I was born and raised in Sydney, Australia! I’m an Australian born Chinese.

I started cooking since a very young age. I think I’ve always been very interested in food (especially eating food).

When I was in primary school, I left Australia and studied in Guangzhou China for about 2 years. During this time, my tastebuds were exposed to so many Chinese dishes for the first time, such as dim sum, cheung fun, mantou, soy braised meats and so many more. This experience truly broadened my perspective about food.  Now, I want to share my culture and Chinese food with the world.

When I was a teenager, I watched a lot of Youtube cooking videos. It was the first time that I was exposed to other cuisines, including Italian, English, Korean and Japanese. I would recreate those recipes in my tiny apartment at 11pm, even if it took many hours. The thrill of making something new kept me up at night.

I remember cooking up a big Christmas feast for my parents, where I made stuffed chicken breast, honey soy chicken wings, Hokkien noodles and a 3 tier fresh strawberry cream cake. The feeling of making food for my family gave me so much joy.

In November 2023, I decided to share my cooking journey and recipes on Youtube, Instagram and TikTok. I started creating cooking short-form videos. While growth was very slow at the beginning, my passion and supportive community kept me going. Fast forward to today, I’ve made hundreds of videos. And now, I do that for a living!

Yes! I actually did audition for Masterchef Australia, many seasons ago. I was very young and inexperienced, but I had a ‘can-do’ attitude.

I got into the second round of auditions, where I cooked up a mystery box challenge. There was fish, chicken and some other proteins in the mystery box. I chose chicken maryland, which wasn’t the best idea because I had no idea how to manage the heat using industrial kitchen stoves. I ended up under cooking the chicken, and well, you can guess the results.

Will I audition again? I’m not sure. But it was a really interesting experience seeing contestants cook up a storm, cameras rolling everywhere and seeing judges critique food.

While I was planning a six month career break, I was told that my entire cohort was being made redundant. This was my first ever corporate lay-off experience, and to say the least, I felt a mix of emotions.

But I didn’t let that affect me. I told myself, when one door closes, two other opens. Everything happens for a reason. I felt that this was my sign to give full time content creation a go.

While I’m generally very risk averse, I decided to pursue something risky. This is probably the only decision I’ve ever made for myself, that was purely for myself. Besides this, most of the decisions in my life reflected my role to be a proper Chinese daughter – study hard, get a good office job, and you’ll be happy.

Growing up, I’ve always had creative hobbies. From singing, dancing to creating videos online. I even dreamt of being a singer (and still do). But I never pursued this in my 20s – which is probably one of my biggest regrets.

That’s why I’m finally taking risks and going for it in my 30s.

I’m still new to full time content creation, and I’m going to be honest, it hasn’t been what I expected at all.

The good: flexibility, I can work on whatever project I want, I can sleep in, I can relax, I can literally fly to another country tomorrow if I wanted to. There is a lot of freedom and free time. Also, very importantly, less stress!

The bad: it gets really lonely especially if you’re not part of a bigger community. Stress – but a different kind of stress from working in an office job. There’s stress to do well, to push yourself, to prove that my decision was the right one. There is no one above you (like a manager) to tell you what to do. You gotta figure it out. As a result, I work way longer hours now than when I worked in corporate. It’s also hard to separate work from life.

So..I’m still weighing the pros and cons of being a full time content creator.

But one thing’s for sure, and I try to remind myself everyday when things get hard:

I’m so lucky and grateful to have this opportunity to pursue my dreams.

I have owned multiple businesses before. Because I LOVE being an entrepreneur.

I’ve previously owned a viral cheesecake bakery, a small candle business and a tote bag business. Each business came with different challenges and learnings, and I’m so grateful for the experience.

Now, I own my Late Night Anna content business, have written an e-cookbook and plan to create more businesses in the future!

Yes! My childhood dream was to become a singer. Since a young age, my grandma took me on stage in China to perform dancing.

Since then, I learned the piano, performed at the Sydney Opera House with my high school choir, and performed singing across Sydney.

You might have seen me on Youtube singing, or on singing shows including Sing! China, The Singer and across Korean festivals.

I’d love to perform singing again! Stay tuned.

Do what you love. Anything is possible if you put in the work. There are people launching rockets, going into space, changing the world. If they can do it, you can too.  

Remember, success happens when hard work meets chance.