I define myself featuring Eli Zaelo

"Hi, I am Eli Zaelo. I came to Hong Kong in 2015. I am a multilingual artist from Pretoria, South Africa"

I moved to Hong Kong in 2015. I was, I think, 21 at the time when I got the role of Nala at Hong Kong Disneyland.

For me, especially when I was at the Los Angeles College of Music, we had a world music class, where we were taught to sing in different languages, even languages we didn't speak. I learned Chinese songs first, a lot of the time is by recommendation, and then second it would be do I connect to it. It has to connect to me as a person, just easier for me to sing the song itself.

So for me to explore Hong Kong was as simple as just opening up my door and walking around. If I'm interested in something, I will try it. Like noodles, I really love soup noodles, because in South Africa when we eat noodles, we drain out all the water. So the whole concept of actually adding meat or vegetables inside, I first saw that in Hong Kong. Once I ate it, I understood why, that the soup is an essential part of the noodles. So yeah, eating noodles has been one of my favourite things about Hong Kong.

Whereas in South Africa, I feel that everybody feels seen. If you bump into a friend, you know, you could take your time with the conversation. You can jump from saying hello to somebody saying that they planted a lemon tree, you know, and nobody feels strange about that. But in Hong Kong, I feel that sometimes it's just like things are so brief. You're like,

"hi!" "hello."

"How are you?" "Good."

"How's the day?" "Fine."

You know, it's just like, tell me more about yourself. So I have to stop people and be like, "hold on, can I just finish my thought?"

I went back home to South Africa, but then I realised that I missed Hong Kong, so I came back through other means.

And I think the life that I've created for myself in Hong Kong, it works for me, it's comfortable. There's so many positive things that I like about Hong Kong. It’s an international city, so there are room and space for anybody to make something of themselves.

"So it’s good to be here, to be in Hong Kong."

To the youth, I would say that, you know, we've heard this so many times, but it's almost like it's not sinking in. That the world already has everybody else. We need you to be you. We need your ideas. We need your way to doing things. First, invest in yourself, love yourself. Build your own character more than you do your gift, because your character is actually the key that will open up many doors.