Susan Wong- It’s Not Just Luck
There are some people that seem fit for the place they wind up in. Such is the case of Susan Wong, editor of Capital Lifestyle and perpetual ball of activity. Five years ago, the Nairobi lifestyle circuit was widely known to be bad. At least that was the perception from non-locals; spurred on by salacious hearsay about the big bad Nairobbery.
Ours is a city that’s still getting over its old rep, often one visitor at a time. “I love it when people from back home come out,” Wong says. “It’s great being able to tell them all the fabulous places and things that they’ll see.”
Even into recent years, lifestyle journalism was an embattled medium in this town. 200 word reviews of new restaurants consisted of many variations of “It was fine” repeated for subsequent sentences.
The Nairobi scene was ripe for a wakeup call, and the Toronto native came in just at the right time. Since her taking over the helm of Capital Lifestyle in 2010; the culture of Nairobi has found its voice and (at times) its sharpest critic.
“It’s expanding exponentially,” Wong explains about the high end of Nairobi. “There’s a new everything all the time.” The wave of making Nairobi a go to destination had been rising for some time, building and building more potential, with every meter of newly paved road. Somebody had to catch the crest of the wave and take it to the next level.
Like few other fields, journalism is an area where your work stands on its own. It isn’t typical for a writer to get a new position (and definitely not keep it) without qualifications. Coming in as a foreigner, Wong was out to prove herself. It wasn’t just a trick of luck or a friendly boost that got her the gig. Really it’s an odd ability to juggle seemingly countless things, many of which would seem a full time job on their own.
“Whenever I hear a crazy idea,” she says, “I like to dig into it, see if there is potential there; it really helps to break up monotony to try something new.” If you feel it a bit outlandish (if not outright nuts) to bring tranquility into your career’s delicate balancing act by adding another full plate to it, you’re not alone. Yet Susan keeps up this high wire act on rocket skates, zipping about to review restaurants and cover the goings on at a seemingly break neck pace; a night in Ethiopia here, an event in Mombasa there.
Now after five years in Nairobi, Wong has been a key voice in making this city a fun place to be, not just a vague idea of fortune and finding work. It seems like something new happens all the time now and the possibilities are almost endless. A great deal of the time it can seem like it’s only built for the lucky few with loaded pockets, with often pretentious results. “It’s going to balance out,” Wong says over the din of a restaurant. “There’s going to be more people doing lifestyle writing and of course more restaurants, more clubs. The prices will come down and it’ll make it a better scene for more people.”
This niche for the luxury driven seems especially present in the food scene, with silver-spoon dining halls coming off as unrelatable and exclusionary to most people. However the high-brow doesn’t always turn out the best product for Susan, “Give me a place with good food, made humbly by someone who cares about food and I’m more than content,” she says matter-of-factly. “I can’t wait for there to be more of a gastro-pub scene, and it’s coming.”
That and a great deal of other things; malls, roads, clubs, five-star luxury apartments and Michelin quality restaurants; for all of those spheres competing for space, there will have to be someone to bring them back down to earth. It looks like Susan Wong, this human ball of energy, will keep bouncing between them all, somehow keeping it all in her court.
