Hilary Corna

I just read One White Face, a memoir by Hilary Corna, a young American woman who moved to Singapore right out of college and spent three years traveling the the Asia-Pacific region training Toyota dealerships in Kaizen. I enjoyed it, especially her descriptions of Toyota’s business culture and the reverse culture shock she felt when she went home to America.

Hilary’s experience as a young American woman working in Asia was so different from mine, because she was a leader within a company everyone has heard of, whereas I job-hopped between several industries, consulting assignments, multinationals and startups. The book inspired me brainstorm the arc of the story I could tell if I were to write my own memoir about working abroad.

Here are some of my favorite parts of Hilary’s story.

She had always loved Asia and had studied abroad in Japan. She writes:

Friends and family kept advising me, “Accept any job out of college, no matter what. You can‘t be picky,” but that thought process always stupefied me. On the cusp of graduation—that is when a young adult should be picky. You‘re uncommitted, unencumbered, and have little to lose. It‘s one of the best times to pursue your passions. (5)

So she sold her ‘95 Sahara Jeep Wrangler and moved to Singapore, where a friend let her crash until she found a job.

Following a chance encounter with a cute kid in a hotel pool, she found a great job with Toyota, training dealerships throughout the Asia-Pacific region to implement Kaizen. She explains her job like this:

Kaizen involves consistently working together to identify problems and develop solutions to them. My new job would be collaborating with each distributor to work in one dealership at a time to conduct a new kaizen activity. These projects would typically last one year. First, the team spends several months studying the dealership operations, and then we identify problem areas, prioritize one, and select a theme. After improving the problem through standardizing the process and achieving good results, we share the best practices with other dealerships and establish a standard for the country operation. (29)

Kaizen had almost nothing to do with the tool or solution, but how you nurtured people to create an environment cohesive to change—an environment that empowered them to develop the answer on their own. (95)

Throughout the book, I could tell that kaizen shaped the way Hilary approached her life as an expat, continuously adjusting to a changing, challenging environment. I could particularly identify with her descriptions of coming home to America.

When I saw someone for the first time, the conversation usually went like this:

―Hi, Hilary! How is Singapore?

―It‘s wonderful.

―Do you like it?

―Yes, I love it— but before I could finish, they‘d cut me off.

―So, when are you coming home?

This question depicted the common thread of the conversation. It seemed everyone just wanted to know when it was going to end. I realized much later that they asked the question not out of disinterest, but because they struggled to relate to me, just as I did to them. (77)

Yes, so true! My trips home have been filled with exactly the same conversation!

Eventually Hilary decided to leave Toyota and return to the United States. She writes, “I was beginning to miss the Western world. I still loved Asia, and my heart would always have a place there, but I felt a gap that I couldn’t explain” (200). I can definitely identify with this sentiment. I wrote about it in my letter, “Dear China: It’s Not You, It’s Me. Let’s Be Friends Forever.”

These days Hilary has been driving a 2012 Prius Plug-In across America, speaking about One White Face on high school and college campuses, bookstores, and special events.

I hope Hilary’s story inspires a new generation to move across the world to launch an exciting, empowering international career!

Added December 13, 2011: Hilary is offering a special discount code for readers of Beyond Chile’s Single Story. Go to https://www.createspace.com/3648642/ and enter the discount code “P554X5B4”

Thanks Hilary!