China

I watched China rise.

My father is Chinese. He brought me back most years from the time I was small. Long enough that I noticed when it started shifting.

Around 2011, the shopping malls stopped being underwhelming. The streets felt different. "China quality" was still a derogatory phrase in the West, but on the ground you could feel it was about to turn.

A decade later, they are pushing the boundaries of infrastructure, technology, and scale. What once shipped at low quality now ships at the highest. A whole population moved from agriculture to industry, then from industry to finance. The tempo stayed constant.

Long horizons pay. I had a front-row seat to what that looks like in practice.

One day my father asked me to take a walk with him. He did not say where. He did not say why. We just walked.

A few streets from our apartment, we passed a group of workers sitting on the street, eating their lunch. My father slowed. He did not speak. A minute later: "We're done." We turned home.

I was confused. "That's it? You didn't show me anything. You didn't even speak."

He said, "Eugene, this is what I wanted to show you. You've been quietly observing the whole walk. That is why China is the future. That is why we will win. We have people willing to work for a cause despite the conditions. We do not need a well-balanced meal. We need to be fed. We do not need a clean bed. We need to rest. We do not need work-life balance. We do it for the glory, and for the values that have guided us through."

Grit. Determination. Long horizons.

That was the lesson. I still run on it.

A few years later I spent a summer at ICBC, one of the largest state-owned banks in the world. I led a team on a portfolio design competition. We won the honorary credential. I was not fluent in Mandarin at the start. I learned on the job.

One of the things the Chinese taught me: if you say it takes a month, it takes a month. If you say a week, a week. Time has a different posture there.

That discipline now shapes how I scope for clients. A deliverable and the time it takes are a single commitment, not two.

I still go back. I walk with my grandparents. I eat homemade dumplings. The country keeps reminding me that one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world is the one still focused on the next hundred years.

That is not a coincidence.