Success After Overcoming Discrimination, Broken Love and Hardship

GONG Cui,
Representative executive,
Chinalinear Inc.

If you get off the train at Shinagawa station in Tokyo and walk along the modern main street, you will see a beautiful 31-story building. On the 12th floor of the building is a company running a Chinese language class and an erhu class. Chinalinear Inc. was created by GONG Cui, a representative executive who has achieved her childhood dream of working overseas. She came to Japan in 1997.

Cui was born in Dalian in China and was the third child among six sisters. The Chinese family register is divided into two groups – “Town” and “Farming village.” Basically, those listed on a farming village register are not permitted to work in a town no matter how intelligent they are. Cui, who is listed on a farming village register, went to an agricultural school after graduating from junior high school. Because she was able to take advantage of a scholarship.

After graduating from the agricultural school, she opened a beauty parlor and through great effort on her part, had it operating successfully. She then started to work in a company in Dalian. Although nothing about her work was guaranteed except the provision of accommodation in a dormitory, it was her first step to working in a city. One day she visited the president of a company to discuss business, but when she arrived, no one was waiting for her in the president’s office. While she was waiting for the president to return, she answered the telephones and took memos. The president then asked her – “Would you like to come and work in our Public Relations department?” Thus, she began receiving a regular salary each month.

One day, her life reached a turning point. Her first lover was a man who went to Japan to study and was employed by a Japanese company. She followed him when he was transferred to Shanghai, but what was waiting for her there was the family register problem again. This time, his mother opposed her son’s relationship with Cui not only because she was from an agricultural village, but also because she came from a city outside Shanghai.

In China, children should be registered in their mother’s family register, therefore the reason why his mother rejected Cui was because the couple would have a big problem with their children’s education unless the mother had a family register in Shanghai. Cui wished she could live somewhere where important life issues were not affected by a family register. “About the only country I could think of that might suit me was Japan.” She asked her partner to start procedures for her to study in Japan and luckily she was able to obtain a visa to come to Japan almost immediately.

Cui coped with both school work and a side job in spite of becoming ill due to hard work and stress, but she finally found a job in a Japanese company after she graduated. However, she found it very difficult to cope with the monotonous desk work that she had to do repeatedly every day. She started working as a teacher in a Chinese language school, but quit the job shortly afterwards, since she had doubts about their teaching method and
materials.

Cui then thought that if she wanted to teach Chinese in the best way she could, she would have to start her own classes. So, she made up her mind to create teaching materials by herself, and later, opened her own classes. “At first I thought it would be easy to run a class, but soon I found out that it wasn’t.” At that time she had a work visa, but as she had quit her previous company, all the activities she was doing to launch her own business were not actually permitted.

Cui set up her company very quickly and gambled that she would obtain a visa as a managing director. One month later, she was told by the Immigration office, “What you did is hardly permissible if you didn’t even know that what you were doing was illegal. You have to be very careful from now on, though we will grant you a visa this time.” She grabbed her passport, unable to hold back her tears.

While she was preparing to launch her business, Cui never stopped studying how to teach pronunciation. This involved training in basic pronunciation, including the movement of the mouth muscles and the position of the tongue. Thanks to her efforts, she received many comments from students, including “Pronunciation is the highest barrier to climb for Japanese studying the Chinese language, but I believe your method is the best one to climb over this barrier,” and “My pronunciation has come to be admired as ‘beautiful’ by other people and I have confidence in it.”

One year after opening her first Chinese language class, Cui opened an erhu class. It is said that people can play simple musical tunes with an erhu in about three months and that the tone helps people to relax. In their events, students of the erhu class play erhu, and students from the Chinese language classes also recite poems and act out dramas. “I want them not only to learn the language, but also to adopt the best aspects of the Chinese – the ability to present themselves appealingly,” says Cui.

“I suffered and struggled through many difficult days to discover what I am. It is very difficult to be independent and work for myself, but it is most suitable for me to work at what I want to do in my own way. It would be wonderful if I could open a shop in Ginza in the future. I want to introduce people to nice Chinese dresses and to more aspects of Chinese culture, too. I enjoy this job – it gives me many opportunities to get to know people. At present, I feel free. Now I can walk my own path and feel proud of myself.”

Chinalinear Inc.
www.chinalinear.com

Back to List Page