Soong Ai Ling has traded her celebrity days for a business venture. She tells SYIDA LIZTA AMIRUL IHSAN why every challenge is a thrill.SHE wakes up every morning at 7.45 — 8.30 at the latest — and heads off to the gym before breakfast.
Then, she drives to Chic Nailspa to start her day: training her staff, buying supplies, balancing accounts, and calculating loss and profit.
She takes her lunch at Banquet, two floors down from her manicure place. She likes noodle soup because it’s light and healthy.
When Chic Nailspa is shorthanded, she will do her customers’ nails herself. She leaves home after 10pm and goes to bed an hour later.
Doesn’t sound like a celebrity life, does it?
No, and Soong Ai Ling will tell you that these days, she’s a businesswoman more than anything else and that suits her perfectly.
“Celebrity life is interesting. It’s nice to be in the limelight. That’s a great confidence boost. But where does one go from there?”
When she was 19, Ai Ling (as she is known) did big-name commercials including Peter Stuyvesant Travel, Pantene and Colgate.
Stardom soon ensued. She became a VJ for the RIM Chart Show.
Later, she produced her show, E-Life with Ai Ling, for three years.
Around that time, she decided that if she were to achieve her dreams, she would have to pursue them.
Being in the film and modelling industry can mean long waits and unsuitable roles just to make ends meet. And it means putting your dreams in someone else’s hands.
She would have none of that. So in 2005, she ventured into Chic Nailspa in Plaza Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur (“a wrong location but one that gave me a good foundation and lessons on business”) and last year, it moved to Bangsar Village II.
“There’s a huge difference between being a model and a businesswoman. If I’m not satisfied with my performance now, I can work harder and achieve more. I’m in control. My shop is now my life. I spend 12 hours in it. My customers are my friends,” Ai Ling says.
She speaks fast and speaks her mind.
Still a beauty at 35, she walked into this interview with no make-up and a little red pimple on her nose bridge that she didn’t bother to cover up. That’s how real she is.
She wore a trapeze-shaped navy blue blouse and white shorts. She pulled her hair back with a turquoise elastic hair band and carried a plastic file filled with work-related papers.
When it comes to fashion, she says she’s not good at it.
“But I know what works for me. My favourite colours are black and white. To me, fashion is being tidy, simple and clean.”
She doesn’t play favourites with her clothes. “I like them all, that’s why I buy them!”.
She bears no distinction between the cheap and the expensive. “I buy anything that I think looks good on me.”
She’s looking into expanding Chic Nailspa because the current space is too small. She may venture into other businesses in the future, but she has her hands full now.
“I will start a new business when Chic Nailspa can run by itself. Right now, it still needs me,” she says, occasionally waving her hands and those French-manicured fingers.
Looking back at herself 10 years ago, she says she liked the time when she was young but she wasn’t focused on her future then because she thought she could survive in showbiz.
“Now, I know better. I’m stronger and more determined. Nothing is easy but my business in fulfilling. That feeling of getting something expensive from someone and getting something that you’ve worked hard for is totally different.
“Life means more than money, but experience teaches you to be a better person. And I have learned that no one will give you security but yourself.
“A boyfriend or a husband is for companionship, not security.”
She loves the thrill of working and raising the bar of her service, or seeing happy faces admiring their freshly manicured nails.
“I love it. It drives me.”
