Turning the tide! She gave up a comfortable life for New Zealand — and became a Chinese ‘legend’ in her industry 20 years later!

Her parents had a harmonious marriage and she grew up in a happy home, sailing smoothly through school, university entrance exams and job applications. When she wanted to immigrate to New Zealand, she found a job at a large Western company within two months. In sales, she built up more than 600 clients in just over a year. When she decided to change careers, she obtained her real estate licence in six weeks and signed a listing the day after receiving it. Stepping up as a team leader, she led her elite dream team to sell more than 200 homes over two financial years…

 

In New Zealand, many people have heard Kitty Long’s story and passed it on as a gratifying tale of career success: a dazzling leading lady, protected by her protagonist’s halo, overcoming every challenge and rising ever higher. Such a story certainly sounds exhilarating and inspiring, but it is an idealised picture far removed from everyday life.

 

Back down on earth, nobody can coast to victory forever. Ups and downs, twists and unexpected turns are the normal course of life.

 

Kitty’s story traces a girl’s growth from gentleness to strength. It is an inspiring account of an independent woman’s tireless pursuit of her dreams, an exploration of women’s limitless possibilities, and an approach to life that combines apparent vulnerability with inner resilience and power.

 

Kitty’s tale of two cities

 

Set in the Sichuan Basin, embraced by the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, Chongqing is a misty, mountainous city with a humid climate and an innate spirit of adventure. Chongqing women combine the expansive spirit of the Ba Mountains with the charm of the region’s waters, plus a dash of swagger. They are renowned for their good looks, straightforward personalities and bold elegance.

 

Kitty is a typical Chongqing woman.

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Kitty was born in the 70s of the last century. China had not yet introduced its family planning policy, and families with only one child were very rare. Yet little Kitty was a cherished only daughter. Her parents poured all their love and attention into her, and she lived up to their expectations, becoming the ‘perfect child’ everyone admired:

To others, young Kitty was pretty, independent, warm and generous. From primary school through secondary school, she was the top student in her class, winning countless competition prizes. She gained admission through the university entrance examination to the foreign languages department at Chongqing University, one of China’s nationally designated ‘Double First-Class’ universities, firmly establishing her image as a quiet, well-behaved model student. But Kitty never saw herself as a dutiful girl interested only in books. She was a cheerful, outgoing tomboy who loved sport: she began playing table tennis at five and took up badminton at secondary school. These were far more than diversions from study; she pursued them with sustained concentration, deliberate practice and determination.

Kitty remembers that whether she wanted to study, play sport or pursue some other sudden inspiration, her parents gave her their wholehearted trust and encouragement, as long as it was her choice and something she enjoyed. They were ordinary educated people, but extraordinary parents. Their constant love and support gave their daughter the courage to challenge herself and try new things, helping her grow into an adult who dared to dream, act and venture into the unknown.

 

 

A lifelong habit of exercise also forged Kitty’s willpower and strengthened her mindset. She manages her emotions well and stays positive when difficulties arise. She has clear goals and a strong ability to teach herself. She does not dwell on the past or fear failure, but keeps running into the wind, believing that no path in life is wasted and every road is a necessary part of growth.

 

Equipped with these valuable foundations, Kitty left Chongqing after graduating from university and headed to Zhuhai, 1500 kilometres away, to begin her ‘tale of two cities’. The year was 1997.

 

For a young person entering the workforce without experience or connections, establishing a foothold in an unfamiliar city is no easy task. During her five years in Zhuhai, Kitty taught at an English training school, worked part-time as an English teacher at Zhuhai Radio and Television University, and provided interpreting and translation services for a translation company. At her busiest, she held three part-time jobs at once. She was exhausted but happy, earning money and developing her skills. After more than four years of hard work, she unexpectedly secured a role as assistant to the marketing director at the joint venture MTU Maintenance Zhuhai, despite having no marketing experience. Over the next six months, she proved her capabilities and earned widespread recognition.

 

Just as her career prospects were brightening, Kitty was preparing to leave again. This time, her destination was Auckland, a hemisphere and ten thousand kilometres away.

 

Without a dream, why venture so far?

 

At life’s crossroads, one road continues the calm and stability of the past, while the other leads to an unfamiliar land full of unknowns, with few close companions alongside. Everyone has a different answer when faced with that choice. At 27, Kitty chose the road others saw as strewn with thorns.

 

Older generations often taught girls to be quiet and obedient, find a secure job and marry a wealthy man, ideally settling close enough after marriage for a bowl of soup to stay warm on the journey between their homes. Kitty’s parents believed girls could do anything they wanted. They hoped their daughter would be capable, independent and strong, and never confined her to a supposed ‘good girl’ mould.

 

After all, Kitty’s mother was a quintessential Chongqing woman herself.

 

Chongqing has been a major river port since ancient times. Overland travel through the Ba and Shu regions was notoriously difficult, and Chongqing established its status as a city by serving as the hub for river journeys out of Sichuan. The constant arrival and departure of boats fostered an inclusive, open ‘wharf culture’. Chongqing women have rarely subscribed to notions of male superiority; for generations, they have ventured out into the world with exceptional courage. The urge to leave home and carve out a place of their own runs through generations of Chongqing women. Kitty was no exception, and her mother naturally understood her life choices better than anyone. 

 

Finger-guessing games, drawing lots, rolling dice… Kitty certainly wrestled with her decision at this crossroads. In Zhuhai, her career was on the rise and her family life was happy and stable. Accepting the conditional New Zealand work visa meant more than leaving her comfort zone and starting again: she had to secure a permanent job offer within 6 months to obtain permanent residency, or pack up and go home. 

 

Choosing New Zealand and once again giving up comfort was a decision Kitty reached after countless conversations with herself. ‘Only by doing what I want to do and pursuing a career I truly love does my life have nourishment and air.’ Studying further overseas and continuing her dream of teaching had always been ambitions of the young Kitty.

 

 

On 1 July 2002, her plane landed at Auckland Airport, and Kitty’s inspiring New Zealand drama officially began. Its opening episode was an instant hit: on her birthday, the heroine interviewed at a local top-50 company. A week later she was offered a trial, and after two weeks on trial she secured a permanent position, successfully meeting the six-month immigration deadline. Just two months had passed since she arrived in New Zealand with a single suitcase. 

 

What that feel-good drama would leave out, however, were the more than 40 CVs Kitty sent to education and training providers in her field without hearing back. Even the occasional response was a polite rejection because she lacked a TESOL certificate, which would take 6–9 months of study to obtain. It would leave out her search through the classified advertisements of newspaper after newspaper, marking possible opportunities while feeling increasingly hopeless about Immigration New Zealand’s complex requirements for qualifying jobs. And it would leave out the panic and embarrassment she felt after finally starting a trial at local food wholesaler Bidvest Foodservice, when she struggled with the local accent and had to ask callers to repeat a sentence three times. Life is no television drama. Success never comes effortlessly; it takes steady, practical work.

 

Drawing on her ability to teach herself and her refusal to give up, Kitty demonstrated that she could meet the job’s requirements within just two weeks on trial. She was made permanent ahead of schedule, becoming the only Chinese employee at Bidvest Foodservice’s Auckland branch at the time. After two years in the entirely unfamiliar field of accounts payable, her outstanding performance earned her a promotion to head office, where she continued in the finance work she now knew well. 

 

Yet Kitty knew that slack strings could never produce life’s strongest notes, and she decided to leave her comfort zone again. After four years in finance, she applied internally for a completely different role: assistant to the general manager of national procurement. Three years later, she moved into imports, communicating with overseas suppliers and placing orders.

 

‘Once I had enough experience, my ambition grew. I wanted to apply for more senior management roles, and I was qualified to do so. But that was when I encountered the “glass ceiling” facing Chinese people and women. In a Western company, nobody wanted a Chinese woman in management. My ambition frightened a lot of people.’

 

If she stayed in a job with no room for advancement, Kitty could picture the next ten years: secure employment, but a life like stagnant water, each day as uneventful as the last, without a single ripple. 

 

So, on 30 September 2010, Kitty resigned. After more than nine years at Bidvest, it was time to do what she wanted. Her wish list included her longstanding dream of further study, plans to start her own business, which she had begun researching, and the leisurely prospect of travelling the world on an extended break. Yet as she worked through those plans, life played a cruel joke on her.

 

 

600-plus clients: how she built her client base

 

Kitty’s favourite actor is Sun Li. Her series The Legend of Mi Yue includes this exchange: ‘What should I do now?’ ‘If you think it is a dead end, then it is. If you think it is just a difficult situation that you can get through, then you will get through it.’

 

Most outstanding people have endured a dark period. 2012 was the most confusing and challenging year of Kitty’s life. Fortunately, her parents were beside her, always her refuge and support. But Kitty, her parents, her five-year-old daughter and her son, barely a month old, were all renting a two-bedroom apartment. Their living conditions could only be described as cramped.

 

More than anything, Kitty felt short of money. Childbirth had put her business plans on hold, and her previous steady employment had not left her with much in savings. There was rent and a car to pay for, five mouths to feed, extracurricular classes for her daughter and nappies for her son. Spending began the moment she opened her eyes. Kitty had neither the time nor the means to dwell on her sadness. She needed to earn money. 

 

At that time, one question filled Kitty’s mind: what could earn her the most money, fastest? Employment was too slow; investing required capital she did not have; direct selling was illegal… Then one day, she saw a television advertisement recruiting sales staff for World TV (WTV), New Zealand’s largest Chinese-language television network. The words ‘free training, unlimited earning potential’ caught her attention. The answer she had been looking for was becoming clear: sales. 

 

 

She acted immediately. On Valentine’s Day in 2013, while others were enjoying romance, Kitty had a date with work. Warm and smiling, with resolve beneath her gentle manner, she spoke with the general manager for 45 minutes and landed the job. 

 

Finding the job was only the beginning. Sales did have a low entry barrier, rewarded ability and offered greater returns for greater effort, making it an accessible way for Kitty to earn money at the time. Even so, she faced plenty of difficulties. Her son was still breastfeeding, so she steeled herself and weaned him. She knew nothing about sales techniques, so she gritted her teeth and taught herself. She lacked experience and connections, but surely, as the saying goes, nobody strikes a smiling face — why not visit businesses one by one? With a base salary of just NZ$1000, she set herself an annual income target of NZ$100,000 and charged towards it without looking back.

Kitty’s first obstacle in pursuing sales was driving. Most businesses were in the city centre, with its heavy traffic and narrow streets. She had never driven into central Auckland on her own before. Every journey was nerve-racking, and in her first month alone she accumulated more than $300 in fines and had her car towed twice — a costly learning curve. Give up? Of course not. Kitty believed that incapable people always found excuses, while capable people worked relentlessly to find a way forward. She rented a parking space at Atrium on Elliott and resolved to cover the city on foot. Street by street, building by building, business by business, she canvassed potential clients. She visited every city-centre business more than once and came to know them inside out.

 

 

But this was far from enough.

 

Earning a hundred thousand dollars a year meant Kitty needed to sign NZ$1,000,000 worth of advertising, selling $100,000 each month. Breaking down the target, she found that selling an advertisement worth NZ$5000 would require 20 clients a month. In reality, however, many clients found through street canvassing chose smaller advertisements costing NZ$1200, NZ$1500 or even NZ$600. She would need at least 5 clients a day just to meet her target. Clearly, major clients were the key to reaching her goal quickly.

 

Her first target was KFC, which advertised only in mainstream Western media. With a boldness bordering on naivety, Kitty went straight into the KFC marketing director’s office and introduced herself. Naturally, no dramatic miracle followed. The director was polite but distant: ‘We’ll contact you if we need anything.’ Nothing more came of it. Kitty was undeterred. To her, sales was about connecting with people. ‘Whether or not the client agrees with me, as long as she listens to the product information I present, it is a successful visit.’ With that mindset, Kitty pursued KFC for seven months, finally securing an order worth NZ$3000 a month. It was not a large order, but it was KFC’s first advertisement in Chinese media in New Zealand. Their confidence in testing those waters came, of course, from Kitty’s diligence and refusal to give up.

 

Compared with the uneventful KFC story, Kitty’s experience winning over local chain HELL Pizza did have a touch of the legendary. Founded in Wellington in 1996, HELL Pizza had branches across the North and South Islands and even both hemispheres. Its owner lived in Wellington and visited Auckland for only a day or two each month to check on operations. Kitty’s barrage of emails finally reached him, and she was invited to meet him at a central Auckland branch. As soon as she walked in, she was stunned:

 

‘The managers of all 50 branches were standing there together. The owner said, “Go on, tell us about your event!” I quickly gathered my thoughts and introduced WTV’s major events, especially the Chinese new talent singing competition for which I was seeking sponsorship. I explained the target audience and reach, and said we hoped for an opportunity to work together and help build the HELL Pizza brand.’

 

By then, Kitty’s sales skills were becoming well honed. Soon after that pitch, she secured a contract promoting the newly launched ‘world’s hottest pizza’. On the day the contract was signed, Kitty made a special trip to buy the pizza and brought it back to share with her boss and colleagues. ‘My goodness, it really was hot!’ Even this Chongqing woman was reduced to tears by the heat. Yet the memory it left her with was sweet.

 

Her major clients included well-known local honey brand Manuka Health, the head office of the largest real estate agency, Harcourts, Kiwi family business Kitchen Things, and top Barfoot & Thompson property consultants. Whenever WTV needed sponsors for major events such as its annual TVB singing competition, Chinese New Year carnival or G.E.M. concert, Kitty almost always signed up more than a dozen.

 

As she won client after client and signed new contracts and renewals, Kitty’s income rose. Just six months later, she achieved her goal of earning a hundred thousand dollars a year. By September 2014, when she chose to leave WTV, she had worked there for 20 months and was managing more than 600 clients, including over 200 active clients. On the sales frontline, she had completed a practical ‘MBA’ in a remarkably short time, gaining extensive sales experience.

 

 

Behind the ‘sales fanatic’ working 12 hours a day was a wife who had just experienced a family upheaval, a mother whose hormones had not yet settled after having her second child, and an ordinary woman forced to step up and keep going to support her family. ‘I’m fortunate to have faith. Every weekend, when I sang hymns at church, I would cry uncontrollably. I knew I was a child of the Lord Jesus and could rest in his arms for a moment. The Lord Jesus knows all my weaknesses, but he still loves me and watches over me. That gave me the courage and determination to keep trying.’ Perhaps true inner strength does not mean shedding blood and sweat but never tears. Perhaps it means being like Kitty: crying, wiping away the tears, and moving forward despite fear.

 

Recently, Kitty shared a video on her social feed by Yi Gongzi, an arts video creator she particularly likes. She wrote: ‘Yi Gongzi says the meaning of life lies in experience. Even at your lowest point, you can still find your own worth. Though “the body is like withered wood and the heart like cold ashes”, this is a state of forgetting and transcending the self. Truly profound.’ Perhaps this captures Kitty’s understanding of that chapter in her life. Peaks and troughs, rough roads and setbacks are inevitable, but through her own ability and hard work, Kitty played a poor hand to victory, turning the tide and growing towards the sun.

 

The Kitty we know today is an outstanding real estate agent who achieved the remarkable distinction of ranking first across East Auckland. How did she move from sales into real estate? Behind that transition lies another brilliant chapter built on hard work and conviction…