In this episode, we speak with Dominican expat India on how her journey to finding a hairstylist opportunity abroad turned into the launchpad for embarking on personal entrepreneurship.
Behind The Chair
https://behindthechair.com/
Db Backpack
http://www.dbjourney.com
Code: PODGO10
In this episode, we speak with Dominican expat India on how her journey to finding a hairstylist opportunity abroad turned into the launchpad for embarking on personal entrepreneurship.
Behind The Chair
https://behindthechair.com/
Db Backpack
http://www.dbjourney.com
Code: PODGO10
[00:01:54] Mejia: My name's India Mija. I'm 38 years old. [00:02:00] And my family is from Dominican Republic from Brooklyn. I lived in North Carolina before I came to to Shanghai because my mother, my mother and my maternal grandparents retired here when I was a kid. So my mother and father, when they separated, she came here and I moved here in my early twenties. When I met my husband about 15 years ago. And he's originally from his, his family's from Liberia. He's from the DC area, went to school here college here. And we met when we were in our twenties. So I had actually just how I ended up in China was I've lived a lot of my teens and my early adult life abroad.
[00:02:45] And I lived in China was not my first tour, so to speak in Asia. I lived in Japan before and before that I lived in Europe. So when, before my husband and I got married, I had a conversation with him about, Hey, you know, I really would like to live back abroad. I don't really see my life in the US. Cause to be honest, I never really felt like I fit fit in my mind. I think once you have a worldview and it opens you up to a lot of things that make life in America seem really daunting, Its a way for me to put it. So anyway,. I just had that conversation with him and told him that, you know, Hey, it's not, it's not a judgment if you don't want to do it, but we won't last. and it wont work. It was
[00:03:43] Nyra: short for our relationship has, we'll have an expiration because
[00:03:49] Mejia: we'll have an expiration date, but I felt like. Yeah, just being transparent, both him and I had had been married before. So there was no room, there was [00:04:00] no room for error to be put in all these like oh, potential like, no, no, no, no, no. You either need to have an open mind for this. Or, you know, we'll be cool, but it won't last because I don't want to resent you because I stay here and we don't want to, you know, like I didn't want, I didn't want that, but surprisingly enough, he was very open to it, but we didn't have like a set country that we wanted to go to.
[00:04:25] And so I've been doing hair for now about 21 years. And you know, I was doing hair here and so. I, we got married on new year's Eve in 2013 and he was at work and I started looking for hair styling jobs abroad. And I really, even though I have done things differently abroad and I've never moved specifically for that reason, I just was trying to look to see what the opportunity was anywhere. So I practically was looking on every continent.
[00:05:03] Nyra: Let's pause on that because I've never heard of. Beautician looking for work abroad, like what does that, what does that process like? Like where do you go? Is there an email? Is it a directory? Is there like international beauticians association?
[00:05:23] Mejia: Beauty world it's a smaller industry than, you know, like literally it's almost like what ex-pats right. Like when you go to a certain place and let's say all the Americans congregate to this particular and all the French people and all the, this, that and whatever. So we have something called behind the chair.com where like a lot of salon owners and hairstylist, nail techs, and all of that can register. And you can not only take webinar classes. Learn about products may be a little earlier, but you can also apply for jobs throughout the United States. And every once in a while, there might be postings for [00:06:00] opportunity, but I didn't see anything there. And my father lives in Germany and his wife is Romanian.
[00:06:09] So even I was asking her because I lived in Germany before. If she knew, like I would ask my father on the military installations because my father works for the US government and I would ask him, Hey, do you know if there's like, even an opportunity for, for that there, because it was started, it was crossing my mind. To see if I could take over a contract and run a salon on a military installation. So he was trying to get 'em connect me with the people to possibly do that. But then I thought, you know, like, eh, I don't know if I, I was like, I want to be, to be honest, a little more risk taking than that. I didn't want the safety net of that.
[00:06:48] I wanted to actually do the full on expatriate life.. So when I could not find anything on behind the chair, I decided to start looking elsewhere. I was actually looking everywhere. Back then there was no, indeed, at least not in the capacity that you have it now. There was monster and CareerBuilder and then Craigslist.
[00:07:10] So I actually went on Craigslist and I looked in every country in every major city under their spa and beauty section. And when I got to the UK, I saw a posting saying that this salon owner needed a stylist in Shanghai and apparently, you know, she was posting that same ad. I applied for the position thinking hey, you know, this is the first shit. Cause there was like all in. You know, explanation of what she was looking for. She was looking for somebody to manage the salon and be the lead stylist. And I'm like, oh, you know, okay, cool. Because I've been doing it for years, I managed a salon for and at that time I just had my oldest daughter who was two, she had just turned two and I want to say within the week she emailed me back and we scheduled the interview through Skype and, you know, I had no expectations.
[00:08:04] I mean, I was open, I'm an open book. I've traveled a lot lived someplace else. So I kept, you know, China was never on my radar, but I wasn't scared of the thought process of going because okay. A new place I'm down for that. That was just what I was thinking. I didn't really have any expectation of what, I didn't know anybody there or anything like that. Didn't even know anybody who had ever been to China. Right. The whole process from the time that she responded to the time I accepted was probably within a two, three week period. And then, yeah, it was super fast and that was January of 2014. From January, 2014, it took about five months for the transition of everything, which she was very patient of because we had to move out our house.
[00:08:48] I sold my car, I sold everything in my house. We put some stuff in storage and my husband at the time, he just was he stayed behind to like wrap up some stuff. And then me and my oldest daughter left in June of 2014.
[00:09:03] Nyra: Wow.
[00:09:06] Mejia: So got to China. You know, I actually stayed with the salon owner for about a month and a half, and then I found my own place move downtown Shanghai. And everything was going well at first, until I started realizing that there were some inconsistencies with her business. By the time my husband came , he got there the week of Thanksgiving and I was still dealing with visa stuff and got pregnant with my daughter right away when my husband got there. And before I even officially hit nine months. I dealt with a situation where, when my husband realized what was going on and she wasn't being truthful about the things happening with the business, the authorities were continuing to Snoop around the business. She was wanting to do things like lie about.
[00:09:59] [00:10:00] What we were doing there or why we were doing it and all that. And for me, that was really scary because I just thought to myself, like, well, survival, I'm not trying to get locked up with somebody else.
[00:10:13] Nyra: No way.
[00:10:14] Mejia: By then. The only reason why they, why are the Chinese government was giving me any like leeways because they saw I was there by myself with my small child. It would be like, okay, well you have 14 days to do X, Y, and Z. You have, you know, these kinds of things. So when it came down to the. My husband had to end up going to the business. He filmed her, she had locked herself in the building. He was trying to get all my stuff and, you know, she was just trying to like save face herself because she knew we, we had figured out what was going on by that time.
[00:10:49] For everything being what it was. I still quickly thought on my feet, my husband was quickly thinking on his feet and she stuck me in Hong Kong because I was then a visa run. And by then I did start developing some relationships with some of the clients that I was meeting in the salon and people that I was meeting, you know, there. So some of those people, when they found out what was going on, they basically helped me leave Hong Kong and come back into the country. And I found a different visa agent who helped process my paperwork. And basically that was the catalyst when the downfall of her business and the uprising and initiation of my, because all those, all those ex-pats who were like, no, you know, we need like a stylist here that can do everything.
[00:11:38] And if she's not going to do it right, maybe we can help you meet this person, that person, this person. And that's what happened. But had had this woman who owned the business, been honest with me about, okay. We're doing some way where things to operate the business, because it's hard as a foreigner to own a business. And [00:12:00] until I get, you know, like if she would've just told me that it would have allowed me to make the decision to choose whether I wanted to put myself and my daughter in that situation , all of these things led to me opening my business. But. I do tell people, you know, even though it was a terrible situation to be in the only thing I can thank her for is that I would've never came to China and I would've never done all that. Has she not tried to screw me over? So,
[00:12:31] Nyra: and I'm sure you realize, cause you know, just how resourceful. You are, and, you know, you made you maneuvered, you learn how to maneuver, which is a great asset, you know, and you have to be a certain, certain type of person. I mean, it's only sink, you know, sink afloat. And, and especially when you have a child that can, I can't even imagine what that's like to be in a foreign country.
[00:12:57] Mejia: You know, you can't do something or you don't, you can't find something. We don't know how we're going to eat today. Or we don't know how, like they don't care about. You are a parent and they are expected to happen because they're just school driven. They don't know any better. And it's true. It's sink or swim, you know, I didn't have at that point too. I would be lying if I say that I, that I did not have something to prove because outside of my mom and dad who were actually very supportive, I had no pushback from my parents. My parents were very supportive.
[00:13:26] But other extended members of my family and my husband's family were like, that's ridiculous. You know, why are you guys going to China? That's so stupid. It's a communist country. You're putting your child at risk lalalallaa. And really, and truthfully outside of my mom, you know, my mother was in, of course my husband were the only ones that knew exactly what had been happening to me. And that first nine months that I was in China, no one knew about the. You know, having to hop from country to [00:14:00] country, trying to get visas and, you know, people trying to kidnap your child and like, you know, no one or, you know, authorities coming to speak to me asking me questions about, you know, this woman, no one no one,
[00:14:16] no one knew that that was going on. So it became like this vested interest for me that not only was I like, I didn't sold everything and came to this country, but I'm not about to give everyone the benefit of the doubt to know that I failed and come home with egg on my face because they didn't think I should go there in the first place.
[00:14:37] Nyra: Right, right, right. No, this was after good about this experience. I'm having a challenge right now. I'm going to meet this challenge, you know? And, and you did.
P O D 10. Or go to the link in our show notes. DIB.
[00:15:39] . When you in that nine months, like your husband didn't arrive.
[00:15:45] Mejia: Well, my husband arrived after, after I had been there almost six months, he got there like over five and a half months because we got there at the end of June and he came at the end of November. He came matter of fact, the same week as [00:16:00] Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was that Thursday, he arrived on a Tuesday, on a Tuesday.
[00:16:05] Nyra: So once he gets there, what is left to do? Like what, what does he do? Like, you know, how, how did y'all work as a team to get yourself out of this position?
[00:16:15] Mejia: So remember I was saying to you that I had with me once I was done with the studio Ebony, because that was the name of the salon in Shanghai that I came, I came there to work with So once that situation was complete and, and done. When he arrived there, we weren't even sure. Again, remember I had never been to China still did not. We had no idea that there was this whole, like big business of education. Like we didn't know anybody in China. We didn't even talk to the woman who had recruited me to come there or anything. So we had no idea.
[00:16:50] And my husband was a teacher in special education here in the states. So essentially like he was just stopping everything he was doing to follow my dream, to go there, to go back abroad. We had no clear plan as to what it was that he was going to do. Right. You know, I'm not a big religious person, but I definitely believe in sign and being in the right place at the right time and divine intervention. And I literally have to say that it was like I came into my purpose because I did not really know, like, you know, I had, you could have never told me seven years ago that I would have opened a salon in China. And then my husband would ended up happening from those connections that I made. I found out that one of my clients was a English teacher at an international American school.
[00:17:36] And so she was like, you know what? She was like, my principal was hiring for the summer. Your husbands should. And by then when I went with her, I was like, Six seven months pregnant. And she was like, come with me. It was the end of her school year. She was like, come with me to the school cause I have to put up decorations and we can go and do that before we go to dinner. And I was like, okay, no problem. And I go with her to the school and I meet the principal. And, you know, I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy. I met like her coworkers and stuff. And she introduced me to the principal and the principal started talking to me and she said, I heard your husband is looking for a job.
[00:18:13] And I was like, yeah, you know, I started talking to her, whatever. And I was like, we have no idea what he's gonna do. And then we started talking and she was like, well, what does he do? I was like, well, he was a special education teacher in America. She has. Oh, and then that was kind of the, you know, so the weekend passes and when the following week comes, I was doing a client's hair and my phone was ringing off the hook in the middle of that client. And I was just like, you know, I'm just going to have to answer it later. Cause my husband's in the house. So I couldn't imagine what was like the emergency. Right. And Finally, when it was over, I had took like a restroom break and I answered the phone. I saw it was my girlfriend. And she said, Hey, is your husband still looking for a job?
[00:18:55] And I was like, yeah. She was like, can you tell him to get dressed like right now and come to the school? I was like, like right now, when she was like, yeah, Faustina said that she want to meet him. And if he can come down here today and everything checks out, he can do summer school. There's two terms during summer school. So I'm like, okay. You know, and I get off the phone. I tell Rodney, he hurries up and irons his shirt goes there, and everything works and Faustina, who was the principal she likes him. So that before he could ever finish the first term, she liked him so much that she gave him a permanent contract there at school.
[00:19:37] That's really when things started lining up, because I have a three, almost four by then, Nyla's three, that's my oldest daughter. And you know, she was getting ready to be four I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy. I was wondering about, you know, cause my daughter learns how to speak chinese within the first nine months of us being there, because we didn't really know a lot of other English [00:20:00] speaking or American ex-pats outside of the clients that I was meeting in the salon. So she was playing with Chinese kids and it's kind of the same thing she had as a kid for her. Perhaps to adapt. And in order to play with the Chinese kids, she had to speak Chinese . And how I found out that she could speak Chinese was actually a very magical moment because it happened to be going on the way out to go do one of those visa wrongs to Hong Kong.
[00:20:29] When I was still working for this woman and we had to stop by so I could pick up my pay. And when I was picking up my pay, you know, she's two and she's like, mommy, can I pay the the taxi driver. And I was like, sure, well, when she took the money and handed it to the taxi driver, she just started speaking Chinese. Like she got my husband in the back seat, like shot, and I'm telling him, don't say anything, don't speak. Because if we start screaming and talking, she's going to stop. The spotlight is going to be on her. And I like really calmly was like, NILAH when did you start? When did she start talking like that? You know, she's two.
[00:21:08] So she's like, she's three. It's just like, I don't know. Mommy. I don't know. I just did it.
[00:21:16] Nyra: Like to have that mind just absorb like, yeah. Well that's what the language I speak now like that. Yeah. Oh my God. It is a magical moment. Do you think there was anything that they could have prevented you from? Getting into this circumstance, was there you know, a way
[00:21:38] Mejia: here's the thing. I did fact check her in terms of Google. So I knew the salon was real her name was real I found her on LinkedIn. I found her in Google. There were articles written about that salon, but in transparency, say, I believe that before that time. Let me just predicate this by saying [00:22:00] the President that China has right now, even though this is yes, technically a communist country, he's been the most progressive president that they've ever had.
[00:22:10] And it's an open secret that he also has been a president whose main focus was on getting rid of corruption, right. Because people cause they're known for, for, for that. Right. I believe that when she opened the salon before that, it was very easy to get around the laws and rules and operate kind of in a illegal autonomous way. But by the time I came, I think there was really a strong hold on that where there was beginning to be more checks and balances where you couldn't just do, whatever it is that you want to. And I don't just say that also from a business standpoint, but I also say that from just like, okay. You know, in Shanghai specifically, I don't know about other cities and rural areas and stuff in China, but you know, before you can buy a e-bike which for people listening, if you don't know what that is, it's an electric scooter.
[00:23:09] You can buy. That and write it any way, any how you wanted to with no rhyme or reason or whatever, right. Well, I was there about two, two and a half, maybe, maybe at most three years before the Shanghainese government just decided that you weren't going to be able to do that no more. There was going to be no more riding along with traffic, you had to ride in designated bike areas. They didn't, they no longer wanted more than two people on the bike and the second person could not be an adult. It had to be like a child. And if it was an adult, you had to get off at crosswalks and walk across with the bike and things. So I say all that to say that, you know, it started with that kind of like, wow, East mentality where people were doing and operating [00:24:00] any kind of reason.
[00:24:01] And I'll be honest in saying that it kind of became less fun because of that, because for people who knew anything about China, that was like the appeal of why people liked Being there and doing that, but then all of a sudden they decided, oh, we need more rules and regulations. So it's that, that aspect of things stopped being fun. And, you know, I don't know my own personal opinion is that I just feel like if I'm someplace, that is not my own. You know, they already necessarily don't want us there. I'm not going to operate in the gray area. Right.
[00:24:36] Nyra: We never want to operate in a gray area. That is not, it's not a comfortable space. You know, these are rules and regulations that are not of your own country. I mean, you don't want to operate in the gray area, even in your own country. You see what I'm saying? And you know, the lay of the land. Well, I am amazed and I tell you, you are a super woman to have gone through that, survived. It got to the other side and had a thriving business in Shanghai. And yeah, you know, and you know, you have people who are flying in to get their hair done. Cause you know, it's hot commodity out there. And you know, I will send videos of my hair. Do somethin with it, put some blue in it and its falling out..
[00:25:23] Mejia: I will tell you that was definitely a highlight for me once. What I admire about Shanghai and China in general, in the expat community. But it's like a double-edged sword is how fast news travels I had when I had like Russian girls who were coming from cities at the time that I had no, like they were coming from Eagle [word not clear], judo, these crazy other Providence. You know what I mean to tell me there's nowhere closer that you guys can go?
[00:25:59] Nyra: Opportunity India. You hear what I'm saying?
[00:26:01] Mejia: Like, I'm here to tell you for anybody when they're listening in the future, because I apologize. So I have a lot of clients that when I left in the pandemic and you have the things that was not an easy decision, but they were mad at me that, you know, they think like, you know, cause. I used to sell memberships. And what I was getting to earlier was that when, when, what happened at the Hilton happened and they sold that company, I decided to eliminate bureaucracy. And I partnered with a Chinese guy who used to be a manager of another well-known international salon, like a franchise.
[00:26:41] And he opened his own. He knew he wanted somebody that had his own, their own brand to partner with because he was getting a space inside of the time square mall. So I had someone that put me in contact with him and we actually overall ended up working out well and we put our two businesses together. And then I ended up having my, being able to still keep my high-end atmosphere. And that situation turned out to be much better than I had at the Hilton.
[00:27:14] Nyra: When you were younger, you know, you were backpacking it, you know, keeping it light, you know, accumulating your stamps. And then now you're, you know, you remarried you already know out-picturing or future pacing yourself, you know, to. Say, look, I see myself permanently living abroad because that's where I, that's how I aligned China, you know, China wasn't top of your list, but that's where you ended up. And for the, and really to be honest, it was probably what needed to happen, because I think now if you, when you go back out there, I think it's going to be a very different, I think it's going to come out there with a, more of an entrepreneurial out the gate, you know somebody bringing you out there.
[00:28:00] Mejia: I have some new goals. I mean, it's been a year and some months that we've been back in the states now. And my husband has decided he no longer wants to do anything with teaching. So he's his career path into the IT world. And I, when I, for me, I'm kind of pivoting back. So there's two things kind of going on. I pivoted back to something that I was already involved in wise by also starting something new. So in my career, my corporate background is in human resources and there was a time when I still worked my corporate professional job. And I did here on the weekend. And I was doing that while I was single.
[00:28:40] So I still had a corporate job. And then I worked in the salon on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Saturday and Sundays, depending on what salon I worked for at the time. So now that COVID has happened and it didn't prove to be the wisest thing to continue. Cause I did try to operate my own salon business here in the United States. But trying to do that in the middle of a pandemic where you don't really know anyone or have clients like that just wasn't gonna work. So I decided to go back to that and now I'm back working a corporate job and possibly going to be back doing here on the weekends. Cause I do like it. I probably not in the long time, not in a long time, give it up permanently.
[00:29:22] But COVID did allow me and Rodney, to Rodney is my husband to decide to start a a medical supply business. Because one thing, one thing is that I can say that China gave me is a lot of connections. And being able to build relationships with people sends more than like 80% of things in the America are made in China. And a lot of you don't realize since COVID is going to be something that, you know, we're probably going to have to deal with for a long time is PPE over here. There's a shadow. Well, you stop fidgeting. So I decided to, with my husband to do this [00:30:00] business and we, we are focusing on PPE and medical and surgical equipment.
[00:30:06] I do have a relationship, a direct relationship with manufacturers and Trey companies so that I can X out the middleman and pretty much I'm the middleman, but I have the direct link. So we started that business and that's something that we're still trying to get off the ground. I was kind of informally doing informally, doing it during the pandemic. And that's where that came from.