Max
Loong

Young Max started out as a VJ in the early 2000s for Viva Swizz—a German language music television channel—and MTV Asia, finding himself face-to-face with the likes of Britney Spears, 50 Cent, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys and Usher. Possessing a mix of natural charm, playful charisma and upbeat energy, he infamously once asked Mariah Carey point blank about her rumoured two-year dry spell (yes, sexually), and surprisingly lived to tell the tale.

"I think one of my strengths as a host is that I can create these moments with celebrities without offending them or making it [awkward]," he says. In fact, his unique ability to capture a room's attention and connect with anyone has made him a sought-after host at high-profile events around the globe, including a luxury travel conference in Bali where I first met Max three years ago—wearing not one, but two hats as host and hotelier.

In 2015, he expanded into hospitality as the founder of Hidden Hills Villas, a boutique luxury hotel in Bali he built with his late mother. A fine wine enthusiast, he's also furthered his career in F&B as a certified sommelier with a Level 4 Diploma in Wines (DipSWET) from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

"I've always felt like a jack of all trades, master of none," says Max, who is constantly exploring new hobbies and ventures as a way to diversify his career. "But I proved to myself during the pandemic that I can also master something by staying persistent."

Not content with just being on-camera talent, he's also the co-founder of two TV production companies in Zurich and Singapore, and a newly minted co-owner of the Zurich Film Festival—an event he's been hosting for more than 10 years.

"I never stand still," says Max, who is currently based between Los Angeles, Zurich, Singapore and Bali. Mind you, he's also hours away from boarding a red-eye flight to Vietnam for a month-long work trip in Asia. "Exploration is what makes life exciting and continuous, and, you know, I love to evolve."

A Spring Roll in Switzerland

Born in Malacca and raised in Switzerland, Max is the result of a whirlwind romance between his "wild child" Swiss flight attendant mother, Beatrice, and "self-proclaimed Asian James Bond" Malaysian-Chinese racecar driver father, Ronnie. The two met in 1977 on a chance encounter in Malaysia and fell madly in love, before eventually moving back to Switzerland in 1982 for Max's education.

Interracial couples were uncommon at the time in conservative Switzerland, let alone between a Caucasian woman and Asian man. Max, himself, was deemed even more exotic as a mixed-race child in a mostly homogenous Swiss environment.

"They called me 'spring roll' at the time," he recalls, "but I was so comfortable in my own skin that it didn't bother me. I mean, I was just Max and I'm good at what I do." In hindsight, he realises that it was a horrible racial slur, but says he was—and still is—the kind of person who "doesn't get fazed by those things."

Max's somewhat blasé response to racism could have something to do with the relatively tame reference to an ambiguous Asian food item, which likely reflected the lack of variety and knowledge of Asian food in Switzerland at the time.

On the other hand, his bullies' reference to something so generic and pan-Asian was actually quite fitting for Max, since they were only able to place him as "Asian" and not of a specific kind. After all, how does one go about being racist when you don't know enough about a person's race or culture, or what they are at all?

In between outfit changes, Max tells me that his father actually experienced racism much more than him in Switzerland. Ronnie had pivoted from a successful career in racing cars to working in hospitality, and had also been given an equally generic racist nickname of "Chinatown."

"My father was a fascinating guy who could walk into a room full of people from all walks of life and command attention straight away, thanks to his humour and charm," says Max. "He spoke nine languages fluently (Bahasa Melayu, English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hainanese, Hokkien, German, Swiss-German, French), but was never able to move up the ladder to become an F&B director or General Manager."

This invisible glass ceiling, he says, took a tremendous toll on the relationship between his parents, and on himself as a child. "Although I didn't feel [discrimination] in his face or mine, it was clearly underlying."

In 2006, Max made the move to Singapore to start working for MTV Asia. He'd been feeling the itch to move to Asia ever since his father had returned to Malaysia after his parents' divorce in 1995, and this was the perfect opportunity. It was there that he encountered "culture shock" for the very first time and, in his opinion, more racism than anywhere else.

"In Europe, I was never accepted as a white person or as Swiss, but at least I was accepted as half-Asian," he says. Being able to speak Swiss German also helped. In Singapore, despite the fact that Max's grandmother was Cantonese Singaporean and his father was ethnically 100% Chinese—both proven via DNA test to show that he was 49% pure Chinese—he was "never once accepted as Asian."

"The hardest part about being mixed is when you don't fit in, and you don't feel like you're fully accepted by either side," he adds. "I was always seen as a foreigner."

People born outside of their parents' home countries know this feeling all too well, where there's always a sense that you're either 'not enough' or needing to play 'catch up' on your culture, language and traditions (or more accurately, those of your parents). But, what if it was enough to simply be yourself: a unique mix of whatever you inherited from your parents and the culture you were born and raised in, without feeling any lack thereof?

Max appears to be the perfect example of this. Although he can easily define which parts of him are more Swiss or Asian, there's no sense that he's missing out on anything.

"I think I take on a lot of Swiss mentality and culture when it comes to being organized, precise and clean," he says. "We're also very analytical and quite neutral in how we think."

"As for my Asian side, my father raised me very strictly in typical Asian fashion, where the bamboo stick would come out once or twice in my early days," he says, quickly adding that he's never done so with his own kids. "Asians also have an immense drive and hunger for success and learning, which I see in myself—perhaps sometimes a little too much."

As any Third Culture individual can attest, identity is not a singular or fixed concept. It's a combination of the culture you were born into, and the cultures you adopt into your identity as you live, experience and move across the world.

In Max's case, he's not "just" 50 percent Swiss and 50 percent Asian—he's also a bit of LA, Bali and Singapore, and that's what makes him whole. This is someone who understands that identity is ever-evolving, and by rejecting society's expectations of fractional identity, he's always been 100 percent Max.