The creative storyteller connects with communities through calligraphy, oil painting and content creation.
Social Media Specialist (International) Sen Zhao from the Division of Societal Impact, Equity and Engagement, has been working at UNSW for more than a decade and jokes that she’s “like a fossil here”. Sen came to Australia as an international student, graduating from Macquarie University with a Master of Translation and Interpreting and a Master of Advanced Translation, before landing a job as a translator and editor for a Chinese-language newspaper called Australian New Express Daily.
“I gained valuable experience working as a translator, and there are similarities with my role at UNSW. I love working in social media though because I feel like I have more time to develop a story and more freedom to be creative,” Sen said.
Communication in translation
In 2015, Sen joined UNSW as a copywriter, working across all communications for Chinese audiences. Soon after, she was given the additional task of creating content for the University’s newly launched WeChat channel which, Sen said, “opened a whole new world” for her.
As a translator, her work “involved scouring daily news on English channels and interpreting it into Chinese, covering topics from politics to everyday life,” she said. For WeChat she began to explore content creation and fine-tune each story for an audience in a fun and creative way.
Sen still has the hard copy of her first front-page story which she translated and edited for Australian New Express Daily.
Pioneering content creation for UNSW
Sen had to learn how to manage UNSW’s WeChat account from scratch.
“I can still remember how nervous, but excited, I was the first time I clicked the ‘publish’ button. From then on, I’ve really enjoyed the communications and engagement with audiences on social media ... at least most of the time,” she said.
Sen’s first viral WeChat content was the Lunar New Year of 2016.
“In Chinese culture, the Vice-Chancellor of a university is so well respected, it’s a big deal to receive a personal message from them. So, we asked UNSW’s Vice-Chancellor at the time, Professor Ian Jacobs, to take a picture with a ‘Panda’ [China’s national treasure] and recorded his well wishes as a voice message to our WeChat audience,” Sen said.
At the time, UNSW had just 1000 followers on the platform, but the content reached more than 22,000. Since then, sending Lunar New Year wishes from the Vice-Chancellor has become tradition at UNSW and the University has led the trend among many other Australian universities.
In 2022, Sen’s team collaborated with the Creative Services team and together they launched UNSW’s first WeChat stickers series called ‘Clancy the Little Lion’. The stickers have been downloaded more than 5200 times and shared more than 106,000 times in WeChat chats.
Clancy is on a special mission to help build UNSW’s brand awareness among our Chinese audiences on social platforms and to catch our future students’ attention.
Creativity of a different kind: calligraphy and painting
Sen is a storyteller in both her work and personal life, constantly exploring and seeking creative outlets to find different formats for communication.
“It wasn’t until I left China and came to Australia that I started feeling a strong connection to my own culture,” Sen said.
“It’s not that I miss China – I’ve always been attracted to unfamiliar environments – it’s more that I feel a need to remain connected to Chinese culture in my personal life, which in turn benefits my work.”
Sen’s calligraphy practice, an excerpt from the Yinfu Jing, an ancient Daoist text.
So, she took up calligraphy as a hobby. A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Sen practices calligraphy every day and goes to class on Saturdays. Sundays are for oil painting class. While both are important creative outlets, Sen said, calligraphy holds the connection to her culture, so she “persists with it to try and find Zen within herself.”
Sen couldn’t find a more perfect way to use Xixi’s shed whiskers than in an oil painting of her cat.
Still a translator
While Sen’s job title no longer references translation, making conversation engaging for different audiences is still a huge part of her work at UNSW.
“In addition to creating in-language content to amplify UNSW’s impact beyond the English-speaking world, I also engage with external communities to provide strategic advice and cultural insights on China-related issues and marketing campaigns to University leaders. For instance, by monitoring social commentary on the platforms and the communities’ discussions, I’m able to share sentiment with the University Leadership Team, keeping them in the loop to help make informed decisions,” she said.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
It’s more a phrase but every time I face a challenge, I just remind myself that ‘tomorrow is another day’.
What might surprise your colleagues about you?
I’ll surprise them the day I leave UNSW.
What makes you happy?
My cat XiXi. Everything she does makes me happy.
What day in your life would you like to relive?
The day I took my parents to Mount Yasur in Vanuatu. Seeing the explosions and eruptions was a fascinating experience. Also, in that moment I could feel they totally trusted and supported me, which makes me very grateful.
What’s the best thing you’ve read in the last year?
Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World by Joe Roman. It’s a fascinating book and I learnt lots of weird facts.
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