How Poh Ling Yeow became the queen of reinvention | Life of Poh | Australian Story

foreign [Music] hi I'm Gary Meegan and I was a judge on Australian Master Chef for 11 years judges like parents are not allowed to show their favorites but that first series of MasterChef was pretty special and I think it was because nobody had any idea what to expect and that's where I met the subject of tonight's Australian story po Ling Yao what viewers saw was someone who was fun intensely creative and competitive but most of all somebody who loved to take a risk and that's Poe but tonight's Story shows us that she is so much more than that [Music] I've always had this feeling since I was very young that cool things were going to happen to my life it's it's a really odd thing to say out loud but it's almost like a little secret that I've had with myself foreign like a magnet you go out with her and you can see people look once twice she just have has an amazing energy I think she's just so authentic I think she's just authentically herself and I think that's what people resonate with oh my God food dad's putting so much pressure 15 minutes to go I remember first seeing Poe about 13 years ago at the auditions of MasterChef Australia and I remember looking across the room and I just watched this I suppose this Aura and infectious laugh and I was like who the hell is this person it's supposed to be on stage about everything what are you doing I don't think she was trying to be a star nobody knew what the show was going to turn into Pony and Mandy Hall part of what made her popular I think was her resilience and her ability to bounce back from a disaster [Applause] they talk about imposter syndrome I think she's got a lot of that even though from the outside she's got so much ability and and skill and personality I need to focus I'm getting nervous I think there's always a little Slither off there [Music] I have so many moments where I think back to that really really shy kid nearly there I was such a nerd and so sort of socially underdeveloped and to look at where I'm where I'm at now yeah it does amaze me yeah I'm not gonna lie like how did I get here it's a miracle [Music] I've always felt like I'm slightly sort of beamed in from somewhere else that Outsider feeling is part of me it's not about where I am I'm sorting out budgie feathers that I've collected from my budgies and I make little mandalas out of them like a lot of artists I just keep painting the same thing over and over again and it is what I who I call the girl I haven't really given her a name they're all like iterations of my girl I came up with her when I was just kind of thinking about all the features that I hated about myself as a kid because I think that's the thing that caused me the most stress growing up is just looking different I never say she's me I say she's autobiographical because I use her to tell my stories the goal looks like a little bit of an alien I like that sense of discomfort when I look at those paintings because it accurately sums up the way that you feel sometimes as a immigrant in a new country or someone that doesn't look like everyone around you [Music] many years of feeling very very guilty I thought oh man I'm really a bad Asian like I don't know I can't speak the language I almost was a bit lost in terms of my identity and I felt like I had to make good of it somehow but now I kind of feel like through the art through painting the girl and also through the food I realized that's enough for me like I'm okay with that ultimately Poe does not like being put in a box she she doesn't want to be seen as even an Asian a woman of this or that she just wants to be seen as herself I was born in Kuala Lumpur we are fifth generation Chinese born in Malaysia do you love this dish it's like one of my favorites I grew up kind of having two mums of course I was my mum Christina and also my great auntie Kim who's actually my mum's auntie is that Anna twice that's better we've got to watch her like a hot I was surrounded by extended family that were amazing cooks and Mum was very strict like if I dropped a little bit of flour on the counter mum taught me you know how to line a cake tin impeccably when I was like nine and I would watch her cook cakes over and over again like you know seven times in a row until she got it right she wasn't really big into cooking when she was young baking I was yeah baking but not into that traditional food or whatever you just baking mainly I think most young ladies start with baking yeah as every young woman should I would describe my childhood as having a combination of pretty happy times at home but then at school I was an incredibly sad anxious child I'm pretty sure I had some kind of learning difficulty because all I remember is I couldn't understand anything and I really really struggled and I remember I would bore my eyes out to a recess and um I'd always used to like look at how wet my hanky was I feel really sorry for myself masterclass from Auntie Kim on mint omelette she struggled in Malaysia because she really didn't like the Malay language and the schools were all like conducted in Malay sesame oil at home we spoke English and Cantonese that smell I love it my Cantonese that's just like a mangled mess now because I just haven't haven't had enough practice I was nine when my parents told us that we were moving to Australia to allow us to have a really good education I immediately felt a sense of belonging when I came here it was like this miracle when I got to school everything really did make sense I got really good marks right away I still definitely felt different to the other kids and that was very much a physical thing the way I looked and also I felt a complete lack of confidence with my physicality so playing sport which is such a huge part of Australian school life I just had no confidence in that area at all so I spent a lot of my time just shedding all the things that made me feel different and part of the shedding was the PO polling part [Music] I always wrote my name as Sharon polanya as a kid it's very common for you know Chinese to have English names but no one ever really called me Sharon and I think it just took one kid to say oh let's go bowling polling and I was like okay done we're going with Sharon mum and dad worked really hard running our news agency mum she was very strict on me I wasn't allowed to socialize much as a kid it's only because we care and love them that we are being strict with them you know the strictness is you know it's like tough love I did feel lonely in my teenage years definitely because when all the other kids were you know getting into boys and able to socialize and things like that I just had no idea I was really frustrated yet and I just had to suck it up [Music] forced me to grow this internal world and that's really how my love for drawing began it gave me this magical feeling of yeah having a sense of purpose and belonging in the world yeah I just identified that it's like when I do this I feel really terrific about myself and I can generate that feeling and it's what it's something that no one can take away from me [Music] stain my family went through some issues with our business going bad and um we were feeling quite vulnerable and the missionaries came knocking from The Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-Day Saints and Mum and I ended up converting to Mormonism because of that feeling of always being on the altar it felt really nice to belong to a place that felt very safe and welcoming what they had to share gave certainly gave Mom and put some comfort I was not that way inclined at the time but yeah gradually I warmed to it [Music] I think for me I just kind of quite dug the handsome young American boys [Laughter] and um they were just so kind and so gentlemanly [Music] to you one the first priority was to get a job save up money so I could get away from my parents and have freedom not because I didn't like them but because I'd just grown up in such a causative environment and I just needed to spread my wings so I ended up living overseas for about nine months I was about three months in Provo Utah Provo is a Mormon University Town I thought I was going to find myself a really decent woman boy and I managed to just kind of attract the antithesis of everything that my mum and dad would want for me in the blink of an eye we were just you know having this horrid love affair and he yes he popped my cherry um I don't know if my parents actually know that he turned out to be a male escort from La so yeah that was a bit of a surprise a bit of a surprise package and then I ended up going to Canada truly turned my world upside down my first best friend was trans and I just saw this cross-section of the world that I'd never experienced before and that's when I started to really question whether I could go back to church the style of religion that they are and were involved in there are a lot of rules and regulations that come with that and all of a sudden everything that you've you know kind of lived your life by is now being completely challenged when I came back that's when I met Matt at church we were both at this fork in the road philosophically we were not gelling with the doctrine of the church anymore and we'd have these wildly long conversations to flesh out all our grievances that we felt we started dating and we thought the right thing to do was to get married that's what you know the church and both sets of parents were expecting so we got married but before we got married we did something incredibly controversial and we left the church [Music] well I still think to now you know I still think that she would probably see that as still as one of the biggest life decisions she's ever met I was a bit disappointed obviously but I always believed that religion comes from the heart if you force somebody to to believe in something that you believe and their Heart's Not There was to use there's no point you know when we left the church this huge Cloud lifted probably for the first time in my life I've I felt I felt completely free okay come on Rhino come on quick first day I met Poe was in 1996 on the first day of uni [Music] sorry smell of dog we just kind of got long just straight away and very similar we like the same things so it was always really easy to just kind of hang out and chat everything's always so cute at your house cup of tea cup of tea she did the same course as me she's an illustrator as well oh my God it's so cute Matt used to pick me up from uni and we'd drop her off on the way home so that's how sort of Our Lives became entangled like who's got a vase just checking out of it too and I've got like a thimble she was kind of arming and eyeing about changing her name I said what is it she goes oh sounds really weird I was like what is it and she said he was like that's way cooler than Sharon there's no pose out there there's plenty of Sharons so yeah she just went with it but funnily enough my mom actually still often calls me Sharon I was doing a little bit of graphic designing a little bit of illustration and a little bit of makeup and hair and also little bits of acting so I just had my fingers in lots of pies [Music] Matt put the idea of being a professional painter into my head I mean I knew I had ability but to push myself into doing painting as a professional was such a big deal in my head and then like a couple weeks later he said um I kind of made an appointment for you so he's like you better start painting because you need to go with some work to show the gallerist Poe arrived with arms full of paintings there are very elegant and simple and I could see where she could build this he agreed to give me a little solo show in The Upstairs Gallery and that first show was a huge success I sold like 80 of my work and so it was just all guns from there [Music] she was pretty Relentless in her exploration I found her technique evolving in a much more sophisticated she became more self-reflective and there were a series of Works called the girl the thing that I find interesting about the girl is that you can't see her eyes like there's no pupils but of course you can avoid the fact that the girl looks a little bit like Poe and as Poe gets older the goal gets slightly older as well it was actually going through the process of Designing her face that I had this Revelation that this chip that I've had on my shoulder all these years was not at all uh informed by anything externally but completely came from me um and my own self-esteem and so I kind of used her as almost like a meditation and I just painted and painted and painted her and now I really I really like my features [Music] but I can't remember any point in Matt and I's relationship where we never argued law of diminishing returns which you keep telling me I'm using incorrectly yeah and you used it incorrectly there as well and it's because we're so similar we are equally as neurotic and we have to you know be right and they'll run it for the public for around three months we're just the worst combination is that for next year obviously always like really kind of contentious it was just they both have very strong opinions on everything so um they're just butted heads a lot that's next week I was in front of my canvas and a very clear thought came into my head which is like you need to leave like this is so toxic and um I I just linked it to the what is it birth death marriages got myself a divorce kit and then just served Matt up the divorce papers so we were together for a decade so they broke up Matt and I we're always kind of like got along well and it just kind of it was a natural kind of progression like after they broke up that we kind of got together and the trio kind of stayed together you know nothing really changed except that I was with Matt now so it sounds very Bohemian but I at the time it's just I don't know it just seemed kind of natural it was hard to swallow at the beginning but like I could actually see this harmless that Matt had around Sarah that I thought I could I will never be able to bring that out Iris building uh finally getting around to building the bookshelves it was like a really nice sort of moment of I've definitely made the right decision like why would I not be happy for them yeah it's extraordinary that she was okay with it I wasn't expecting her to be okay with it but she's very resilient yeah it's my restaurant she gets emotional but she gets over it really quickly yeah the first time that Poe told me the story about her and Matt and Sarah I was like what and you're still friends with all of them it's just society that tells us that we can't finish and restart things in that way and in very post-style it's like well actually you know what we can we can do that Sarah and Paul are still best friends Matt and Paul is still best friends and it's so stunning when you see them together Zara Matt and I run a little market store called Jam phase we've dreamed of having a Patisserie for since we were at Uni I call it my church um because it's on Sundays Sarah and I both have our own Specialties and Matt is the most terrible cashier on the planet with all the cream and everything it'll be just as nice I love the sort of closed-loop cycle of cooking something taking it to the market setting it up and then selling to the customers and wrapping it up and you know giving it away she wasn't that into food when I first met her then she really got into it she got very good very quick in 2004 I had a small foray into TV through a ABC show called beat the chef because not only do you have to cook but you also have to interpret for your auntie because the format was a professional chef versus an amateur Chef now there are only a few minutes left are you going along well yes you're going to get this I've gone on it twice and I even auditioned for a presenter I was absolutely Dreadful at it didn't get the part time's up hands off stop what you're doing it was Sarah who texted me this website and it was just masterchef.com.au and she said I think you should try out for this Australia's first Master Chef has to have that kind of Genius that sometimes no one knew anything about it because it was season one hello hello oh please something delicious it was a bit like So You Think You Can Dance except we rocked up with an Esky and you had to present a dish that you had already cooked so what are you cooking for us a a cooked European dish thinking I Don't Want to Be pigeonholed Right ten marks for trying to be creative and about two in terms of delivery it wasn't great we gave Poe a second chance it was just that little glimmer of you know potential that we saw and with a little push it's like with anything often that pressure reveals you know something entirely different which is what we got right it's actually going to make this dish um called Abacus speeds now you're talking about it so why don't you go and do it now yeah yeah that means you've got a chance yeah and I was like what the hell why are they giving her a second chance what's so special about her luckily mum is like a Doomsday prepper so she had all the ingredients I rushed back cooked it for them and they loved it that's the sort of dish that I really hope that we'd find in this competition I think at that stage I think at an audition stage Poe hadn't really explored her culinary Heritage my knowledge for traditional food was terrible so I was just kind of learning on the Fly and just almost cooking from imagination and memory like palette memory what are you cooking I'm making hainanese chicken rice today I just knew that she would either win it or get very close to winning it's from the region of Hunan she almost won it anybody was in that first series that survived into say the top 10 became instant Stars Poe had all sorts of opportunities have you ever made dumplings before Andre and I was a little bit jealous to be honest with you yeah yeah me under a wing a couple of times I mean I was in Poe's kitchen as a sidekick a couple of times well into the center not out uh here we go yeah that's it that's it you got it from then it just kept on growing and growing and growing I now absolutely celebrate all of their successes what are you actually needing Bay let's go I think everybody could see love blossoming on the set of MasterChef but I on the other hand was not paying attention and so I was really surprised when I found out that jono and Poe had kind of form this Bond someone and oh like Aussie kind of looking guys you know traditional kind of blonde hair surfy kind of types we used to sort of give each other eyes across during lunch time because we weren't allowed to fraternize with the crew okay so it was a very sort of old-fashioned romance you know at the beginning What attracted me to him was there was just no games he just was like I really like you let's get together a lot of people ask me about kids so I didn't have them with Matt because we thought it was a unstable environment to bring a child into with jono we did actually get pregnant about eight years ago and I lost the baby at 12 weeks so it was pretty much the day that I was allowed to tell everyone and it was really heartbreaking I actually went through a full labor at home and I I saw the baby and I I like bringing this up because I think it's something that people should talk about and I think it's this sort of silent grief that women have to go through all the time I really like to acknowledge that I've that I've I really like to confront my emotions up front like I think it's really healthy I don't like to bury anything but it was probably one of the most horrendous things I've ever been through his bed so many beautiful life analogies in the garden I think it's in nature that you become really aware of being a speck in the firmament and I think that is the most healthy way to go through life to not think that you're the most important thing but the least important thing [Music] I broke up a little over two years ago but we've stayed really good friends there is an eight year age Gap and I think at the beginning we thought love could conquer all but I think little things like that start to Chip Away and we realized we we just had to set each other free again yeah it was meant to be this little creeper here but the uh grass has taken over so I'm just trimming the grass [Music] and Matt for dating advice and it's so funny um yeah the advice they give me and it's just so Frank I love it because there's no one that would know me better right I think that um at the moment at the speed and rate that Poe is going in life she would have to have a very very Savvy dude to be able to keep up with her foreign day for me I bake literally from morning till night it's usually about a 10 hour bake I get into this rhythm of my own put on loud music and just crash around like a psycho all day and I love it [Music] as much as I love doing TV it's it's real you know and I'm very wary of ever buying into it too much so jam face really really just keeps it real for me because I'm such a doer I always want to remember what brought me here it's the cooking not not the presenting I think when she starts to do something I Envision her mother looking over her shoulder and saying you know that's not neat enough that's not perfect enough I think that might be running through head a little bit sometimes funnily enough I I thank her for it because that's absolutely given me that attention to detail that goes into everything that I do I think her main Drive is just creating and it doesn't really matter what discipline it is whether it's with um you know paint on the canvas or whether it's with food or making TV shows she sees the opportunities that she has now and I think she's just really grateful for that do to what a wild Journey I've had and I think one thing that stands out with all the experiences I've had like you know the broken marriages and all those kinds of things is that I've become I've learned to become really good friends with uncertainty to have faith in a situation and to never fear things going pear-shaped There's an opportunity to reinvent and start from scratch again I always find that quite exciting [Music] all right [Music] these are my favorite story is when you finish the show and they just forgot everything I went to the shops bought my things oh no I have no money it's okay I'll call someone I don't have a phone oh maybe I'll just let myself into the house oh I didn't bring my keys yeah so used to being looked after a month that's like from getting left with him he just stands they're waiting for someone to press the button

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 162,098

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism, Australian Story, Poh Ling Yeow, Poh masterchef, Poh Masterchef Australia, Poh Mormon, Poh Masterchef Australia made judges cry, Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston

Id: hHnDL64yGko

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 14 2022