🎂 Today marks exactly 20 years since I began my professional life in Asia.
Looking back, I don’t see a master plan, but a few encounters and decisions that seemed almost insignificant: choosing Chinese almost at random at Sciences Po; someone at Lafarge giving me a chance even though my Mandarin was far below his expectations; casually telling a friend “I’m bored at work”; arriving late at that dinner where there was only one seat left… None of these moments felt particularly important at the time. Together, they changed the direction of my life.
🚪 They opened doors, but I still had to walk through them, usually without knowing what was on the other side. Again and again, I found myself facing a blank page: joining an old-school Chinese SOE in a remote area as its first foreign employee, at a time when some factories still displayed “Forbidden to dogs and French” signs; trying to recover energy from waste at scale before “circular economy” was part of everyday business language; entering senior care when many people insisted that the concept was culturally irrelevant in China… I can proudly say that I have collected a few “firsts”. But most of the time, being first meant having no roadmap, making mistakes, and continuing while perfectly reasonable people explained why it wouldn’t work.
📷 My camera also took me far beyond work, into villages, markets, and rituals across Yunnan, Sichuan, and many other parts of Asia. Photography taught me to pay attention. Anthropology helped me question what I thought I understood.
🇨🇳 Over those twenty years, I watched China transform. I saw skylines rise, high-speed rail collapse distance, cash give way to QR codes, geopolitical relationships shift, and local companies become global leaders.
China transformed me too. It taught me patience, resilience, and, when faced with the absurd, to choose humor and candor over anger. I came to Asia to build a career, and I did. But I also built friendships, teams, and communities. I collected stories and faces (and hats!). Some people I first met as colleagues became my closest friends. Most importantly, I built a wonderful and supportive family, one that has made every place feel like home.
Looking back, I think a life is shaped by both the small decisions and encounters that change its direction, and the decision to move forward when the page ahead is still blank.
So I try to stay open to accidents, give others the chances I was given, and not wait for certainty before starting.
谢谢中国. Thank you, Asia!
First published on LinkedIn, August 31, 2026. View the original post.