ‘Oh what are you eating?’
Wendy
Like, does my lunch smell?
Tracy
I feel like they obviously don't have any ill intentions, but I actually do feel quite self-conscious. When I'm the only Asian in my team, like what you said, you can really spiral if you're hyper aware about your differences in a place where you don't really see people who are similar to you, or have the same experiences as you as well.
Wendy
Yeah. And I think when you've got shared experiences, and also diverse experiences, you also bring a perspective that is different to other people. And I guess that allows for innovation and new ideas as well.
Tracy
I've got a couple of stats here that I wanted to share. Only 16% of people in advertising are culturally diverse. So that's like, pretty telling. Advertising and marketing is something you see everywhere, like the TV ads, the digital ads, social media, you see it everywhere, and Australia is such a multicultural country, but the people behind those ads do not represent the people those ads are being served to. So I think that's quite a stark contrast between what it should really be. There's a stat here that I found quite interesting. Only 24% of people working in agencies have been to Parramatta while 62% have been to a Italian restaurant in North Bondi, which is pretty scary thinking about it. The typical person you see in advertising, they tend to be mid 20s, male, Caucasian and most likely lives in Bondi or Newtown. And that's a stat, you can look it up. I think I've been lucky to have been in very female dominated teams, and that's awesome. But culturally and maybe economically, there's not a lot of diversity there yet.
Wendy
Yeah, I was actually looking at stats myself around cultural diversity in the arts, media and creative sector, which both of our jobs sit within. Culturally and linguistically diverse Australians make up 39% of the population but when organisations were asked about how many of those kind of leadership positions are representative of CALD people, over 51% of those organisations don't have any of that representation at the leadership level. And so you know, if you think about what this means, in the context of any organisation, there's no minorities not being represented at the level of like creative directors, senior executive CEOs, board members, and if you really put this into perspective of the message that we're trying to send, that's a lot of boardroom tables in this particular sector that don't have a seat that represent anybody from the culturally and linguistically diverse population and they almost make up half of our population. So, I think that's a really telling sign of why we need conversations like these, the ones that we're having right now are so important. And I think what's important to us is, being able to take ourselves on a learning experience as well and opening up that conversation to allow for a two-way exchange of people to share their stories with us and vice versa, our experiences with others as well.
Tracy
Yeah, like we want to kind of create a more culturally diverse space in the areas that we work in. But also, on top of that, we do want to bring these perspectives to the communities we're part of, because I think growing up or being in high school, we don't really hear too much about the creative industries that we're in. This podcast is there to have multiple impacts.
Wendy
Or roles to play in different groups of people. So you know, not just younger generations who are still trying to figure out what they want to do but also, maybe, perhaps our colleagues or people who know us personally, who haven't really thought about the struggles that we're facing day to day in our own industries. And we just wanted to bring those to light, bring those to the forefront, to encourage people to talk about what is uncomfortable. We recognise that it is really uncomfortable talking about these things but what we want to do is just to be able to create that space that allows for people to open up.
Tracy
Yeah, so I think this is kind of a taster of what's to come. We do want to do a deep dive into our experiences in the workplace, being Asian, being female. We want to talk about finding confidence in the workplace when you might feel like an outsider. We want to bring on guests because we know our experiences are isolated, it's our personal experiences, and a lot of other people have similar experiences or different experiences, and we do want to bring those perspectives to this podcast as well to create a two way dialogue.
Wendy
Cool. Before we wrap up, to get to know us a little bit better, we have a few questions. The first one is, Tracy, what's your Myers Brigg personality?
Tracy
So, I'm an ESFJ? So that's the Consul. We dug up the personalities just to check. And what the Consul is, is people focused people, I guess. So, I think their priority is community, building relationships, friends, family, and I think I relate to that. Like I think people my one of my biggest values.
Wendy
Yeah, I definitely see that in you. My one is ENFJ. So I am the Protagonist. In particular, Protagonists love to help others. So very similar to yours, but they also have very strong ideas and values, and backup their perspective with creative energy, apparently, in order to achieve their goals. So, I definitely think that speaks to who I am.
Tracy
The next question we have is what are we currently reading? So, Wendy and I are quite big readers, we have a reading goal for the year. What is yours?
Wendy
Mine's 25 books. Unfortunately, I'm behind schedule. Right now, I'm at 17 out of 25. And I've only recently got back on the bandwagon but I'm currently reading a book that Tracy got me called The Mind and Body by the School of Life and it really talks about different tactics and techniques you can engage in to really connect the head and the heart. Mostly because as human beings, we really make decisions based on one or the other, but this book is all about bringing those together because they actually correlate more than we think. What about you, Trace?
Tracy
I'm currently reading a book called Minor Feelings. It's a collection of essays about the Asian American experience, which is very relevant to what we're talking about today. We might do a bring back what I've learned there in a future episode. In terms of my reading goal, I've actually been reading a lot more than I thought I would this year. My goal is currently 35 books but I'm already at 33 books, so I think I'll probably push it a little bit higher. And the last question is, if money wasn't a problem, what would you be doing?
Wendy
The golden question. I'm really big on creating really great experiences for people. That's a part of my job. And so I've always had this love of flowers, and what it signifies for people and the happy moments in life that it represents. So, I think I would love to have a florist, but also a concept store, because I'm huge on good design products, and very appreciative of that.
Tracy
Yeah, I can definitely see Wendy as a florist. So similarly, for me, I think the people who know me know, I always say that when I retire, I want to be a librarian. I think everybody knows that about me. But if money wasn't a problem, I would open that bookstore. And for me, I want to make it a bookstore with a social conscious. I'm very passionate about social impact and non-profits. So, I think that's something I want to do in our local area.
Wendy
So, those were three questions to get to know us better. We hope you enjoyed episode one. Have a look at our show notes for any references and also our socials as well.
Tracy
Yeah, connect with us on Instagram. We have an Instagram @aseatatourtable.podcast. So slide into our DMs. Please let us know your thoughts, any stories you want to hear more about, or just introduce yourselves to us. And thank you so much for listening to us in this episode.
Wendy
Stay tuned for the next one. Bye!