This weekend, I want to talk about something personal — the first woman in the world who taught me “emotional intelligence”: my mother. And the first man who taught me “strength”: my father.
Before my family found its footing and eventually went abroad, we once lived out of necessity in a small longtang (Shanghai alley neighborhood). Though the years have made the memories hazy, I can still vaguely picture how cramped and narrow our unit was — roughly the size of a modern studio apartment with half a bathroom. The kitchen we shared with everyone else on the lane.
Just a few days ago, I received a message from a reader in my inbox. It read something like this:
“Master Chi, first of all, thank you so much for your thoughtful and consistent sharing. But I’ve always felt that your language tends to be quite sharp when you discuss topics about women. I sometimes worry this might drive away many female readers who can’t handle such direct criticism — and that you might be losing potential followers as a result. After all, as a woman myself, I know all too well that many girls today don’t respond well to being called out. I also hope that when you have time, you might write an article specifically for girls like me — ordinary, or even poor, from humble beginnings — and offer us some real guidance. I hope that’s not asking too much? Hehe.”
Those familiar with Master Chi already know: my articles have never aimed to entertain.
Expanding awareness, broadening perspective, sharpening judgment — that is my domain. This is why the readers who have followed me over the years tend to be, across the board, a caliber above the rest — regardless of gender or background. Even my female readers are, by and large, formidable women who have made something of themselves.
There have always been people who misread me — saying Master Chi is a cold-blooded social Darwinist, someone who judges everything by achievement alone. Think what you will. And frankly, they’re not entirely wrong. Because I have always believed, from start to finish: the higher your achievement and the greater your wealth, the more complete and fulfilled your life will be.
Why this conviction? Because countless facts have convinced me that wealth is inextricably linked to every other dimension of life. Unlock wealth, and you unlock the rest of your destiny.
Introduction: A high-ranking smart woman is the dealer of her own destiny — so regardless of fortune or misfortune, she uses everything to propel her future forward. The low-tier foolish woman is toyed with by fate — so even when great luck arrives, she squanders it or misses the opportunity entirely. So please, promise Master Chi this: as a woman, you must live with sharp clarity and intelligence in this lifetime. One day you will realize that all the suffering, exhaustion, and bitterness in life could have been avoided long ago. They were never meant to touch you.
The real danger of being born into humble origins isn’t that your parents can’t provide material or financial support. The biggest problem is this: if you were born poor, your life effectively starts with a pre-packaged “bottom-rung survival manual” already in your hands.
Innocent and unaware, you’ll receive continuous indoctrination from parents who are themselves at the bottom — all the way until you enter university. Even if you one day wake up and frantically begin compensating with “elite knowledge,” it’s often already too late. Once your worldview takes shape, it becomes a brand burned into your bones — nearly impossible to wash away. Having believed the wrong things for so long, accepting the right things becomes incredibly difficult — like a surgical scraping of flesh from bone. Never mind whether you can endure it; few people even get the chance.
Frankly, Master Chi is simply a man of leisure living in the Jiangnan region who later took up traditional destiny reading (命理) as a profession — nothing particularly special or exceptional about him. If there is anything worth mentioning at all, it is that over the course of life, I have had the genuine fortune of crossing paths with some remarkably accomplished and outstanding individuals: people renowned for their wealth, their careers, or their standing in the world. I was simply the minor figure who, by fortune’s grace, had the honor of offering them counsel — a nobody of the lowest rung, nothing worth writing home about.
Every Teacher’s Day, I receive greetings and words of thanks from many of you — mostly expressing gratitude for my ongoing sharing and guidance.
Honestly, I don’t feel I deserve this gratitude.
By any measure, I fall far short of the title “teacher.” A true teacher imparts unquestionable wisdom and truth to their students. What I share with you is mostly a personal perspective drawn from my own life experience — inevitably a mix of the insightful and the flawed.
After writing so many insightful articles, I find myself increasingly convinced that the wisdom capable of truly changing a life is rarely complex. It simply needs the right person to deliver it in the right tone.
And if you were my child, these few principles below would be the most heartfelt lessons I’d want to pass on to you.
On Life
Most people in this world place far too much pressure and burden on “life” — as though unless they achieve something notable, their existence has been wasted. It simply doesn’t need to be that way.
This article is dedicated to every woman who has faced a difficult fate, yet has never understood where she went wrong.
Have you noticed? The women who get hurt in entertainment gossip almost always share one thing in common: they lack parents who protect and watch over them.
This isn’t to say they grew up without a mother and father. It’s that their parents clearly never passed down the most fundamental wisdom a woman needs — how to protect herself.