A Love Letter Four Years Late
January 10, 2026, the Hong Kong Palace Museum, Gaoshan's tenth anniversary.
As one of the alumni, I gave a TED-style talk.
Because of time,
I didn't get through my whole script,
which left me with a few regrets.
So here is the original text —
This is a love letter four years late,
from someone who found her spiritual homeland,
turning back to speak to her fellow travelers.
To show my sincerity,
this script was written entirely by hand — no AI.
Gaoshan: the end of the road for business schools
I'm an investor, and I love learning of all kinds. I've studied at Peking University, Oxford, Harvard and other institutions, so when friends ask me what kind of place Gaoshan Academy is, I tell them, a little mysteriously:
Gaoshan is where business school ends.
If I had to describe my Gaoshan experience in a single word, it would be: life changing. And it's not just me — whenever I talk with classmates, everyone feels the same.
I enrolled in February 2022.
In March, at the opening ceremony, our self-introductions were like a stand-up comedy show — we laughed until we doubled over, and at the same time I was filled with admiration. Everyone had something in them I wanted to become, and it rekindled my thinking about how many ways there are to live a life.
In April, Shanghai went into lockdown, and Gaoshan quickly set up mutual-aid groups. In circumstances that hard, classmates were arranging supplies, connecting people with medical care, and picking up and delivering things every single day. That was when I felt I hadn't just signed up for a program — it was more like I'd joined some secret society, a brotherhood.
In August came our first in-person module, in Inner Mongolia. Together we watched a red moon rise over the grassland and meteors streak above the bonfire. By day, we learned from Professor Zhang Shuangnan about the evolution of the universe, wormholes, black holes, white holes and the multiverse; by night, under the Perseid meteor shower, we listened to a concert of suona, violin, guzheng and piano playing together.
It still feels magical to me.
Live a GASA Life
After that, there were courses and activities big and small every month. You could say that if you wanted to, you could truly live a GASA life.
Today, Gaoshan has long since gone beyond being "a collection of wonderful moments" — it has been a rebuilding of my life.
And I am a clear example of that change.
My curiosity was fully awakened, and I gained many more tools for looking at the world. I used to see the world only through human eyes, but in natural history I learned to see it through a fish-eye lens; in astronomy, through a telescope; in the life sciences, through a microscope.
Information science measures changes in consciousness in milliseconds, while materials science advances on the scale of centuries; archaeology's tens of millennia already feel long, but geology gives us a view across millions of years, and the exploration of the cosmos and its stars truly runs into astronomical figures of billions of years.
In the history of science, we watched theories that were once firmly believed be challenged again and again.
And so, as the mind kept leaping back and forth across different scales and disciplines, a scientific spirit was slowly shaped and slowly nurtured — until one day, suddenly, something clicked.
Gaoshan made me understand that the pursuit of truth is so beautiful;
and that thinking at its most extreme is itself a way of life.
The other way Gaoshan is life changing
is its people — the teachers and the classmates.
I often joke that at Gaoshan you buy the classmates and get the courses for free.
Not everyone at Gaoshan is an entrepreneur, but every one of them is a creator.
The group you belong to naturally becomes your expectation of yourself and your reflection. Because I came to Gaoshan, the highest point of life I can see has been raised across the board — not only in science, but in sports, work, life, even wellness.
The friendships I've made at Gaoshan are an enormous treasure in my life.
When I'm exhausted, I'm happy to spend two hours crossing half the city just to have a simple lunch with classmates.
At this age, finding pure friendship is genuinely rare. But at Gaoshan it just happens naturally.
When social identities are set aside for a while, people truly see each other.
At Gaoshan, we are a kind made of very different people.
Every one of us is a minority,
every heart is different,
every one of us can be ourselves, freely and without judgment.
Everyone sincerely wants the others to do better.
Entering Gaoshan is like entering a collective flow state.
Live a GASA Family
That is exactly why,
in 2024, I invited
the person I love most and who matters most to me — my mother — to join Gaoshan.
From live a GASA life, I upgraded to live a GASA family,
because I knew very clearly
that no matter how many expensive gifts I gave her, none would compare to inviting her to see together —
the vastness of the universe, the abundance of all living things, how pure and fascinating people can be, the beauty of friendship, the wonder of the future, the constant iteration of the self... to let her see the possibility of living to 120, and the rich diversity life can hold.
...to let her see the world I see, standing on her shoulders.
And from then on, I no longer have to worry that when she gets old
she'll be conned by people selling health supplements 😂
because her knowledge comes from the most outstanding scientists in the world. 👍
From getting this assignment to finishing the script, I held it in for 10 days,
because no matter how much I said, I'd leave out far more, and favor some over others.
In fact, I've been holding these words in for four whole years.
After coming back from Inner Mongolia in 2022, I wanted to write an article saying:
joining Gaoshan was the best choice I made in 2022.
Four years later, to this day, today, I still want to say:
joining Gaoshan is the best decision I have made for myself, from then until now — bar none.
Thank you to every single person I've met at Gaoshan!
Outtakes: fragments I wanted to say but couldn't fit in
What the people of Gaoshan share in memory is
finding freedom in love and truth,
and continuing to create in freedom.
Gaoshan is relaxed:
here, social identities are set down, halos and shackles alike are taken off,
people care for each other sincerely,
and it has given me joy, and given me trust.
Gaoshan is nourishing:
here you don't just meet so, so many
people far more accomplished than you,
they all genuinely want good things for you.
Gaoshan is free:
here, every one of us is a minority,
every heart is different,
yet whatever you do, everyone supports you,
and you can be yourself without being judged.
Because there aren't so many walls between people,
you can walk freely into each person's heart and truly resonate.
I want to write a poem for you all:
Our Kind
We are a kind made of very different people.
From different places,
having lived different lives,
each of us busy,
each of us doubting.
Yet before the same question
we stop.
And are drawn toward
the selves we have yet to become.