'Self-respect is more important': Joanne Peh accepts China merchant's apology, declines their Louis Vuitton gift

Actress and livestream host Joanne Peh has shared more details regarding the cancellation of a livestream sale with a Chinese merchant on Jun. 17.

She'd previously gone on TikTok to announce the decision, accusing the merchant of having "zero respect".

What happened

In response to Mothership's queries, Peh said that she'd already felt something was off from the first time she held a conference call with this brand, in the lead up to the cancelled livestream.

"I already didn't have a good feeling, didn't have a good vibe and then... when we met face-to-face in Guangzhou, again the vibe was really off," she added.

"The disrespect was already there, but again, you know, sometimes we give ourselves excuses, maybe people had a bad day."

Subsequently, on the day of the livestream, at the area where they had set up their equipment, they were told off by a man who was smoking in the room, claiming that it was his office.

Peh said:

"It is really not one isolated incident that triggered it. It was a series of interactions that all pointed to one thing, which is the lack of respect for us, for our team, for myself, and my commitment to wanting to do a good job of this.

And so that is pretty much the the final straw where I decided that, you know, self-respect is more important than all of that, so I called it off."

Brand management apologised

The merchant, who is also the brand founder, did not reach out to her on the evening of the scheduled livestream.

But the next day, the senior representatives of the brand — one from Sichuan and one from Shenzhen — came to Guangzhou, where she was at.

They wanted to personally address the issue, with the brand founder.

According to Peh, they wanted to apologise and brought flowers, an apology letter, truffles, rice dumplings and a gift from Louis Vuitton.

They had also insisted on doing so, even when she told them it was not necessary.

Accepted their apology

Peh acknowledged that they were "very sincere" and that they also acknowledged their attitude had been poor.

They said they had since conducted an internal review with their employees.

"They agree that this is not the right way to treat a guest from overseas who is coming here to do a stream with them," she added.

Peh then said she accepted their apology, letter, flowers and dumplings because it was the Dragon Boat Festival.

However, she returned the truffles and Louis Vuitton gift.

"Given what has transpired, I think this is case closed. I have accepted their apology, they have also explained and that's it," she said.

Not an easy decision to take in cancelling the livestream

Cancelling the livestream was not an easy decision to make, she added.

Despite the cancellation, she still had to pay for her entire team's airfare, hotel costs, time taken to shoot and edit the video, and the time they spent informing followers about the stream.

"All of this is cost already sunken in, and to call off a stream means nobody gets paid," she said.

But she added that livestreaming takes "a lot of time, effort, and hard work" and that she does not take the work lightly.

Peh elaborated:

"The decision to go public about (this) was really to highlight, sometimes, the importance of drawing boundaries.

You know, when someone is obviously and clearly disrespecting you, there is a need for us to draw the boundaries for ourselves, because if we don't do it, nobody is going to respect us."