Just scroll through Instagram and TikTok, and you'll see all kinds of "chinamaxxing" wellness memes. Adidas' new Tang suit jacket sold out instantly online (all bought by foreigners).
Foreign media likes to attribute this to "the rise of China's soft power," but I tend to believe it's the result of a blend of opposition and fusion between Chinese and Western cultures, a result that is particularly evident among entrepreneurs.
On one hand, there's the pragmatism and structural sense ingrained in our DNA from our ancestors; on the other, there's modern Western thought that strips away the overly pedantic parts of traditional wisdom and reshapes a personal form. This combination is inherently well-suited for entrepreneurship.
Western society allows you to be romantic, to be impulsive, to bet on long-term, irrational things. Even if you fail, it doesn't immediately negate your worth as a person. This is a huge tolerance space granted at the institutional and cultural levels.
I studied at a liberal arts college in the US, majoring in psychology, taking courses like metaphysics and art history. My parents always complained that I was learning a bunch of "useless things." But it was precisely these seemingly useless courses that gave me develop an almost instinctive, even somewhat irrational, trust in human agency and mutual tolerance.
I call this state romantic because it is completely opposite to the cynical attitude of "早就看透了" (having seen through it all) or "一眼望到底" (seeing the end at a glance) that is deeply ingrained in many Chinese people.
It is this romanticism that enables a person to dare to give up a stable, high-paying job to start a business, to dare to invest money in a smart contract that hasn't been thoroughly audited. More importantly, it is a way to reconcile with oneself. When you allow yourself to be impulsive, to get excited, to have expectations for long-term value, you also allow yourself to be happy, allow others to be happy, and allow society to improve together.
Of course, if Western romanticism is taken to the extreme, it can easily become detached from reality, floating in the air and getting nothing done. At this point, the pragmatic educational philosophy inherent in Chinese culture becomes particularly important.
Chinese entrepreneurs often prefer to use the term "做生意 / make business," while in the English-speaking world, entrepreneurship is called "start-up." Chinese entrepreneurship prioritizes the business model first (aka, whose money are you making), while the West focuses on the act of starting up.
The crypto space in recent years has been harshly taught a lesson about "not getting things done." A massive amount of energy was spent on low-level narratives and conceptual packaging, while真正的 applications were few and far between. In the end, it was the most primitive赛道 of "speculating on coins" that was firmly controlled by a group of Asian players.
When I first saw Mega's whitepaper, I almost instinctively thought: "This architecture is so reasonable." Centralized sequencer + Ethereum security = faster chain. The logic was clear and straightforward. But this "Sino-Western hybrid" logic is taboo in the eyes of many foreigners because, in their context, centralization is almost synonymous with original sin.
But in my view, centralization was never the original sin; it's just a tool. Many Western teams, operating in a politically correct environment, could never make a choice like Mega's. Yet we can inherit the思维 of "concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks" while using decentralized security as the ultimate backing, instantly expanding the entire想象空间.
But if I had only received a Chinese education, I also know that at best, I could only run a small workshop or small business. What truly made me believe that this kind of "centralized trade-off" could spawn new applications and scale up the entire ecosystem was the Western education I received. It made me dare to believe in system design, believe in structural choices, believe in the possibility of scaling.
Finally, people often tell me I'm a typical "banana person," yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I beg to differ. The world is never black and white, nor is it strictly East or West. The greatest advantage of someone who has truly experienced multiple cultures is the ability to absorb the strengths of each and then recombine them.
Take me, for example. I finished high school in Beijing, went to university in the US, graduated and went to Nigeria in Africa, and later settled down in Dubai, the Middle East. You ask me if I'm a banana or a sweet date, I don't know. But I know one thing:
If you are also a Chinese person who speaks English, you must be brave enough to step out and face the clash of Eastern and Western cultures head-on; there will eventually be arbitrage opportunities for you here. If you were born in China and don't speak English, you must learn it, and then go out into the world.
The world is vast, and only playing half of it is such a waste.
