Burn

How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a Multi-Million Dollar Success Story

Mei Xu

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781119695929
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119695899
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Imprenditoria
• Index: Business

Learn the fascinating story of one of America's most successful entrepreneurs 

The American Dream continues to resonate with immigrants from around the world. Millions of people hope to come to the United States to build a better life for themselves and their families, often by creating and growing new ventures and companies. While not everyone succeeds, many do. Mei Xu is one of those successes. In Burn, entrepreneur and international business­woman Mei Xu tells her story of ingenuity, determination, and luck. Spanning three decades, from 1991 when she arrived at Washington's Dulles Airport, to today, Xu's story is one of stunning success. She built a multi-million dollar company, met and counseled thousands of entrepreneurs and businesspeople, and even advised President of the United States Barack Obama on the topic of job creation.

In Burn, you'll learn:

• About the creation of Mei Xu's international lifestyle business and the success stories of other female leaders who triumphed over adversity to achieve their dreams
• Why the American Dream is still within your grasp, and how to reach for it
• How creators like Xu think differently about innovation and how you can harness her insights to build something new and exciting for yourself

Burn explains how Xu's embrace of design-driven entrepreneurship and thoughtful manufacturing powered her growth and prosperity in a truly international company. Design leadership remains vital to a robust and global economy. Burn will inspire you to follow your vision and have an impact on the world around you. Perfect for anyone seeking an engrossing and inspirational tale of success, Burn belongs on the bookshelves of professionals and entrepreneurs everywhere.

1
A TALE OF TWO CHINAS

It's a balmy summer evening in the early 1970s, and a group of families from my town are seated in folding bamboo chairs or sprawled on blankets in an outdoor stadium. We're all watching a state‐sponsored movie on a grainy, black‐and‐white film projector. Midway through China's Cultural Revolution, our country is sealed off from the outside world. No headline news stories, no discussion of “current events,” and no popular culture from other countries filter into our consciousness. Visits from foreign dignitaries are rare. This outdoor movie, featuring what many would now label “propaganda,” is our major form of popular entertainment. And here, on this massive screen, the outside world has made a brief and tantalizing appearance. The movie flashes scenes from the king of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, and his princess consort, Queen Monique, paying a state visit to China.

A young child, probably only five or six years old, I stare up at the screen, transfixed by the film's charisma, glamour, and pageantry. The Cambodian king smiles amiably and extends his hands in the air, greeting throngs of Chinese citizens packed along either side of a grand boulevard in Beijing. He stands up in the backseat of a convertible with Chinese statesman Deng Xiaoping on his left and Queen Monique on his right, the latter wearing an elegant black dress with her hair loosely fastened. In the background, rectangular flags wave behind rows of youth in marching bands, heralding the visit with drums and wind instruments. Another image shows the royals walking on a red carpet, as children of my own age politely bow and offer them flowers. The projector also flashes a photograph of the king's 1941 coronation ceremony, when he wore a towering, bejeweled headpiece strapped tightly to his chin; a lavish, geometrically detailed chest piece; and a disinterested look on his face.

Historians will tell you that this visit proved inauspicious for the king's domestic ambitions. He was subsequently deposed and spent decades cozying up to foreign powers, eventually forging a tragic compact with Pol Pot and his brutal Khmer Rouge dictatorship. Had I been older, I might have noticed the vacant expression on his face during his coronation ceremony. This leader had little taste for forging geopolitical alliances and would rather have produced movies and hosted dinner parties. But I had no sense of such matters; I was simply taken by the exoticism of it all. This colorful spectacle of a state visit marked my first inkling that a different life existed beyond the confines of our dormitory apartment, neighborhood, and city.

A young Mei on the banks of Hangzhou's West Lake (ca. 1984).

A Peaceful Harbor

This is not to say that our world lacked appeal. I grew up in Hangzhou, long revered as one of China's most beautiful cities, and even considered a “paradise on earth.”¹ When China embarked on industrialization in the 1950s, many of its cities adopted a Soviet architectural style and approach to urban planning that allowed industry to flourish. My hometown, by contrast, sought to become a socialist “Geneva of the East.”² Capitalizing on the city's historic prominence as a place of tourism, scenic beauty, and religious pilgrimage, communist leaders spared it from an aggressive takeover and industrial overhaul, and instead prioritized aesthetic concerns and environmental purity. These leaders made strenuous efforts to protect the city's famed West Lake from pollution, cultivating healthy fish production and maintaining the area's temples, trees, and gardens.

Vestiges of Hangzhou's unique urban development path still exist today. While sleek office towers and futuristic engineering marvels dominate the skylines of megacities like Beijing and Shanghai, sometimes shrouding their historical treasures, my hometown's natural beauty casts an almost magical charm. The centerpiece of Hangzhou's scenic appeal—its beautiful West Lake, situated to the west of the old city—remains visible from most of the downtown high rises. You'll see the surface dotted with bamboo canoes or glimpse pedestrians strolling along one of the many famed stone bridges. In the springtime, blossoming peach trees, willows, and green tea trees imbue the city with a different type of magic, one almost redolent with spirituality. Buddhism long thrived in the area, and each spring pilgrims flocked to the city's temples and other religious centers dotting the lake district or surrounding countryside.³

Amidst this beauty, our family lived a relatively simple life. We occupied a standard‐issue room in one of the many dormitory housing units that lined the city's north end. Mom and Dad shared a queen‐size bed, while nearby my sister Li and I occupied a single twin. I'd slept there since the age of two after my parents added an additional plank to Li's bed, making it more spacious and comfortable for two little bodies. A desk stood on one side of the wall, along with two wooden stools, which could serve as a workstation. During mealtimes, when we moved the furniture to the center of the apartment, the desk doubled as a dining room table. We owned a wardrobe chest, an old‐fashioned transistor radio, a few wooden trunks to store our winter gear, and two or three pairs of shoes each. We shared a public toilet (without a shower) and communal kitchen area with other families on our floor. Once a week, we ventured to a larger public bathroom to bathe. My parents constantly worked, leaving us free to climb trees and play with the neighborhood children. We had no reason to suspect that any area was dangerous or off‐limits. Even if we sometimes yearned for more food, we were carefree and content, roaming the city as far and wide as our imaginations could take us.

Only in retrospect could one describe this existence as poor or even bland. I certainly didn't experience it this way. I was recently reminded of my childhood home when I dropped my son Alex off for his first year of college at the University of Chicago. All students occupy precisely half a dormitory room, their portion equipped with a small bed, spare desk, and wiring outlets, and they all share a big kitchen. There's no place to hide—if you have a fight with someone, everyone can hear it. Take away all the modern gadgets, and it isn't so different from conditions in my native Hangzhou. No one would call these college living spaces “poor.” I think they provide a refreshing baseline of equality, helping students from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds to start their academic journeys on a common footing.

The young Xu family (1987): Mei, her dad, her mom, Tom (Li's husband), and Li.

If my childhood home was modest, it was also an oasis of peace, order, and principle. My parents never openly disagreed or fought about anything, and they never compromised their integrity. During my childhood, a steady stream of comrades knocked on our front door, offering us gifts. I never knew the topic of discussion or why gifts were involved. Later I discovered that despite my parents' humble salaries, they oversaw the hiring and firing of a large cadre of work staff. These gifts were bribes, offered so that my parents might consider someone's uncle or son for one of these coveted positions.

“I'll do my best,” my father would say, handing the gifts back, “but please take this with you.”

It didn't matter that these simple offerings could have made our lives more comfortable, especially when food was in short supply. My parents modeled an almost Buddhist detachment from our material belongings and life circumstances. I now see their ethical standards and commitment to domestic peace as a priceless gift, one that transformed our existence. We were a tiny boat, it seemed, floating atop a violent sea. Inside this domestic sanctuary, my sister and I enjoyed the illusion that the world itself was an innocent and peaceful place.

Revolutionary Peril and Promise

It may be that my parents cultivated tranquility as a reaction to their own tumultuous upbringings and the suffering of my grandparents. In 1937, Japan invaded China, and the entire country mobilized to thwart this external threat. Immediately following the conclusion of this conflict in 1945, China embarked on four more years of gruesome civil war between the nationalists and communists, culminating in the victory of Chairman Mao's forces, the permanent exile of the nationalists to Taiwan, and the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland.

PRC officials then seized and redistributed all private land so that wealth would be more evenly dispersed, and so that China might become a society of equals. Drained from years of warfare and foreign occupation, most social classes greeted the communist takeover with cautious optimism. Chinese peasants felt thankful for their newly elevated status, and elites, whose businesses had been seized and whose safety had been comprised by the Japanese, welcomed a new era of peace and stability. Though the PRC seized personal possessions and gradually curtailed individual freedoms, much of the population believed that a fairer and more just society would result.

I wish I knew more about my grandparents and their experiences navigating this turmoil. Prior to the PRC takeover, my maternal grandparents ran a lucrative ceramic business, while my paternal grandfather was a successful sugar and silk merchant. The continuous warfare and the confiscation of property following the liberation means that few photos and no heirlooms or writings from them have survived. They were either lost, destroyed, or consigned to collect dust in a party office somewhere. That was for the best: the fewer items people owned, the less suspect they were. The early communist state even discouraged weddings and funerals, deeming them quaint relics at best and pernicious bourgeois displays of wealth at worst.

Premier Zhou Enlai, one of the PRC's founding fathers, was the closest I had to a grandparent. As towering a figure as Chairman Mao Zedong, Premier Zhou was beloved among Chinese peasants and workers, exercising restraint and saving many from the excesses of Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. A handsome and cultured man who'd studied in France, Premier Zhou didn't take advantage of his elite status, advocated for as much freedom as Mao allowed, and was a paragon of humility and leadership. Though I was only nine years old when he died, I still remember the great uncertainty and pangs of loss I felt. Millions filled China's Tiananmen Square and the long boulevard around it, and instead of acknowledging their ancestors in the annual Qingming festival, they paid tribute to this fallen statesman.

My dad was 13 when Premier Zhou helped the Communist Party consolidate control of China. One of six siblings, he fled with his older sister and immediate younger brother two years later, trying to unburden himself from his elite background by making a clean break from his family. He was no different than the other young people of his generation, inspired by the revolutionary promise of liberation from an exploitative system. That generation believed they'd change the world for the better. Joining the navy was my dad's fresh start. Several of his siblings, including his oldest sister, went on to enjoy successful military careers. After attending a select foreign language university, Dad's older sister became a Russian translator, an important role during the early Cold War, when the Soviet‐Chinese relationship was strong. But Dad's future would be far more modest, owing not to a lack of intelligence, but of savvy.

I once saw Dad's application for a promotion in the navy and was surprised by how forthcoming he was about his background. The Communist Party had urged such transparency. “Be transparent about your background and you'll receive the best reconciliation,” officials suggested. My father disclosed his family's assets as if he were confessing to a priest—the property holdings, down to how many servants they had—hoping to seek atonement for his parents' once elite bourgeois status. Big mistake. The navy transferred him from active duty to a teaching post at what would become a naval academy in the coastal city of Qingdao, located in the eastern province of Shandong. His new job: teach math to would‐be naval officers. Like my mother, he never ascended the ranks to leadership and was never ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Prologue
• 1 A TALE OF TWO CHINAS
• 2 AMERICAN ODYSSEY
• 3 AMERICAN ENTREPRENEURS
• 4 FRAGRANCE FORWARD
• 5 MADE IN AMERICA
• Conclusion
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• End User License Agreement