Joey Khor found himself at a crossroads after high school in late 1990s, a period of unprecedented global Internet boom.

However, back then Internet opportunities were not as abundant as they are today, and today's ubiquitous apps were simply unheard of.

Nevertheless, the young Joey seemed to have a foresight in future trends and was determined to pursue a multimedia design course.

Multimedia design was a very novel discipline back in those years, and the design tools available were nothing as sophisticated as their successors in the 21st century.

'You don't speak Mandarin!'

Joey was involved in a variety of jobs after school, beginning with building websites, followed by animation designs, integrated marketing and digital marketing.

For the following ten over years, he was lucky enough to have plenty of opportunities to participate in the local creative industry's transformation and development, and has indeed witnessed the transition of marketing from the traditional model to digital and integrated marketing of the new millennium.

After a while, he felt he had done all that he had wanted to do, having won the awards he had dreamed of. So he felt it was time to venture into something different.

He talked to his wife and both of them had come to the conclusion that the next step was not to contemplate what to do but rather explore new frontiers and discover new opportunities from the new markets.

Back then his goal was to venture into China, but his wife reminded him: "You've got a big problem here. You don't speak Mandarin!"

Indeed, he was completely handicapped in Mandarin and had never visited China prior to that. Despite all this, he refused to give up and decided that he should first find a job there.

He sent many copies of his CV to China and finally managed to get a chance for interview.

He recalled during the interview: "They liked my works, but were worried about my poor command of the Chinese language and lack of experience in China such that I would not understand the local conditions, language and market.

"So I proposed to them: why not put me on probation for six months. If I handle well, it's win-win for both, but if I fail, I'll leave without a question."

So he landed a job in China, and has since stayed in that country from 2016.

No time for lag

Joey Khor is currently the executive creative director of George P. Johnson Greater China for experiential marketing. Among the company's clients are some of the biggest names in China in the likes of Oppo and Tencent.

He was won numerous accolades for the company, including 32 so far this year.

Experiential marketing is not just about achieving marketing goals through an array of promotional events. It involves also the unique traits of a brand, the needs of the customers, as well as the overall marketing strategy, Joey explained.

In a country so geographically vast and quick-paced like China, efficiency is always stressed, and things operate in ways very different from when he was doing marketing in Malaysia earlier.

"There's no such thing as completing one job first before taking up another. You have to think way forward and everything is executed concurrently as we attempt to seek workable solutions to our problems through experiences. We have to be quick and versatile in managing things."

When he first arrived in China, Joey felt that the country was a whole world apart from his native Malaysia, with its own set of principles and ways of doing things.

5 new words a day

Joey admitted that he was a subject of ridicule when he first arrived in China, some questioning his ability, puzzled why their company would hire a non Chinese-speaking foreigner as team leader.

In order to fit into the pace of the Chinese, the first thing he did was to hire an intern who would help him handle all translation works and other stuff. The intern's another job duty was to teach him five new Chinese words a day.

So slowly Joey built up his Chinese language foundation and today he can read some Chinese and day-to-day conversation in Mandarin Chinese is no more an issue for him.

Besides learning the Chinese language, he also had a lot of other things to catch up. As such, he was seen constantly learning new things, often beyond his designated office hours.

He said this was absolutely necessary because China is a rapidly transforming country.

"If you want me to lead the other people, you will have to be ahead of them first."

Learning to solve problems

Be it in Malaysia or China, there are certain rules of thumb that will never change when it comes to marketing.

"For example, whether you are doing an advertising business or creative industry, the purpose of creation is to solve problems. First and foremost you must understand and identify the nature of the problem, and then use your creativity to solve it or find a better way of expression."

Talking about his experience working with young people, Joey feels that young people today are too result-oriented without realizing that the creative industry is something that cannot be rushed.

He advises young people to first improve their skills and enjoy the process instead of getting impatient for results.

He feels that it is necessary for people to expand their knowledge and skills because the creative industry now is all about integration.

"In the past when you were to create a website, all you had to do was to create that website. But today, creating a website takes on a whole new meaning and will invariably involve event marketing and digital marketing. They are all linked."

A single skill is never enough in today's creative industry. Joey said as a creative director of a marketing consultancy firm, there were many things he needed to personally handle. If he were to remain stuck at the multimedia design which he learned many years back, he would never get to where he is today!

In view of this, he advised young people who are keen to go into this industry to not only master their own skills but also try their hands on other relevant fields in order to go further from where they are now.

"Who would ever think that a young man who hardly spoke a word of Chinese would go to China and work back in those days? But for me, I didn't bother that much. Just go there first.

"Sure enough there would be problems, but I would overcome the problems when I come across them.

"When we focus on problem-solving, we will also move forward concurrently without we realizing it.

"After some time, you will discover that you have already gone this far when you look back!"