A Sunday Party

On Sunday we went to a party at a friend's place. Almost all the people there were her fellow classmates from the biology department of Peking University. As I was an undergraduate in the chemistry department for two years before transferring to Harvard, I did not know most of them very well. Still, at least we went to the same military academy for a whole year of military training before starting as freshmen at Peking University, which from hindsight was a year with misguided goals but unintended benefits. It made many of us perhaps a little stronger and more irreverent - the former definitely a virtue and the latter perhaps not so much.

Most of the graduates from Peking University at the time would go onto graduate schools in the US, with very few exceptions. Interestingly, the few exceptions often are most exceptional. One of the girls YL from the biology department worked for a few years in China before starting her own trading company, making millions. I did not know her well before, and after almost twenty years, I could barely recognize her. Still, I could immediately tell that she is smart, capable and shrewd and has a very mature view towards business in general. In other words, the millions she has made is not the only benefit of her entrepreneurial effort. In an ever-changing environment such as China, she has learned to navigate the ambiguities, the changes, and the inconsistencies that would drive most people mad, and emerge a successful businesswoman.

We had a great time chatting about the old times, as well as how things have changed between the US and China. Previously, it would make sense to make money in the US and then retire in China. Now that China is such a wild wild west, for those with both the brains and the guts, it makes sense to make the millions in China and then retire in the US. This woman for example is trying to immigrate to the US through the investment route, as the US government is currently encouraging immigration through investment in the US economy. Indeed, except for labor which is still cheaper in China, almost everything of comparable quality is more expensive in China than in the US. While it is extraordinarily challenging to do business in China, it is possible if one is smart, diligent, persistent and lucky. The land of opportunities is China.

Those of us living in Bay Area lamented how it is challenging to raise kids amidst such wealth around them. YL talked about visiting the poor countryside of Guizhou in China, where the kids could not even afford the $1 per day in living expense to go to middle school. When she and others donated the money to these kids, they held the envelopes with tears rolling down their cheeks. That's the kind of poverty that exists in China just a few hundred miles from some prosperous cities where young people all have iPhones. We talked about taking our kids to visit such places, when they are old enough to understand, or when they start complaining why they cannot have a big house like their friends, etc etc.

"Happiness" is always a topic among the middle-class and the rich. Frequently, it is because of lack of perspective that people grow unhappy. Indeed when we witness with our own eyes the kind of poverty permeating through the world, we cannot help but feel the insignificance of our own complaints. Previously whenever I hear people say that they are content with what they have because there are millions in the world starving to death, I often sense that is an excuse for one's lack of motivation or aspiration. Now that I am older, I am beginning to realize that "balance" is a magic word. If only we could combine the perfect balance of deep appreciation for what we have, while aspiring to achieve more and more, we would be both happy and accomplished. After all, only when we achieve more can we have more impact on this society to make it a better place.