East to West

After losing my grandmother and hitting career rock bottom, I found myself in Shenzhen, the city where my story began. This is about grief, translation, and finding my voice again.

I used to be the friend who couldn’t decide in front of a store window, thinking the problem was indecision when it was really fear of accountability. In this episode, I reflect on decision-making, risk appetite, people-pleasing, and the quiet cost of trying to be liked, moving from venture capital pattern recognition and Jeff Bezos’ two-way doors to financial PR hierarchy and the question, “Am I...

From post-colonial Hong Kong to K-pop geopolitics, this episode explores how attractiveness, visibility, and power are shaped by culture. For generations we shrank to survive. Maybe we don’t have to anymore.

A story about spilled water that never left. About a grandmother, a system, and the quiet weight of being chosen. This essay traces lineage, gender, and inheritance through love that protected and confined at the same time, and asks what it means to belong when the rules were never written for you.

Written during long hours in a hospital ward, this piece reflects on death, fear, love, and the limits of control. Moving between science, religion, culture, and family, it asks what it means to live, to care, and to let go, and how dignity survives even when the body no longer does.

A story about hustle, heritage, and the battles we fight before we finally learn who we are. From Hong Kong’s New Territories to London’s startup grind, this essay cuts through family legacy, cultural pressure, and the loneliness of ambition. It is about growing up too fast, burning out too early, and realizing too late that most of your battles were with yourself. A vivid, restless, sharp-edged r...

This story is about inheritance — the kind that runs deeper than blood — and the courage passed down through generations. From a farm in Henan to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London, it traces the threads of love, guilt, and resilience that tie mothers and daughters together, even when they spend years trying to find their own way.

This episode dives into the unspoken side of entrepreneurship: the emotional debt, the identity crises, the scars you earn when your work becomes who you are. From China’s Scar Literature to modern startup culture, this is a story about founders, failure, and the courage to keep building even when it hurts.

Sitting by her hospital bed, I realized the wings that once sheltered me were never meant to fly, only to keep me safe enough to one day soar.

This is a story about softness, survival, and strength — about the girls who were taught to behave, to blend in, to never disappoint. From family inheritance to startup failure, from the tennis court to the boardroom, this episode unpacks what it means to stay gentle in a world that keeps testing your strength.

A reflection on the years we spend chasing love, validation, and fleeting comfort—when we could have been building something lasting. From the false promises of the curriculum to the illusions of dating ROI, this episode explores what it means to bloom, to be chosen, and to find steady ground in a world that keeps shifting.

We grew up believing in Prince Charming, in the white horse that would pull us out of our mess and into happily ever after. But reality is far harsher. Beauty can feel like a safety net, yet it comes with its own price tag. In this episode, I explore the downside of pretty privilege, the expectations around money and love, and what it means to embrace femininity on our own terms. Maybe “happily ev...

Startups may pretend to run on logic, but founders, investors, and even hiring decisions are often driven by emotion — especially pain. From PhDs to working-class grit, from Barbara Corcoran to Marc Andreessen, I explore why scars, guilt, and lived struggles are seen as fuel for drive. Maybe what sets us apart isn’t how well we hide our pain, but how deeply we feel it.

Moving isn’t just about boxes and leases — it’s about switching costs, sunk costs, and the weight of memories we carry. Between London, Paris, and Shanghai, between grit and rebellion, I found myself negotiating not just cities but identity, family, and the lessons passed down from my grandmother.

What does it really mean to be called a “content creator”? Behind the filters and follower counts lies a messy mix of self-worth, monetization struggles, blurred boundaries, and the paradox of choice. In this piece, I explore how Instagram shapes not only our stories but also our relationships, anxieties, and even investor appetites — and why, at the end of the day, being a creator might look a lo...

What does it mean to inherit a thousand years of history — a name that’s both a gift and a cage? In this essay, I explore the weight of the Tang clan legacy in Hong Kong, from land rights battles to family expectations, and how reputation can both open doors and script lives we never chose.

Behind every 5-star Airbnb review is more than good design or a clean apartment — it’s communication, trust, and the feeling of being welcomed into someone’s life. In this essay, I share what hosting taught me about risk-taking, product thinking, and, ultimately, what it means to build a home.

What does it mean to be labeled a leftover woman ? From Shanghai’s marriage markets to Chinese dramas and family expectations, I explore how culture, tradition, and modern feminism collide in shaping women’s choices — and why turning 30 didn’t feel like the expiry date it’s made out to be.

From feather-duster punishments to “better to have birthed pork than you,” Hong Kong culture drilled into us that standing out is dangerous. No wonder we call things cringe — it’s the easiest way to shut ourselves (and others) down before we even start. But what if cringe isn’t the enemy? What if it’s the price of progress, the receipt that proves you cared enough to try?

Taylor Swift, Elon Musk, Bill Gates — we love to believe in self-made myths. But look closer, and most “overnight successes” had hidden safety nets: family wealth, connections, access. I grew up in a Hong Kong village with none of that, carrying only books, curiosity, and a guitar. For years, I believed talent and hard work alone would be enough. And maybe they weren’t — but hope was. This is a st...

In tech, scale is everything — scalable products, scalable users, scalable even down to genes (just ask Telegram’s Pavel Durov). But not everything has to grow endlessly to be meaningful. Agencies, consultancies, one-person businesses — they may never be unicorns, but they offer something rarer: boundaries, control, peace of mind. Before Mailchimp and Fyxer AI became massive, they started as agenc...

Founders love to say their startup is their “baby.” But babies aren’t meant to be shut down. Startups are. They’re designed to grow fast, pivot hard, and sometimes die quickly. Impact is important, but without growth, there’s no sustainability. This piece unpacks why women founders often face harsher scrutiny, what survival capitalism looks like for Gen Z entrepreneurs, and why we need fewer “perf...

Behind more than half of US unicorns and most top AI companies stand immigrants. Yet as the UK and US tighten visa rules, they risk choking off the very talent they depend on. This piece explores why immigration is not just a political talking point, but the ultimate competitive edge in the global AI race — and why platforms, not pity, will determine who wins.

What do startups, systems, and relationships have in common? They all demand commitment — not to perfection, but to persistence. This essay explores what it really means to “marry the problem,” why debugging a system feels a lot like repairing a relationship, and how self-knowledge is the foundation for building anything that lasts.

Behind every viral post is a choice: delete it to play safe, or let it live and risk the fallout. This piece unpacks why I kept my most vulnerable essay online despite pressure to take it down, the three “clocks” that are driving my urgency, and why truth — no matter how uncomfortable — is the best data we have.