Thomas Hoon's Recent LinkedIn Posts

What would you do if you found out your last name traces back to Genghis Khan? I'm not Mongolian. I'm Singaporean. I found out in 2023. For two years I did nothing about it. Today I'm standing at his grandson's grave in Guangzhou right now. The tomb belongs to Yun Conglong. Grandson of Genghis Khan. Biological nephew of Kublai Khan. A member of the Borjigin, the golden royal clan of the Mongol Empire. 👑 Yun. 雲. It means Cloud. ☁️ A man who carried the name of the sky and the blood of the world's greatest conquerors. I am the 24th generation Yun. This morning was not a quiet, solitary moment. It was a full family affair. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Relatives flying in from Singapore. Malaysia. Thailand. All across China. Faces I am seeing for the very first time. Strangers by modern standards. Family by 700 years of blood. 🩸 Qing Ming. One of China's oldest traditions. You don't come to mourn. You come to report back. 🙏 You say: I'm still here. The family continues. We came early. April 5th is the official date. Diaspora life. You show up when the window opens. 🪟 In a few hours I fly to Hainan. ✈️ To honour Yun Conglong's mother. The woman who anchored this entire bloodline on that island 700 years ago. No official title. No dynasty records. History never bothered to write her name down. I will. 🕯️ I am Singaporean. But my roots run deeper than any passport. 700 years deeper. Something in the blood. 🧬 How far back does your family history go? 👇

I lost a client because of a 3-day holiday I didn't know existed. Many years back, a client asked me to help procure something from a Chinese supplier. I was the bridge. The trusted contact. The guy who knows China. My Chinese counterpart had been warm, responsive, engaged. Then suddenly... silence. Friday. Weekend. Monday. Nothing. I rewrote the brief thinking something got lost in translation. Followed up with the supplier again. Still nothing. And then the spiral started. Was I being too pushy? I went back and read every single message I'd sent. Analysing every word. Every punctuation mark. Did I come across too eager? Too desperate? Too Western? I even googled "how to follow up with Chinese business contacts without being rude." At 11pm. Meanwhile my client is asking me for updates. And I had nothing to tell them. 😶 By the time my Chinese contact replied days after, warm and casual, like nothing happened, it was too late. My client had already gone elsewhere. I didn't lose a deal that day. I lost someone's trust in me. Turns out I'd been chasing through Qingming Festival. He wasn't ignoring me. He was visiting his grandmother's grave. 🙏 And I was the supposed China expert who didn't see it coming. ⚠️ Qingming Festival. April 4th. 10 days away. If you have anything pending with a Chinese contact right now, check in before April 2nd. SOME of them will be unreachable next week. Not all. But you won't know which ones until it's too late. 13 years living and working in China. Official Ambassador for Nansha District, Guangzhou, the fastest growing hub in the Greater Bay Area. I've sat across the table from Chinese manufacturers, government officials, and startup founders. And the number one mistake I see foreigners make? They understand the market. They don't understand the culture that runs it. 🎯 If you're doing business with China, or planning to, follow me. I share what the guidebooks don't tell you. Every week. From the inside.

🌍 While most tech companies are replacing humans with AI, one travel company employs 20,000 customer service agents. 📞 That company is Trip.com Group. And this old-school strategy is helping it compete globally with giants like Booking Holdings and Expedia Group. Not with cheaper prices. With better service. 🧠 Trip.com operates 24-hour customer support in 35 languages. If your flight gets cancelled at 3 a.m., a real person answers the phone. Not a chatbot. Not an automated workflow. A human who can actually solve the problem. Behind the scenes, those agents use AI tools to resolve issues faster. ✈️ China’s online travel market is one of the most competitive in the world. Millions of travellers book flights, trains and hotels every day. When something goes wrong, customers expect immediate solutions. That pressure forced companies like Trip.com to build enormous customer service operations. Over time, what started as survival in China became a global competitive advantage. 🌏 Today Trip.com exports that capability overseas. Thousands of agents. Round-the-clock support. Deep localisation for each market. Huge difference for local users. 💡 The lesson goes beyond travel. Some of the strongest global capabilities are forged in the world’s toughest domestic markets. This is the “China advantage” that rarely makes headlines: operational scale born from serving one of the world’s most demanding consumer markets. 💬 In an AI-driven world, will human service become a luxury advantage? 🔔 I’m a Singaporean who has spent the last 13 years living and working in China, sharing how its intense domestic competition shapes companies that go on to compete globally.

How can a monk have a wife? I asked Marc Prill this. 40 years in film. Now based in KL, he founded Red Indochine Art. These days, he spent time turning light and emotion into art you can hold. We met in KL, introduced by Yvonne Woi. He didn't even pause. "In the world of art, everything is possible." His words made me pause. Because I felt that in my bones, the moment I left corporate and started building. The people closest to me told me to shut it down. Not strangers. Not critics online. The ones sitting across the dinner table. The ones who knew me. The ones whose opinion I actually cared about. "It's not going to work." "You're wasting your time." "Just stop." I didn't stop. That company worked. And I want to be honest about what kept me going. It wasn't passion. It wasn't a vision board. It wasn't a mentor with the right words. It was pure, quiet, burning rage. The need to walk back into that room and say nothing because the results said everything. Marc's answer hit me this week because I recognised it. The monk having a wife makes no sense. My startup working made no sense. Your idea probably makes no sense to everyone around you right now. Good. The ones that make no sense are the only ones worth building. To everyone being told to shut it down today. Don't you dare. 🔥 This one's for the ones still in the fight. If this hit you, tell me why in the comments. You can DM me too.

They did everything right. Except the one thing that mattered. A European company. Big budget. Clear objectives. Canton Fair 2 years ago. They hired a translator. Booked the flights. Showed up. No supplier shortlist. No pre-scheduled meetings. No one in the room who could smell a bad deal. Just confidence. And a translator who promised them everything. 75,500 booths. Two weeks of walking in circles. I got the text at the departure gate. "It didn't work out." 😔 Here's the thing nobody tells you: ⚠️ The Canton Fair doesn't start on April 15. It starts 6 weeks before. Your shortlist. Your meetings. Your person, not just someone who speaks Mandarin, but someone who knows when a supplier is wasting your time. Show up without that? You're just a tourist with a namecard. 139th Canton Fair 🔧 Phase 1 (Apr 15–19): Advanced Manufacturing Robotics. AI. New energy vehicles. Industrial automation. This is where China shows the world what "Made in China" actually means in 2026. If you're in tech, manufacturing, or looking for the next big thing, start here. 🏠 Phase 2 (Apr 23–27): Quality Home Life Consumer goods. Lifestyle products. The stuff that ends up on shelves worldwide. Retailers and e-commerce sellers, this phase was built for you. 🌟 Phase 3 (May 1–5): Better Life Fashion. Health. Sports. The everyday stuff that billions of people buy every year. DM me if you're coming. Let's not repeat that story. Video source: 永恒飞翔 🔔 13 years in China. I help foreign companies navigate Chinese business, the culture, the negotiations, the part that gets lost in translation.

I couldn't sleep after reading this. Someone sent me a case last week. This is not just a China story anymore. This is targeting international business networks right now. 2 million people. $1.8 billion. Gone. To a man who, before disappearing, sent his victims this message: "Everyone's intelligence is matched to their wealth. Since your wealth didn't match your intelligence, I had to correct that mismatch." His name is Huang Xin. In 2016 he was already linked to a 330 billion RMB pyramid scheme. He walked away. Then came back with better tools. The blueprint was simple: ✅ Fake government-backed partnerships ✅ 1–2% daily returns (700%+ annually which is mathematically impossible) ✅ Recruit friends and family to earn more ✅ Crypto only ✅ Launder everything within 48 hours. Vanish. The part nobody is talking about: Victims now hold dirty crypto. Exchanges are freezing their accounts. Some are being questioned by police as money laundering suspects. They lost their savings. Now some may lose their freedom. Now the same playbook is targeting people outside China. "The Chinese government is backing us and I am giving you a massive opportunity. Come see it. Flights and hotel on us." Nobody flies strangers across the world out of generosity. That free ticket is the cost of acquiring a victim. You arrive, sit in a room engineered to overwhelm you, get asked to invest and recruit and by the time you land home, the money is already gone. Walk away immediately if you see: 🚩 Guaranteed high returns 🚩 Recruit friends to earn more 🚩 Crypto-only payments 🚩 Free trip to an "investment seminar" High returns plus recruitment plus free travel equals a scam. Every time. Have you or someone you know been approached like this? ♻️ Repost if someone in your network needs to see this.

We survived a fire that wiped out everything we built. What I wasn't prepared for. came later. Some of you might be aware that I ran a personal mobility business as a side hustle from 2013 to 2019. Small team. Complementary skills. Real trust. 🤝 Then one night in 2015, a fire burned through most of our assets. 🔥 Painful? Yes. Our momentum was halted but we rebuilt anyway. Slowly. Piece by piece. At that point, we thought: "If we got through that. we can get through anything." I was wrong. A few years later, one partner had to leave. No drama. No fallout. Just life. And that's what hit hardest. 💔 Because nothing was written down. No exit terms. No commitment period. No plan for "what if someone leaves." The fire didn't break the business. This did. Not because anyone did anything wrong. But because we relied on trust. and forgot that trust is not a contract. 💡 That part? That's on me. If you're building something with someone, don't skip this: ✅ Define roles clearly ✅ Agree how long the founders are committed ✅ Decide upfront what happens if someone walks away Here's the uncomfortable one most people avoid: If someone leaves by choice, they take back what they put in. Not a share of what others continue to build. That's not harsh. That's protection. A partner agreement isn't about distrust. It's about respecting what you're building enough to protect it. Write it when things are good. Because when things change. that's when you'll wish you had. Are you in a partnership right now? Do you actually have this in place? 👇 #Entrepreneurship #Founders #SME #BusinessPartnerships #Startup

"Why did nobody tell me this before I came?" Every time a friend visits, they say the same thing. I've lived in Guangzhou for years. So let me be that person for you. 6 things nobody tells you before visiting Guangzhou 👇 1. Dim sum here is a religion and 7am is the sermon Guangzhou Restaurant (广州酒家) and Dian Dou De (点都德) are your targets. ~$6–12 USD. Go early or queue. Cantonese roasts? Tao Tao Ju (陶陶居), est. 1880. Different category. Equally unmissable. 2. The old city is hiding in plain sight Bruce Lee's ancestral home in Yongqingfang. Cantonese opera over water at Lychee Bay. A 1,500-year-old temple on a regular street at Liurong. The real Guangzhou doesn't announce itself. 3. There's an 800-year-old village just outside the city that nobody talks about Shawan Ancient Town (沙湾古镇). Narrow streets. Oyster shell walls. Cantonese architecture frozen in time. You walk in and feel like you've gone back centuries. Almost no foreign tourists. Just locals, silence, and history. 4. This city is a wholesale shopping weapon 👗 Shisanhang & Zhanxi: clothes at prices that make home feel like a scam. 👜 Baiyun World Leather Trading Centre (白云皮具城): 1,200+ leather brands under one roof. Bags, wallets, belts. Bring an empty suitcase 🎁 Onelink Plaza (万菱广场):9 floors of everything. Pay 20% of export price ⚡ Tianhe Electronics: gear at prices that make no logical sense 5. This city doesn't sleep and neither will you 🌙 Beijing Road buzzing at 11pm. Shangxiajiu turning into a night carnival after dark. Wholesale markets in Zhanxi still running past midnight. You'll plan to be in bed by 10. You won't make it. 6. Locals don't go to Canton Tower They're on Ersha Island. Walking the Pearl River promenade at 11pm. Eating skewers from a cart. 🍢 Best view of the tower? Plastic stool. Beer in hand. Zero entrance fee. Same view. Better story. 🌃 World-class city. Village prices. $6 dim sum breakfast for two. $1 metro. Wonton noodles under $1 that ruin every other noodle forever. I used to think I'd stay a year. That was a long time ago. ♻️ Save this. Share it with someone planning a China trip. What's your favourite spot in GZ? 🔔 I share the side of China most people never see. Follow if you want in every weekend.

One sentence used to make me deeply uncomfortable in China. “We will do our best.” The first time I heard it during a business discussion, I walked out unsure if we actually had a deal. It sounded vague. Non-committal. Almost like a polite way of avoiding a clear answer. At the time, I assumed it meant weak commitment. After 13 years living and working in China, I’ve realised I completely misunderstood it. Because in many cases, that sentence is actually a very honest answer. In many markets, business tends to follow a familiar sequence: Contract → Performance → Trust. Deliver first. Trust comes later. But in China, I often see the opposite. Trust → Performance. Business relationships frequently begin with repeated interactions: meals, conversations, introductions through mutual contacts. By the time a contract is signed, the relationship already exists. The contract formalises the relationship. It rarely replaces it. That’s why “we will do our best” often carries a different meaning here. Business operates within layers of uncertainty : approvals, supply chains, regulations, shifting policies. Saying “we will do our best” acknowledges that reality while protecting face value if circumstances change. It isn’t avoiding responsibility. It’s recognising complexity. Over time, I’ve learned that many behaviours that seem puzzling in Chinese business culture start to make sense once you understand the environment companies operate in. Trust, communication, and strategy evolve differently when businesses are operating in one of the most competitive markets on earth. 💬 For those who have worked in China, what business moment surprised you the most? 🔔 I’m a Singaporean who has spent the last 13 years living and working in China, sharing how its intense domestic competition shapes companies that go on to compete globally.

🌏 1 out of every 4 swimsuits on Earth is made in one Chinese city. Most people have never heard of it. Not Shanghai. Not Beijing. Not Guangzhou. It is Huludao (葫芦岛), a fifth tier city on China’s northeast coast. 👙 Huludao produces up to 190 million swimsuits every year. That is roughly 5 swimsuits every second. The heart of this industry sits in a district called Xingcheng. A place better known historically for something very different. 🏯 Xingcheng is also home to one of the best preserved Ming era fortress towns in China. It was built during the Ming Dynasty as a military stronghold guarding the northeast frontier. Stone walls. Ancient gates. Watchtowers that once defended an empire. Today, another kind of production defines the city. 🏭 Thousands of factories. Design studios. Textile suppliers. Logistics companies. Together they form one of the most concentrated swimwear manufacturing clusters in the world. In 2018, a Huludao company acquired Jantzen, the American swimwear brand once worn by Marilyn Monroe. The brand helped define Hollywood beach culture. 🌏 Cities like this reveal something about how the modern world really works. Global industries are not always built in famous places. They often grow quietly in specialized clusters where thousands of manufacturers, suppliers and workers refine one product for decades. There was also a strategic decision behind the story. Local officials once had a choice between mining and swimwear manufacturing. Mining promised faster money. Swimwear meant jobs for 80,000 families. They chose the families. Huludao now helps dress the beaches of the planet. Most people have never heard of it. But chances are someone at your beach is wearing something made there. Video source: 兴城山隐海宿 🔔 Every weekend, I explore Chinese culture, cities and customs and the thinking behind them.

By the time you realise a Chinese company has taken your market, you have already lost it. Ann asked me recently: "Thomas, why are Chinese companies always so cheap?" I told her: cheap is the wrong word entirely. Here's the real word: 内卷 (nèijuǎn). Involution. China's industrial profit margins have fallen to 5.31%. EV sector margins hit 3.9% in late 2025, a historic low. Companies fighting each other into the ground just to survive. Only the most ruthless make it out. So when they arrive in your market with an unbeatable price: They are not being generous. They are doing what a decade of brutal competition trained them to do. But here's what nobody talks about: The low price is just the entry. It was never meant to be the destination. Anta acquired Arc'teryx and Salomon, two of the world's most premium outdoor brands. Anker went from cheap Amazon chargers to a globally trusted premium brand. They used cheap as a launchpad. So if your only question to a Chinese partner is "how low can you go" — you're negotiating with a company that has already moved on from that question. Ask these instead: → Where are you going in 3 years? → What problem are you solving nobody else is? → What does your R&D pipeline look like? That's how you find the partner who won't be replaceable. Selling into China. Buying from China. Competing against Chinese companies at home. If any of those describe you, this session is for you. 13 years in China's Greater Bay Area. I've watched this in real time. Live. Free. 2 hours. This Friday. 📅 Friday 27 March | ⏰ 5-7PM GMT+7 | 📍 Zoom Link to register in the comments 👇 Thanks Ann. Great question. 🙏 What questions are you asking your Chinese partners right now?

Most people doing business in Asia think they understand China. They don't. Tonight I'll show you why. And more importantly, what to do about it. This session happens once. Tonight. Free. Not theory. Not a framework. Not a 60-slide deck. 🚫 13 years on the ground in China. Tonight I share what actually matters. 📅 Friday, 27 March 2026 ⏰ 5-7PM Jakarta Time (GMT+7) 📍 Online via Zoom 📝 Register: https://bit.ly/4bo3ZAd 🔗 Join directly: https://lnkd.in/e9y7sAkv See you tonight. 👊

China just put a data center on the seafloor. Not a test. Commercial. Operational. Now. 🌊 Last month, the world's first wind-powered submarine data center went live off Shanghai. 10 to 15 meters underwater. Powered by an offshore wind farm next door. Zero freshwater. Zero land. PUE at 1.15, against a global average of 1.58. ⚡ And this is already their second one. The first has been running at 35 meters depth off Hainan for nearly three years. Hundreds of servers. Stable operation. They built it. It worked. Now they are scaling it. Here is what nobody is saying. This is not an infrastructure story. It is a constraint story. Land in the Yangtze Delta is expensive. Freshwater is scarce. Grid power loses value over distance. So China did not solve those problems. It left them on shore. 💡 The sea cools the servers. Wind goes straight to compute, with over 95% renewable power and near-zero transmission loss. The seabed costs nothing. Every problem onshore becomes irrelevant underwater. That is not engineering. That is a completely different way of thinking. This is a ¥1.6 billion commitment, with a planned capacity of 24 MW. Not a vanity project. I have spent 13 years in China. I thought I had seen every version of this playbook. I was wrong. 🤯 China built the world's longest sea bridge, 55km connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau, in 9 years. Some countries can't fix the same pothole in 10. Southeast Asia has thousands of kilometers of coastline. Digital economies growing faster than the grids beneath them. 🌏 The sea has always been there. China is just the first to ask: why aren't we using it? Do you think Southeast Asia and any other countries is ready to adopt this model, or will it take a decade of watching China scale it first? Follow me for more on what China is building before the rest of the world notices. Image src: CCTV13

A doctor operated on a dying man knowing there was nothing he could do. He opened up. Looked. Stitched him back up. And said nothing. My cousin shared this story over dinner when I visited Hainan for Qing Ming last week. He's a head of department at a hospital. His colleague was the doctor in the room. A son brought his father in. Stomach cancer. Advanced stage. Doctor ran the analysis. 5% chance of success. The son didn't flinch. "Whatever it takes. Operate. This man raised me. I owe him everything." The doctor felt something shift inside him. Waiver signed. They went in. There was nothing to be done. So he closed up. And made a quiet decision. Father woke up saying he felt good. Doctor pulled the son aside. "He has one month. Maybe less." But the father was already asking about his next appointment. Asking what medication to take home. Eyes full of hope. The doctor looked at him. And lied. "You are doing extremely well. Come back in 6 months." That decision cost him something. Doctors are trained to tell the truth. Prognosis. Data. Facts. But that day he chose the man over the medicine. And carried that secret alone. 6 months later, the father walked back in. The doctor stood there speechless. The scans showed the tumor shrinking. Two years have now passed. The father is still alive. No trace of cancer. The table went quiet. My cousin looked at me, eyes glistening. "This is the power of the mind." I didn't say anything for a long time. Because I realised something sitting there. Life is full of challenges. But nothing is the end. Not until it truly is. I have fought my own battles. A hole in my heart. Cancer. A son's love kept his father alive. A doctor's compassion gave a dying man hope. And that hope became the medicine. Don't ever underestimate what the human spirit is capable of. Not in illness. Not in grief. Not in life. When did belief change everything for you?

They bought Arc'teryx. Then Salomon. Then Wilson. Then 29% of PUMA. You still think this is a knockoff brand? Most people have never heard of Anta. That's exactly how they like it. Ding Shizhong is 19 when he hauls his family's shoes to Beijing to sell on the street. Nobody wants them. He goes home empty-handed. Comes back with a plan. He realises the problem isn't the shoe. It's that nobody knows the name. So he spends the next decade building one. With ¥4 million, nearly half the company's annual profit, he bets everything on one CCTV ad. His family thinks he's lost his mind. Then Kong Linghui wins Olympic gold. Kisses his Anta jersey on live TV. The brand has a name now. But a name isn't enough when Nike and Adidas own the shelves, the leagues, and the culture. So Anta does something nobody expects. They stop chasing the brands the market wants and start buying the ones the market has given up on. FILA China. 50 stores. Bleeding money. Industry laughs. Anta rebuilds it from the floor up. Grinds for a decade. By the time the industry stops laughing, FILA China is bigger than Anta's own core brand. Amer Sports: Arc'teryx, Salomon, Wilson. Underperforming, underloved. All growing 40%+ annually in Asia within years of Anta taking over. Then PUMA, two years of losing ground to On and Hoka, a brand the Pinault family wanted off their books. Anta writes a €1.5 billion cheque. Cash. No hesitation. Here's the number that puts it all in perspective. There are 2,500 Foot Locker stores in the world. There are 12,000 Anta stores in Asia. When Klay Thompson signed his lifetime deal at Anta's Beverly Hills flagship and 10 million pairs sold under his name, it wasn't sentiment. It was a brand with 12,000 distribution points telling the world it's ready for 12,001. This didn't happen because of cheap labour or government handouts. It happened because a 19-year-old who couldn't sell a single pair of shoes on a Beijing street corner decided that being underestimated was a temporary condition, not a permanent one. Thirty-five years later, the brands your colleagues, friends, and kids use every day tell the rest of the story. Arc'teryx. The $800 jacket your colleague swears by. Built back up by Anta.Salomon. The trail runners your marathon friend won't stop talking about. Turned around by Anta.Wilson. The racket at your kid's summer camp. Owned and growing under Anta.PUMA. Largest shareholder. Next in line. The question was never whether Anta is legitimate. How many brands have to be in the portfolio before the world takes them seriously? Drop your answer below. 👇 13 years in China. Follow me for the version they don't teach in business school. Picture src: 北美商业见闻

Why does a 2,700 year old dance still make grown adults cry? I've spent 13 years in China. This still humbled me. Most people visit China and come back talking about the food or the skyline. Almost nobody talks about this. Sleeve dance is one of China's oldest art forms. The sleeves aren't costume. They're a language. 🎋 Joy. Grief. Heroism. Sacrifice. Everything a human being carries, told through fabric and motion. One story it tells is Zhao Jun. A woman selected for a political marriage to end a war without a single battle. But here's the twist most people don't know. The Emperor chose women based on painted portraits. Beautiful women bribed the court painters to look more attractive. Zhao Jun refused. So the painter made her look plain. When the Emperor finally saw her in person, on the day she was leaving, he was stunned. She was the most beautiful woman in the palace. But the decision was final. She didn't weep. She didn't resist. She picked up her pipa, rode to the frontier, and never looked back. 🌏 I visited her tomb in Inner Mongolia. Standing there, it hit me. She gave up everything. Not because she had to. But because she chose to. There is a version of China most tourists never reach. This is it. ♻️ Repost if you know someone fascinated by Chinese culture 🔔 Follow me, a Singaporean living in China for 13 years, sharing the stories behind the culture Video src: 小美de中国舞

For years, critics said electric vehicles had one fatal flaw. Charging was too slow. Last week, BYD ended that argument. ⚡ The Denza Z9GT can charge from nearly empty to full in 9 minutes. Range:1,036 km. Operates at -30°C. Supported by 20,000 charging stations planned nationwide by 2026. Not a concept car. Not a prototype. Production. But here is the part that often gets missed. This was not a sudden breakthrough. It was the result of more than a decade of alignment. Battery chemistry. Vehicle platforms. Grid infrastructure. Manufacturing scale. National policy. All moving in the same direction. When those pieces align, innovation stops looking like a single invention. It starts looking like a system. 🔧 And systems change industries. It is one reason I chose to base myself in Nansha District in Guangdong, the strategic heart of the Greater Bay Area. Not just to watch the shift, but to be inside the supply chains, talent pools and policy environment shaping it. 🌏 For investors, policymakers and industry leaders, the question is no longer whether EV technology will mature. That question has already been answered. The real question is this: When the next phase of the industry is being built, will you be close enough to see it happening? Or will you read about it later? 🔔 I'm a Singaporean who has spent the last 13 years living and working in China, watching how its fierce domestic competition forges companies that are now reshaping industries worldwide.

20 seconds of dialogue in a 1997 Hong Kong gangster film haunted and almost destroyed a brand in China Tony Leung Ka Fai played a crime boss in Island of greed. A subordinate arrives late. The boss looks at him and says: "We all ride Mercedes and Rolls-Royces. You show up in a Mazda? No wonder you got stuck in traffic. You're not qualified to be here." Three sentences. A fictional scene. While there are no numbers associated with the impact, for a generation of Chinese consumers, it became a real verdict on the brand. Here's what I love about this market and why I keep coming back to it. China doesn't punish brands for being foreign. It punishes brands for being oblivious. In Chinese consumer culture, status isn't vanity. It's how people communicate belonging, trust, and capability. When Mazda became the punchline of a gangster movie, it got woven into how people talked, joked, and signalled intelligence to each other. That kind of cultural memory doesn't fade. It compounds. The good news? In June 2023, Changan Mazda finally got it. They hired Tony Leung Ka Fai, the same actor, as their brand ambassador. On camera, he laughed and "admitted" his Mandarin was poor in 1997. He meant "racing" (赛车), not "stuck in traffic" (塞车). The internet called it the "Century Reconciliation." It worked because it was self-aware, culturally fluent, and genuinely fun. That's the China playbook right there. This market rewards the curious and the humble. It has no patience for those who show up assuming they already know. My one piece of advice after years in this market? Respect the culture publicly, even when you disagree privately. You don't have to agree with everything. But the moment a Chinese audience feels looked down upon, even slightly, the door closes. And unlike in the West, it rarely opens again. Mazda's "Century Reconciliation" worked not because it was clever marketing. It worked because it finally showed respect. It said: we see you, we hear you, and we're not above laughing at ourselves. We all have the opportunity to get this right. All we need to do is pay attention. Have you seen a brand get China right or get it badly wrong? I'd love to hear your story below. 🤝 If you are looking to work with the Chinese market, let's talk. DM me or drop a comment below and let's explore what's possible together.

Sometimes the most dangerous move in strategy looks like retreat. In Chinese opera, there is a famous move called Huimaqiang (回马枪）, the turning-back spear. What happens next is the entire point. 🎭 On stage, it is a dramatic battlefield moment. A warrior appears to flee. The opponent, sensing victory, gives chase. And then, in a flash, the warrior turns back and strikes. This move is most famously performed by the Daomadan (刀马旦), the female warrior role in Chinese opera. She is not defined by brute force. But by discipline, command, and strategy. 🌏 Living and working in China, you begin to notice that the idea of the “turning-back spear” is not confined to the stage. You see it in tough negotiations in the boardroom. You see it in long-term business strategy. You see it in the careful pacing of politics. 🧠 The lesson is subtle but profound. What looks like retreat is often not defeat. It is strategy. Creating space. Allowing the other side to move first. 👩 One of the most iconic strategic moves in Chinese opera is performed by a warrior woman. Centuries ago, the stage was already portraying women not as passive figures, but as commanders capable of timing, strategy, and decisive action. Sometimes strength is not about charging forward. Sometimes it is knowing exactly when to turn the spear. Happy International Women’s Day to all women. #IWD26 Video src: 刘一道 🔔 Every weekend, I explore Chinese culture and customs and the thinking behind them.

If you're in the furniture business and you've never been to Foshan, you're missing out. A lot. I watched an 11-year furniture veteran discover this in real time. Standing in Sunlink North, Foshan. Holding a $300 sofa. He'd been selling the equivalent for $3,000 back home. Same quality. Same materials. Same finish. Different zip code. He went very quiet. Then called his business partner. "Get on the next flight." I brought him to Foshan for a reason. This city is the undisputed mecca of the global furniture world. 🌍 30,000+ furniture businesses in one city. 40% of the world's furniture production comes from here. A sketch becomes a finished product in 7 days. ⚡ Leather, foam, hardware, stitching, all within a 10-mile radius. There is nowhere else on earth like it. But here's what the numbers don't tell you: Walking those floors doesn't just change what you buy. It changes how you see your entire business. I've seen this reaction so many times I can predict it now. The silence first. 🤫 Then the mental arithmetic. Then the phone call. And it's never just furniture. I've brought clients from manufacturing, beauty, tech hardware, medical devices, all across the Greater Bay Area. Different industries. Different products. Same moment. Every single time. That look when the world they thought they understood quietly rearranges itself. The Greater Bay Area isn't just a sourcing destination. It's the place that shows you how much margin you've been leaving on the table. 💰 I've been navigating this region for over 13 years. I still get that same satisfaction watching the moment land. Because once you see it, you can't unsee it. 👀 Wondering what that moment looks like for your industry? DM me to find out. 👇

Most investors are asking the wrong question about China. They ask: "Is China still an opportunity?" The investors who actually understand China ask something very different. "Where exactly is the next wave being built?" 📉 China's growth has never been evenly spread. It is concentrated deliberately. Written into five-year plans. Funded specifically. Built with urgency. Right now, that answer has a name. Nansha. A district in Guangdong most people outside China have never heard of. Just named a national strategic priority in China's 15th Five-Year Plan. That designation is not ceremonial. When something gets labeled a national priority, capital, policy, talent and regulatory permissions all begin flowing in the same direction at the same time. Here is what that looks like on the ground. 🔧 In most countries, land approval alone takes years. In Nansha, 16 projects moved from approval to full construction within a single calendar year. That is not efficiency. That is a development system engineered to move at a speed most governments cannot imagine. Now add the scale. 20 billion yuan (~$2.8 billion USD) in port infrastructure. Cross-border data compliance turned from months of legal uncertainty into a walk-in service. A district at the center of the Greater Bay Area linking Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau: combined GDP larger than most G20 economies. ⚓ When China decides something is a priority, the question is rarely if. Only how fast. I'm one of Nansha's official ambassadors and what I see is this. The investors already asking about Nansha are not the ones debating whether to engage with China. They stopped debating years ago. That gap is widening every year. I don't write about China from the outside. I live inside the district being built to anchor its next decade. If you are building, investing, or simply curious about where the Greater Bay Area is heading next, message me. I read everything. 🌏 🔔 Follow me for a Singaporean's unfiltered view of life and business inside the Greater Bay Area, 13 years in, and still finding new layers.

"You do not know China." That's what an executive from a company that developed SaaS software told me in my face at a networking event recently in Singapore. The company is well funded and backed by a well-known consultancy firm advising their China strategy. They'd already built the product. Months of work. Real money spent. A brand name behind them. They walked me through the China launch plan. I asked a few questions. "Do you have an ICP licence?" Blank stare. "Is your product integrated with WeChat?" "We have a mobile app." "Is it in Mandarin?" "We're planning to translate it." "Do you have a local entity set up in China, a WFOE?" "We're looking into it," he said. "That's what the consultancy is helping with." I told them as politely as I could that they weren't ready to launch in China. They told me I don't know the China market. I smiled back and didn't argue. What would be the point. To be fair, I did not share with them that I've lived in China for 13 years. I've spent over a decade building relationships across the China-ASEAN corridor. I am the official ambassador for Nansha District in Guangzhou's Greater Bay Area. I still didn't correct him. But here's what I kept thinking: If a well-funded team with a recognised consultancy in their corner still doesn't know what an ICP licence is, then either the consultancy doesn't understand China operations, or they sold a strategy deck without the operational reality attached. They know how to build a market entry framework. They know how to produce a 60-slide deck. They know how to charge for both. What they don't know is what happens when a Chinese buyer asks which district government relationship you have. Or why your SaaS pricing model doesn't fit how Chinese enterprises actually procure software. Or why launching without WeChat integration isn't a gap. It's a wall. That knowledge doesn't come from a framework. It comes from being there. The ICP licence alone can take months to approve. Without it, your website is technically illegal to operate in China. A WFOE isn't a formality, it's the legal foundation everything else sits on. WeChat isn't a nice-to-have, it's where Chinese business actually happens. And none of that touches the hardest part. The mindset. This Friday, I'm running a free masterclass called "Learn How to Think Like China for Business" for founders and business owners who want to understand how China actually works, before they pay someone who doesn't to find out. 📅 Friday 27 March ⏰ 5-7PM GMT+7 📍 Zoom → Register free: https://bit.ly/4bo3ZAd P.S. If you do business with or near China, you're already dealing with their capital, supply chains, or competitors. The question isn't if they affect you. It's whether you understand how the market actually works, before you learn the hard way. See you Friday. Geeva Samynathan Hanson Lee Lynn Guo

Chinese Gen Z just declared war on the AirPod. 🎧? A ¥20 ($2.80) wire is winning. Funny thing is, I never stopped using wired earphones. People laughed at me for years. 😂 Turns out I was just early. Sony didn't see it coming. Apple didn't see it coming. Most brand teams outside China still don't know it happened. This week, cheap wired earphones trended across Chinese social media. Not audio quality. Not a brand campaign. Young consumers deliberately chose them over AirPods. The top comment? 👇 "Wireless has one advantage, it's wireless. Wired has every other advantage." No charging. No pairing. No losing one in a taxi. Plug in. Listen. Done. Here's what this means for your market, whether you sell in Berlin, Bangkok, or Boston. 🌍 I've spent 13 years on the ground in China watching signals like this move to global shelves. Across fashion, F&B, tech, and lifestyle. It always starts with something that looks like a joke. It never is. (Sometimes the joke is on the people laughing.) 😏 I call it the Anti-Feature Effect. 💡 The Anti-Feature Effect: when removing technology becomes the selling point. No chip. No battery. No app. Absence stops being a limitation and becomes the product. When this flips, entire categories get disrupted overnight. Xiaomi and Realme kept wired SKUs alive. Smart. ✅ SHEIN's accessories division is about to have a very good quarter. Sony and JBL have a 6-month window. Most will miss it. ⏳ The brands that win are never the fastest reactors. They're the ones who read the signal before it became a headline. Is the Anti-Feature Effect already hitting your market, or still a China-only story? 🌐 Tell me where you are. Drop it below. Follow for more China signals. Every week. Before the headlines

13 years in China taught me one thing most business schools never will. I watched a well-funded SME burn through $400,000 in 18 months and have nothing to show for it. Right product. Right timing. Right market. Gone. You know what killed them? Every meeting, they kept asking one question: "When can we sign?" In China, that question is a funeral bell. It tells the other side you're transactional. You're in a hurry. You don't understand how this works. And if you don't understand how this works, they will smile, pour you tea, and quietly move on to someone who does. The contract was never the deal. The deal happened weeks earlier, over dinners you thought were just dinners. The contract is just the receipt. But here's what most people miss: You don't need to be going INTO China for this to matter. If you do business anywhere near China's orbit, you're already inside a Chinese-influenced ecosystem, whether you recognise it or not. The supply chains. The capital. The platforms. The brands entering your market. The businesses that navigate this well, whether they're selling into China or competing against Chinese firms at home, all share one thing: They understand the playbook. Not to copy it. To work with it intelligently. This is not a future problem. It's a right now problem. This Friday I'm running a live session on exactly this. The kind of briefing I give privately to companies paying $3,000+ to get their China strategy right, open to anyone this Friday. By the end you'll understand: → Why Chinese companies move the way they do → How they build ecosystems that are almost impossible to displace → What businesses can do, right now, to compete or collaborate intelligently Live. 2 hours. No fluff. Seats are limited. 📅 Friday 27 March ⏰ 5-7PM GMT+7 📍 Zoom → Register free: https://bit.ly/4bo3ZAd P.S. If you do business with or near China, you're already dealing with their capital, supply chains, or competitors. The question isn't if they affect you. It's whether you understand the playbook. See you Friday. Nexus Alliance Hanson Lee Geeva Samynathan

China just put a data center on the seafloor. Not a test. Commercial. Operational. Now. 🌊 Last month, the world's first wind-powered submarine data center went live off Shanghai. 10 to 15 meters underwater. Powered by an offshore wind farm next door. Zero freshwater. Zero land. PUE at 1.15, against a global average of 1.58. ⚡ And this is already their second one. The first has been running at 35 meters depth off Hainan for nearly three years. Hundreds of servers. Stable operation. They built it. It worked. Now they are scaling it. Here is what nobody is saying. This is not an infrastructure story. It is a constraint story. Land in the Yangtze Delta is expensive. Freshwater is scarce. Grid power loses value over distance. So China did not solve those problems. It left them on shore. 💡 The sea cools the servers. Wind goes straight to compute, with over 95% renewable power and near-zero transmission loss. The seabed costs nothing. Every problem onshore becomes irrelevant underwater. That is not engineering. That is a completely different way of thinking. This is a ¥1.6 billion commitment, with a planned capacity of 24 MW. Not a vanity project. I have spent 13 years in China. I thought I had seen every version of this playbook. I was wrong. 🤯 China built the world's longest sea bridge, 55km connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau, in 9 years. Some countries can't fix the same pothole in 10. Southeast Asia has thousands of kilometers of coastline. Digital economies growing faster than the grids beneath them. 🌏 The sea has always been there. China is just the first to ask: why aren't we using it? Do you think Southeast Asia and any other countries is ready to adopt this model, or will it take a decade of watching China scale it first? Follow me for more on what China is building before the rest of the world notices. Image src: CCTV13