5 Life lessons from 10 years in China
now two weeks prior to my graduation
from florida state university
i was invited to participate in an exit
study with nine
other university students that afternoon
we were invited to meet the dean of the
college of business
and we were invited into his office and
we were asked
one simple question what are your plans
after graduating
university now one by one we went around
the room answering this question
and the girl seated right in front of me
told the story of how she was born and
raised in florida
and for the first time in her life she
was moving all the way
to texas now she was extremely nervous
about this journey
she was filled with anxiety and also
excitement and as everybody in the room
you know gave her encouragement and some
sympathy
the dean looked at me and said cyrus
what are your plans after graduation
and i dropped a bomb on everybody when i
said i bought a one-way ticket to
shanghai
i’m moving to china now 14 years ago at
the age of 22
i made a very bold move i decided to
start my professional career
in china now originally i went to china
on a one-year work contract
and that one-year contract ended up
being 10.
now along the way i’ve learned many
lessons from living in china for this
time
and in today’s speech to the youth here
today i really want to sum up my 10
years in china
with five big lessons that have really
shaped who i am today
and have really helped me become the man
that i am
and i really want to share these lessons
because i think if you apply them to
your life
they can also help you as you start off
your journey
now china is one of the most amazing
places in the world
its history unparalleled it’s beauty
unmatched
it’s energy uncontainable
working there as an expat truly was one
of the most exhilarating experiences of
my life
now when you start working in china
you’ll quickly realize
that the chinese people are actually
some of the hardest working people
that you’ll ever meet there’s a phrase
that has been trending
in chinese internet over the last two
years and that is nine
nine six what this refers to is working
from nine in the morning
until nine in the evening six days a
week
now this 72 hour work week which is very
common in the chinese tech industry
and nearly double what we are used to
here in the west
just gives an insight and a testament to
why
the chinese economy is growing so fast
and rapidly these past few decades
the chinese work incredibly hard they
work
51 straight weeks out of the year and
they get one single holiday per year
seven days off during chinese new year
or spring festival
as we call it in china and being in
china during spring festival truly is
an absolutely amazing event because it
is the largest urban migration
in the entire world you have hundreds of
millions of people
crowding into buses into trains planes
automobiles whatever they can and
traveling 20 30 sometimes
40 hours to make it home so they can
spend
china’s most important holiday with
their family
and that is the first lesson is that no
matter what you achieve in life
whether it is financial success career
success or maybe
international fame nothing is more
important than your family
now this principle i applied directly to
my life
you know as an american expat that was
living in china
i went home once a year back to florida
my hometown
but along the way i would make it a
point to go to a very small town in iowa
to visit my grandmother
and this was really one of the most
rewarding experiences of my life because
my grandmother and i didn’t see each
other a lot when i was living in america
but all of a sudden when i lived in
china it now became an annual visit
ironically out of all of our
grandchildren i was the only one
that made an annual visit to iowa to see
her and ironically i was living 7 000
miles away
on the other side of the world but no
matter what you do in this life never
forget your family
now the other thing that’s really
interesting with working with chinese
people is that
all chinese have an amazing ability to
save money
and this is truly one of the most
incredible things and it really doesn’t
really matter
where you are on the pecking order for
example you could be a ceo
earning millions of dollars a year or
you could be an entry-level employee
earning a few hundred dollars a month
but almost everybody is able to save a
large portion of their salary
and they really have this savings
culture ingrained into the culture
now in the west instant gratification
really is
you know our way of life if you want
something go put it on a credit card
enjoy it now
you don’t have to work hard first but in
china
up until 2012 85 percent of all
transactions in china
were done with cash the chinese prefer
to not have debt and this is really a
great habit that you can establish at a
young age
learn to save money learn to invest if
you do it will benefit you for the rest
of your life
now a person of my age someone in my
mid-30s it would not be uncommon for me
to send
a very large portion of my salary home
every month to my family back home
if i was a chinese person these are
great habits to get into
now working in china truly is one of the
most amazing experiences
and to really understand the culture and
to really
form these relationships it’s important
to start learning chinese
and learning chinese is one of the most
amazing endeavors that i’ve ever
gone on in my life i’ve been learning
chinese for 14 years now and it is
something that i will continuously
learn chinese is an incredibly complex
language
some people say it is the hardest
language in the world to learn
that is because chinese is a tonal
language so the same word
said a different tone can actually have
a different meaning
for example with a falling and rising
tone
means water but shui pronounced with a
short
fast descending tone can mean either tax
or sleep so it’s confusing but as you
start learning
you can get along you you start learning
this language
you can really start to adapt and you
can really start to make
amazing meaningful relationships
now i would encourage everybody to go
out and learn a foreign language
it doesn’t have to be chinese it can be
any language in the world because by
learning a foreign language you’re going
to start cultivating your mind
you’re going to have a challenge that is
going to give you confidence to tackle
many other things in this world but my
motivation for learning a language
really came from a quote from nelson
mandela
when he said when you speak to a man in
a language that he understands
it goes to his head but when you speak
to a man
in his mother tongue it goes to his
heart
challenge yourself by learning a foreign
language you’re going to make some
amazing
relationships as a result now probably
the most important
skill set for a foreigner to go to china
or really anywhere in the world
is to have an open mind you see we live
in a world that is very polarized and
very divided
unfortunately many people today form
their opinions by looking at headlines
and reading social media posts
i’m a father of three young children and
a lot of times when we go to a
restaurant and try new food my children
will say dad i don’t like that
and i always tell them try it first
it’s okay to not like it but you must
first experience it for yourself
as a young child we’re taught this but
unfortunately
adults we lose this ability and it’s
really important to go out and make sure
that you keep an open mindset
for example if i listen to the naysayers
who said that china was bad it was
dangerous
you shouldn’t go there i might not have
never gone to china in the first place
but because i approached this with an
open mind i went to a beautiful
country lived there for 10 years learned
so much about myself
that country other cultures that it
really helped make me a more
well-balanced and rounded world citizen
now ironically the most important lesson
that i ever learned in china
came during my very first year in china
now it became at the end of a very long
work week like i mentioned we had a six
day work week
and at the end of the six day work week
three young chinese colleagues came up
to me and they said cyrus will you join
us tonight for dinner
now for many companies in china it’s
actually standard practice to have a
staff
dormitory on site and to provide meal
and housing for your employees
and this was the case for our company in
shanghai and these three young gentlemen
who were just over the age of 20
they had all come from a very small
village in china together
all friends and they came to shanghai
and what they would do
every saturday evening at the end of
their work week they would put some
money together and they would go down to
the market
they would buy a big fish some pieces of
meat
some vegetables and a case of beer and
they would go on the third floor
of the rooftop and they would cook an
amazing meal
using a single element stove and a
single frying pan
and i went up with them to the third
floor rooftop
and we sat down and they said cyrus
we’re so excited that you would come and
eat with us
you know we’re so excited about being
here in shanghai
all of us left this small village we all
came here to get a better job to have a
better life
we’re so excited about our future and
this is the first time that we’ve ever
had a meal with an american
tell us what america is like tell us
about you
and as i digested what they told me i
really thought to myself
you know i’m not much different than
these people here than these three young
men
i too also came to shanghai because of a
job opportunity
i also want better things in my life i
also
want to work hard and achieve success
sure we look different we have different
skin colors we have a different language
different religion but at the end of the
day
we’re more similar than we are different
and this is a really important point
that i think everybody needs to realize
you can go out in the world and you can
experience different cultures
but at the end of the day all of our
cultures teach us things that are very
similar
for example every culture teaches us to
respect your elders
every culture teaches you to work hard
advance your career try to be the best
that you can
every culture wants a better life for
their children
these are all universal things now our
world right now is very polarized it’s
very divided
there’s a tremendous amount of hate and
what we need to do right now is we need
to build bridges
so as you’re going out and getting ready
to experience the real world
remember these five lessons find
something that you’re passionate about
and go out and work hard while you’re
working very hard
cultivate the habit of saving money and
investing at a very young age
it will literally pay you dividends
later in your life
challenge yourself by learning a new
language
not only will you improve yourself but
when you find somebody that speaks that
language you’ll be able to
build a lasting relationship that will
last forever
always approach things with an open mind
this has been the one
thing that i think has really helped me
achieve success on the international
level
and number five never forget that we are
more similar than we are different
now it’s really important to remember
that you don’t change the world with
your opinion
you change it with your actions so go
out there
and be the change that you want to see
in the world today thank you