Swimming with Asian Sharks - Business Secrets from the Pacific Rim

Success Is the Best Revenge

The younger half of the family had a more complicated life.  My fourth aunt was adopted into a distant family and given a new last name.  Later, she was the main reason my immediate family was able to escape to Canada.  My dad and youngest uncle were forced to stay behind with my grandmother.  The three of them were horribly shunned and abused by the villagers who were trying to make a favourable impression on the new party in power.  Before the regime change, my grandmother was greatly respected and even considered wealthy by the humble standards of the village.  After the change, she was stripped of all her wealth and the villagers gave her no peace.  It got so bad that they would even monitor what she was doing in her home, criticizing her when she made "chay,” a glutinous cake made during days of celebration.

The village children verbally and physically abused my uncle, who was only a child at the time.  The most common thing they would say to him was "You will marry the ugliest woman in the village and you will never have sons, and will be poor."  My uncle went on to have six children, all sons.  In fact, the last three were triplets, all boys. I remember the day they were born when I was five and at their home in Toronto.  The family went to the hospital in such a rush they left me at home, completely alone with nothing but Transformers to keep me company.  The villagers were not very good at predicting the future; the year before I went to China for the first time, uncle took a trip to China to visit his old village.  With him, he took his six sons and around $20,000 Canadian.  The entire family arrived at the village in style, in a limo, dressed in suits, and when they arrived, they put up a poster on the village wall simply saying, “The Hui family is having a banquet, and everybody is welcome.” This banquet lasted for two days and nights.  It got so ridiculous that people from neighbouring villages brought their own tables, coming to eat, and then taking food away, only to come back a few hours later for more food and takeaway. During the banquet, my uncle went to all the people who’d picked on him growing up, showing them his hockey team of well-fed, tall, and handsome Canadian-born sons.  This event taught me that if you want to get revenge on the people who put you down in life, don't badmouth them or be violent towards them.  Become the best you can be, because success is the best revenge.

When people kick you while you are down, remember that the best thing to do is to use the anger you feel and push yourself to succeed.  I once heard that for a successful start-up, make sure you have at least one secret enemy.  They will be the fuel that keeps you going when you feel like you want to quit.