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.
At first, things were fine. We were all equally poor, nobody holding much in hand. Then in the nineties my parents started a business, and the material gap between neighbors began slowly widening. What I remember most vividly is that in an era when color televisions and air conditioners were still considered luxuries, our home had both — early on.
As you can imagine, life in a longtang exists at the lower rungs of society, and the human nature found there can be quite dark. People who simply cannot stand seeing others do well, let alone seeing others grow comfortable and wealthy.
And yet, strangely, my memory holds that our family got along wonderfully with every single neighbor in that alley. Not a trace of jealousy or resentment.
It wasn’t until I grew older that I understood: this was entirely because my mother had an extraordinary grasp of human nature and the art of getting along with people.
Even though we lacked nothing in the way of everyday necessities — rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar — my mother still made a habit of casually borrowing things from neighbors, even when we had no need of them at all.
But the borrowing itself wasn’t the point. What mattered was her manner and what she said when she did it. She would knock gently on a neighbor’s door, a little apologetically, state her small request, and then in the course of small talk, let slip some difficulty from the business world — a red envelope that had to be given here, a favor that had to be returned there, long hours with thin margins. She would express genuine admiration for the neighbor’s steady, predictable life: regular hours, no headaches, a peaceful existence.
Just ordinary household chatter. But every time my mother turned to leave, I could always catch the faint smile on the neighborhood aunties’ faces — that quiet, satisfied gleam.
At the same time, my mother was quietly generous. We were in the clothing business, so there were always things like socks and towels around. When no one was paying attention, she would slip these items to certain neighbors — never making a show of it. When giving a gift, she would say quite earnestly that these things were simply the wrong size for our family, and that since we had another pair just like it, the neighbor would really be doing us a favor by taking them. As though receiving the gift was an act of charity toward us.
With this kind of character, our reputation wasn’t just good in that alley — it stretched across the entire neighborhood. People were genuinely willing to help us with anything, anytime. There was never a dispute.
Even when my father was doing business, neighbors would volunteer. Some helped navigate connections to local officials, some helped transport goods, some fed me dinner when my parents were tied up — one call and everyone answered.
As I got a little older, I came to realize how much my mother deserved credit for my early education in emotional intelligence. This small, slight woman seemed to possess a natural, extraordinary intuition — an unschooled wisdom about the warmth and coldness of human life.
She knew how to offer people a graceful exit in exchange for their trust. She knew how to lower herself just enough to avoid envy and resentment. She knew how to stay understated while remaining warm. She knew how to give people respect and dignity. And much more besides.
Most importantly, she seemed born with an innate sense of balance — an instinct for how to maintain relationships so they stayed both equal and close.
This kind of gift is innate. There is simply no other explanation.
As the saying goes, a wise wife spares her husband much grief. Over the years, my father avoided countless wrong turns and built countless good relationships because of her — to say nothing of the influence she had on my own upbringing.
Now, my father — that’s a different story altogether. Those who know me will be aware that my grandfather was one of the foremost painters in the entire Chinese-speaking world. I say this without any exaggeration; anyone in the art world knows his standing.
But for various reasons, my grandfather gave my father very little in the way of companionship or warmth. So from a very young age, my father essentially had to fend for himself. Of course, there are many in this world who faced harder circumstances — but I still learned a great deal from him, and especially about strength.
Without a father’s guidance or protection, my father fell into virtually every pit life has to offer. Every foolish mistake you can imagine, he made it.
The price was steep. Sometimes brutal. It cost him no small amount of what he had built, and years he never got back.
But his most admirable quality — the one I keep coming back to — was strength. And the strength of a man is fundamentally different from the strength of a woman. A man’s strength is silent. It endures. It swallows pain without complaint. It stands like bedrock — absorbing wind and rain — and still holds up the sky for the family with its shoulders.
So when his business failed, I rarely saw him stay low for long. He would pull himself together quickly and go looking for the next opportunity.
When an investment went bad, I rarely saw him sink into permanent discouragement. Within days he’d be off, chasing a new path forward.
Our family moved from poverty to prosperity, back to hardship, and back to flourishing — and through all of it, my father as the family’s pillar played a decisive role.
It wasn’t until I started making my own way in the world that I truly grasped how rare this quality is. So many people can only play their best hand when conditions are favorable — they need fortune at their back, the wind pushing them forward, before their talent shows itself. Very few, very few indeed, can swim against the current at their lowest point while others doubt and criticize them.
People tend to think of “strength” as something ordinary, something unremarkable — not worth calling a precious quality. But only those who have truly lived it understand: a moment of strength is easy. A lifetime of strength is extraordinarily hard.
As they say, a role model’s power is limitless. Whenever I have faced failure and setback, I think of my father and what he was up against — situations worse than mine, harder than mine — and I think: he made it through, didn’t he?
That’s how people work. Once you carry that courage and that strength inside you, you become more and more resilient. You can bear what others cannot. You can endure what others refuse to. And over time, you become stronger — and better.
So sometimes I think: a good family of origin truly matters more than we realize. What it gives you is never just wealth. Families with enormous assets and children too spoiled to sustain them are everywhere. A truly good family of origin is one where you inherit precious qualities from your parents — qualities that serve you for the rest of your life.
One more thing — I’m opening comments for this article, and I’d love to hear from you in the comment section about the gifts your own parents have passed down to you.
As the year-end approaches things have been busy, so longer essays and shorter pieces will alternate for a while. The next two articles will cover the most remarkable women I have ever encountered, and the topic of real estate — because the property market’s long winter is clearly beginning to thaw, and it’s worth discussing.