MasterChef star Poh Ling Yeow spoke about all things identity on ABC interview series Stan Grant’s One Plus One on Monday night.
The chef, 47, revealed how she migrated to Australia from Malaysia at the age of nine, but never wanted to be defined by her background.
Interestingly, she also said she didn’t identify strongly with being a woman.
Candid: MasterChef’s Poh Ling Yeow revealed in an ABC interview on Monday that she ‘never really identified with being female or Asian’
‘I’ve never really identified with being female or Asian or anything. I really just want to do interesting things,’ Poh revealed.
‘I think being in the media, it’s something I really fought hard to break down… people will think that they like you and they’re very quick to decide why without really digging deep.’
Poh noted that with her job, she’s usually ‘steered towards’ projects because of her physical appearance.
She said: ‘I’m like, “You don’t understand, I’m not your person for Chinese New Year, I’m like the worst Asian. I don’t speak any Asian languages.”‘
Identity: ‘I’ve never really identified with being female or Asian or anything, I really just want to do interesting things,’ Poh told journalist Stan Grant
Poh confessed she used to feel ‘cultural guilt’ because of that, but she’s now happy and proud of her immigrant story.
‘I’m really comfortable with that now, being a product of what my parents have done, they bought me here, I’m a migrant, I love a lot of my [Chinese Malaysian] culture but I don’t feel an impulse to identify hugely with it,’ she said.
‘For me, it’s all about moving forward and about creativity and absorbing what’s around me.’
Revealing: Poh noted that she’s usually ‘steered towards’ projects because of her appearance as an Asian Australian, but she doesn’t ‘feel an impulse to identify hugely with’ her background
Poh also revealed she didn’t ‘like the way she looked’ while growing up.
She said she never faced much racism when she came to Australia, but instead ‘felt different’ and experienced a lot of ‘self-imposed’ anxiety.
‘I felt completely alien,’ Poh said.
‘I remember lining up at the tuck shop and seeing a blonde girl with freckles and blue eyes eating a Sunny Boy… I remember thinking, “I will never be that.”‘
‘I felt completely alien’: Poh also revealed she didn’t ‘like the way she looked’ while growing up
Poh, who is a fifth-generation Chinese Malaysian, previously spoke about wanting to reconnect with her culture after moving to Australia as a child and going by the name Sharon to fit in.
‘I did such a great job of shedding everything that made me feel different that in my early thirties I had nothing,’ Poh told Business Insider Australia in 2014.
‘I thought if I have children I have nothing of my heritage to pass on to them and so I thought I really need to reconnect with my culture.
‘And food is such a natural fit for me, I love cooking, I’m just so driven with food.’
Cultural: Poh, a fifth-generation Chinese Malaysian, previously said she wanted to reconnect with her culture after moving to Australia as a child and going by the name Sharon to fit in
However, she told SBS in 2015 how she fell in love with Australia ‘immediately’ after migrating from Malaysia.
‘When we arrived, I loved everything. I was just immediately besotted with this country,’ she said.
‘From waking up to the warbling of magpies, the smell of eucalyptus… I thought even the street signs looked beautiful!’
She added: ‘I just immediately felt at home here and never looked back.’
‘I felt at home and never looked back’: However, she did tell SBS in 2015 that she fell in love with Australia ‘immediately’ after migrating from Malaysia