By Wall Street Chinese Founder Helen Liu
If you know a bit of Chinese history, for about one thousand two hundred years up to 18th century, China was the richest country in the world. Today when China becomes number one again, this shouldn’t be a surprise at all!
Some people asks me why Chinese can achieve this honor again, I almost answer immediately without thinking: Culture of hard working and learning – Just like a famous saying – A genius takes 1 perfect of idea and 99 perfect of sweat. Hard working is reflected in Chinese culture, Jack Ma’s Alibaba is a recent example.
There are many statistics behind this wonderful achievement. From my personal observation from 1995 to now, that is just a magic journey.
1992, I came to the states for school, at that time, what I made during lunch time waitress per day equals to Chinese average worker’s one month salary;
1995, I went back to China for visit, Guangzhou and Wuhan were just badly polluted, people were either poor or fat(too much over-eating social activities for business).
1998, I brought my new born baby to Wuhan, one pearl necklace of mine was equivalent to the corner stone ‘s one year sales. I felt guilty of living in the western lifestyle.
1999, a bus ride and breakfast cost RMB1 each (which was less than US$0.15). There was no such thing like shopping on TV nor internet
2000, there was no traffic light in Shanghai.
2003, a battery bike rode of half hour in the south western part of Shanghai could made me a woman with dusk. My first apartment of 1,000 square feet over looking river in Shanghai out ring costed only $50,000 in total.
2005, only in the area with foreign residents there were food other than Chinese
2008, Shanghai was so attractive that my American born child didn’t want to come back to the US
From 2008 to now, China makes headlines almost everyday – Chinese consumers, Chinese market, Chinese investment. It will go on like this for this century or longer probably.
That makes learning Chinese language and culture extremely important if you want to do business with China or get Chinese consumers. I have a lot of business students in the past 15 years all over the world, I also started to get celebrity students, a lot of media attention. As a teacher, trainer and coach, I am happy to help my students to grow, because it also motivate me and inspire me to work harder and smarter! Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerbug is the recent example how language and understanding different culture can impress and gain more reputation in business.
Here is the video you can watch.
