Season 1, Episode 5 - How Carol ended up in Hong Kong and her life as a designer

In this week’s episode, we’re gonna learn about Carol’s life as a designer, and how she ended up starting her business in Hong Kong

Topics Covered:

00:18 - Anne introduces how Caroline ended up getting married and starting business in Hong Kong and how she runs her design studio with her partner, Kevin.

02:30 - Carols talks about moving back to Asia with her now husband, Kevin, on Christmas about 8 years ago. Their 2 dogs Oki and Dolce also move back with them.

03:45 - Carols talks about living in Boston for 10 years before moving back to Hong Kong. She studied at Wellesley College in Boston, and Rhode Island School of Design for architecture school in Providence, Rhode Island. Carol and Anne talk about the famous bakery, Pastiche in Providence.

04:45 - Carols shares that she graduated from architecture school, and Kevin’s architecture school and culinary career.

05:30 - After Carol graduated from school and Kevin quit his job, they were contemplating and figuring out future plans, and decided to move.

06:18 - Carol shares about the first year struggles, as Hong Kong was crowded and busy and she didn’t speak the local language and had no friends here.

06:55 - Carol discusses the local Chinese dialect in Hong Kong, and how she’s still learning the language.

08:13 - Carol shares about moving and looking for a place to live.

09:00 - Carol said she lived a bit far from the city center and she didn’t have a car, so she could only take the bus to travel around.

09:55 - Carol said she missed Asian food when she was in Boston, and talks about the good balance of western and Asian food in Hong Kong.

11:47 - Carol shares that she found a job in Hong Kong as the purpose of moving back is for Kevin and his friends to start a business, but after 3 years, the 2 partners decided to leave.

13:04 - Carol talks about their design studio OPENUU, originally started up by Kevin and his friends, but when they left, she and Kevin rebranded and relaunched the business.

14:04 - Carol said most of her clients are by referral and meeting them and the company mainly works with hotels and co-living owners, restaurants and retail businesses.

15:25 - Carol shares about the typical design process of her company.

16: 42 - Anne shares that she is happy to get into more details of Carol’s perspective of designing for a hotel and wants to know more about how corporate standards can affect hotel designs in the further episodes.

Next episode Anne and Carol will share about their non-profit involvement and how they volunteer their time.

Connect with Anne

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annefan

http://fanofluxury.com

anne@fanofluxury.com

Connect with Caroline

https://hk.linkedin.com/in/cchou

http://openuu.com

hello@openuu.com

S01E05 - How Carol ended up in Hong Kong and her life as a designer

Making Lemonade Podcast with Anne and CarolBy Anne Fan and Caroline ChouSep 15, 2020