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Join us as we explore the lives and times of some of history’s most prominent women of Asian and Asian American descent.
Yue-Sai Kan has long been known as the “Oprah of China,” but to cross-cultural curiosity, she brings warmth and depth and humanitarian empathy that makes her a perfect subject for November’s episode of Ladies & Legends.
INTRO:
“I always say that the universe really has a way of repaying those back who use their money for good.” (The China Project, 2021)
This is a quote from glamazon phenom Yue-Sai Kan, a multi-dimensional entrepreneur, TV host, and fashion icon who built her career by combining business acumen with humanitarian empathy.
She’s known for bridging a gap in understanding between China and the United States with her long running series, “Looking East” which ran for 12-years, and for pivoting. She built an eponymous cosmetics brands in China, selling a majority stake to Coty for around $21.4 million in 1996, which Coty then resold to L’Oreal in 2004 just 8 years later. And while exact figures have not been disclosed, it’s lauded as one of the major early transpacific beauty deals.
She’s been called the “Oprah of China,” and she’s a champion for representation, creating Barbie-doll equivalents, the “Yue-Sai WaWa,” so girls of Chinese descent could see themselves as beautiful and aspirational rather than idolizing blond, blue-eyed counterparts.
HOST:
“Hello welcome to Ladies and Legends, the podcast where we explore the personal journeys of legendary women and business leaders of Asian and Asian American descent. I’m your host Juyun, and today’s story is about the woman known as the Oprah of China, Yue-Sai Kan.
If you were around in the 70’s and 80’s you probably knew about “Looking East,” a program that introduced American audiences to Asian cultures. During its 12 years on air producer and host Yue-Sai Kan won dozens of awards and accolades.
The New York Times said, “Few people are able to bridge the East and West, but Yue-Sai Kan can, and does it with beauty, intelligence and grace.”
Since then, she’s hosted “One World,” a show focused on bilingual travel programming on China’s national television network CCTV, with a weekly viewership of 300 million. For comparison, at her peak Oprah’s viewership topped out at around 20 million daily or 140 million per week if you count weekends. Not unlike Oprah, Kan simultaneously built a cosmetics and beauty empire, created a lifestyle and furnishings brand, and even built her own version of Barbie.
Yue-Sai is a television pioneer, a groundbreaking businesswoman, an author, a philanthropist, and a cultural diplomat. She is a symbol of confidence for millions of Chinese women and a bridge that helped connect two worlds during one of the most rapid social transformations in modern history.
Her story begins, like all great stories, with family, culture, and a young girl growing up between tradition and possibility.
PART 1: Early Life & Identity
Yue-Sai Kan was born in Guilin, China. It’s a place in the southern part of the country famed for its dramatic and otherworldly limestone peaks and river valleys. You probably recognize the landscape from traditional Chinese paintings, and it’s beauty has shaped the work of poets and dreamers, alike for centuries.
At the center of Guilin are two lakes that remain from a medieval period moat, that once surrounded the city. During World War II it became an important military, transport, and cultural center when the population grew from 70,000 people to more than 500,000 by 1944.
And in this post-war era that Yue-Sai Kan was born into a family where she would be the oldest of 4 daughters, some sources say she was born in 1947 while others say 1949. Either way they agree she was an Autumn baby, born on October 6th.
And as a young girl, she grew up cultured and surrounded by artistry.
Her father, Kan Wing-Lin, was a respected painter and calligrapher, and the rhythm of ink across paper was as familiar to her as the sound of her own heartbeat. But because he was deemed an intellectual, and by definition a enemy of the Communist state, they fled to Hong Kong when Yue-Sai was around 4 years old.
Yue-Sai has described the Hong Kong of that time as “primitive,” hardly the scion of finance and commerce it is today. And like the best contemporary Asian American tiger moms and dads, her parents encouraged her to be excellent at whatever she did.
Her dad said, “Be the first person to walk on the moon. No one remembers the second.” Years later she would remember this when she met Buzz Aldrin.
So anytime Yue-Sai expressed interest in anything whether that be ballet or piano, her parents were quick to locate the pre-eminent local expert and sign her up for lessons.
One of her early ambitions was to be a concert pianist and she would practice for up to 8 hours a day. But unlike painting which has what she deems has an element of subjectivity to it, playing piano is not like that. You’re either a master, or you’re not. So after one fateful concert which she actually thought went well, she stayed up until 4am navigating a late-teen identity crisis as she realized she still wasn’t good enough to make it.
So she pivoted to something she considered much more predictable, television.
I should note here, some commonality with all of our heroines. There’s a point in their becoming, like with Vera Wang and ice skating, or Misa Chien and her culinary business, that forces an early reckoning and this crossroads presented by a moment viewed as failure, actually becomes key to building a sustainable life of meaning.
Back to her family, Yue-Sai’s mom was the breadwinner. She owned an investment firm, and Yue-Sai had credited her with much of her own ambition and business acumen. And it was through this, that she was able to afford to send all four daughters to the U.S.
Yue-Sai’s talent as a pianist earned her a place at Brigham Young University–Hawai‘i, where she continued her studies. And this spurred her ability to thrive cross-culturally.
In 1968, she entered the Narcissus Flower Festival competition, organized by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Though still quite young, she carried herself with the poise of someone twice her age and she was named second runner-up, and the opportunities that followed expanded her horizons even further. Public appearances, community events, and cultural ambassadorship introduced her to the idea that identity — when expressed with confidence — had power.
These early experiences helped form the core of Yue-Sai’s life philosophy: that heritage is not something to escape or minimize, but something to uplift, refine, and share with the world.
PART 2: NYC and the Broadcast Era
In 1972, Yue-Sai relocated to New York City and initially survived owning an import-export business. The city was dizzying, filled with noise, ambition, and creative energy. She took it all in with the curiosity that would later become her trademark.
Her initial foray into television was serendipitous. She volunteered on a local cable station broadcasting to New York’s growing Chinese population. She had found her calling, and shortly after she founded her own production company, Yue-Sai Kan Productions.
She began creating television that introduced Americans to Asian cultures with respect, nuance, and enthusiasm in her program, “Looking East.” It’s worth noting that even though she was born in China, she didn’t really consider herself Chinese because of the negative experiences of her parents, first with the Japanese occupation, and then with Communism, that had forced them to flee in the first place.
So her ability to tap into neutral, and unbiased curiosity likely allowed her to present China in a more favorable light to American audiences who had up until that point been exposed to Asian culture through a lens of exoticism rather than understanding.
“Looking East” premiered on U.S. television and quickly developed a loyal audience. It was so popular, it aired for 12 years, the last 2 on the Discovery Channel.
In a dizzying turn of events, in 1984 PBS then handpicked her to host the first live broadcast of a television program from China on the occasion of the 35th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The program was a co-production with China’s CCTV network. And this opened the door for her to become the host of “One World” on China’s national broadcaster, CCTV.
This bilingual weekly television series reached hundreds of millions of viewers — at times a third of the entire country. For the first time, Chinese families saw a woman who spoke flawless English and equally fluent Mandarin, who walked easily between cultures, and who embodied a more globalized future.
She was truly aspirational.
Yue-Sai wasn’t simply a TV host; she was a cultural icon. Her warm interviewing style, worldly elegance, and gift for explaining international customs resonated deeply with China’s audiences, who were hungry for connection with the outside world during a time of unprecedented openness.
In this role, she didn’t just report on globalization — she humanized it.
At the same time she continued with other projects and in 1989 she won an Emmy for her work on the ABC documentary “China Walls and Bridges,” and “Journey Through a Changing China,” which was syndicated nationally and lauded in the U.S. Congressional Record referencing Yue-Sai herself as a “Citizen Ambassador.”
PART 3: Identity-Lead Business Empire
Television made Yue-Sai Kan famous, but entrepreneurship made her a force of transformation.
While traveling across China filming her show, she noticed that beauty counters were dominated by Western brands promoting Western features. Chinese women were being told —explicitly — that they should aspire to Eurocentric beauty standards.
Yue-Sai saw an opportunity, but more importantly, she saw a need. In 1992 she founded Yue-Sai Cosmetics, one of the first modern cosmetics brands designed specifically for Chinese women. Everything — from the shades, complementing a golden skin undertone, to the textures to the marketing — was infused with understanding of Chinese skin, climate, and traditions around beauty.
For the first time, Chinese women saw themselves reflected on marketing collateral like posters, packaging, and television ads, not as imitators of Western standards but as embodiments of their own beauty.
The brand exploded in popularity. Within a decade, Yue-Sai Cosmetics was available in hundreds of stores across China, distributed through dozens of regional companies. It became a symbol of a new era — confident, modern, proudly Chinese.
In 1996, just four short years after founding Yue-Sai Cosmetics, Coty the U.S. beauty conglomerate, purchased a controlling stake for around $21 million dollars. And just eight years after that, L’Oreal came calling, ultimately buying the company as part of their Asia growth strategy. P&G was also in contention.
But Yue-Sai wasn’t finished building.
After cosmetics, she expanded into lifestyle with House of Yue-Sai, a collection blending Chinese and Western aesthetics into home décor, jewelry, and tableware. The guiding principle was the same as always: identity elevated through design, modernity enriched by history.
One of her most beloved creations emerged from a deeply personal observation. While visiting toy stores in China, Yue-Sai noticed that most dolls had blonde hair, blue eyes, and Western features — sending Chinese children a subtle but harmful message about which faces mattered.
In response, she developed Yue-Sai WaWa, a line of dolls with naturally Asian features, black hair, Chinese clothing, and educational accessories. For countless children, these dolls became the first toys that reflected their own beauty back to them.
Through every venture, Yue-Sai wasn’t simply building businesses. She was reshaping the cultural landscape, reclaiming narratives, and redefining representation in a country undergoing radical transformation.
PART 4: Up Close and Personal
Despite being a highly public figure, Yue-Sai has been very private about her personal life.
She did marry a man named James McManus, several years her senior in 1990. It was her first, marriage and his second.
For the event which took place at the Silver Palace Restaurant in Chinatown New York City, she hired 85 waiters, and rented silver, linen and crystal for 520 guests. They also chartered 100 limos to take people home. (NY Times Archives)
James is the founder and majority owner of Westport, Connecticut-based company, Marketing Corp. of America. Together, they were force behind the launch of Yue-Sai Kan Cosmetics initially investing $4 million. But sadly, they would eventually divorce in 1997. They have no children.
Those who know Yue-Sai describe her as elegant but approachable, disciplined yet compassionate, with a remarkable capacity for focus. She carries the poise of someone raised among artists, and the confidence of someone who had successfully reinvented herself multiple times.
To her friends, she was witty, loyal, and unfailingly curious. And to her audience, she was a woman who made dreams feel attainable.
Beyond her forays into business and entrepreneurship, she has also dedicated herself to philanthropy: building schools, supporting educational programs, funding scholarships, and promoting healthcare initiatives.
PART 5: Return to Bi-Cultural Roots
After decades between the United States and China, Yue-Sai eventually spent more time working directly on Chinese soil again. She became an unofficial cultural diplomat — someone who understood both worlds deeply enough to translate them to one another.
Her show “One World” which covered 17 countries in 104 episodes, continued to bring global stories into Chinese homes. She has traveled extensively, interviewing leaders, artists, scientists, and everyday citizens around the world, including icons like Mother Teresa, Gore Vidal, Steve Allen and others, she offered her viewers a doorway into new worlds, and in doing so, a universe of possibilities for dreamers and doers. All while allowing them to practice English proficiency as the show was bilingual in English and Mandarin.
Meanwhile, her brands — cosmetics, lifestyle products, dolls, books — helped define what it meant to be modern and Chinese at a moment when China was reinventing itself on the global stage.
The Yue-Sai WaWa, or dolls, are a particularly bold and interesting project. They came about in 2000 after Yue-Sai noticed a lack of available dolls that represented Asian beauty standards as opposed to the Barbie-fied ones of the west which were sold in China, too. So she developed the Yue-Sai WaWa who, sized like Barbie, featured higher cheekbones, wider faces, and otherwise more Asian features.
In all things she has done, Yue-Sai has served as a bridge between cultures, and between traditions and modernity, while doing it with flair and never-ending capacity for continued curiosity. In 2024 she published her boldly titled memoir, “The Most Famous Woman in China.”
“If I look back at my life, everything has happened to me and it was me who was willing to take the opportunity and run with it,” she told the China Institute of America in a 2019 interview.
So perhaps that’s the takeaway here, have your head up and eyes forward in order to make the most of the opportunities we’re all given throughout our lives. Be brave enough to step up, even when it scares us.
PART 6: Legacy and Closing
Yue-Sai Kan’s influence extends far beyond the television screen or the beauty counter.
Some of her notable philanthropic endeavors include donations to underprivileged, and rural parts of China to help build schools, libraries, and award scholarships. She has also donated ambulances and built small clinics to help serve women.
She founded the Yue-Sai Kan One World Foundation, as an outgrowth of the Yue-Sai Kan China Beauty Charity Fund which included supporting children with cleft lip and palate correction surgeries. And a common theme has been her consistent and unwavering support of women through scholarships and direct contributions to the United Nations World Conference on Women, and through her work building clinics in China. The sheer scale and ambition behind these projects are in themselves indicative of her ambition to make the world a kinder, more respectful, and understanding place.
OUTRO:
Yue-Sai has said, in an issue of Leaders Magazine:
“When I was young, my mother said, “You are young, and right now it seems things are going your way and you probably feel you are successful, but true success can only be judged by how you live the last 20 years of your life. […] are you healthy, […] are you surrounded by people you love and people who love you?”
Her true legacy lies in the millions of lives she touched.
She was one of the first women to show China what global citizenship looked like — not Westernized, not assimilated, but proudly bicultural and she demonstrated that a woman could be international without abandoning her roots and ambitious without sacrificing elegance.
Her cosmetics brand helped Chinese women see their own skin tones, features, and beauty as worthy of celebration. Her dolls allowed children to see themselves reflected on toy shelves. Her books on etiquette and lifestyle guided an entire generation through China’s rapid transformation into a global society.
And perhaps most importantly, she proved that cultural translation is an art — and that those who practice it with honesty, intelligence, and compassion can change how nations understand one another.
So what can we take away from Yue-Sai Kan’s journey? Maybe this: sometimes you have to jump before you’re ready, and take action before you want to, and don’t be afraid of learning along the way.
That wraps up today’s episode of Ladies and Legends. Whether you admire her style, bicultural perspective, or ambitions to make the world a better place through education, one thing is clear, Yue-Sai Kan has lived a life that reminds us of the power of self-belief, ambition and bravery.
Thanks for listening. Be sure to follow the show, leave a review, and share this episode if you enjoyed it. I’m Juyun, and I’ll catch you next time on “Ladies and Legends.”
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