Lin Lin

linlinasa@163.com

AT the age of 49, he broke a national record in paragliding and kept that record for 16 years. At the age of 52, he summited the peak of the Everest, and seven years later, he did that again. Then at the age of 60, when most people seek a peaceful retirement, he set foot in Harvard for further study.

These are the stories of Wang Shi, the founder of China’s property behemoth Vanke. On Nov. 30, he gave a speech to nearly 300 readers at the Shenzhen Book City CBD Store to promote his new book “My Change: 40 Years of Individual Modernization” and showcased that life is a never-ending adventure.

In 1995, when Wang was 44, he got a lumbar vertebrae disease. The doctor told him to avoid any sports as exertion could lead to paralysis. Yet he refused to live a “paralyzed” life, even before the illness struck him down. He began to consider his bucket list, and the first thing that occurred to him was Tibet.

Two years later, he reached Everest Base Camp and was thrilled at the scene of paragliding British mountaineers. A fire was lit in his heart. In 2000 he went back as a paraglider, soaring to the altitude of 5,100 meters, a record-breaking height in China.

In 2003, he climbed to the top of the Everest, completing another life adventure and becoming the oldest Chinese to summit the peak.

However, in 2008, the business big name and adventurer was thrown into his darkest days by a charity scandal and an unprecedented crisis in Vanke that gave him second thoughts about his approach to life. “I began to change the way I looked at the world and myself at the age of 57,” said Wang.

Two years later, he made it to the Everest summit again. This time, the mission had been upgraded. He and his team finished the trip with zero emissions, and afterwards, they initiated a program to collect waste located at the altitude of 6,500 meters and higher on Everest and convert it into an art installation.

This trip prompted further reflection on human relations with nature and the responsibility enterprises have to protect the earth. Since 2009, Wang has been attending the UN Climate Change COP as a representative of Chinese enterprises. Over the past 10 years, he and his fellows have witnessed and shown to the world a growing green power in China.

“In 2009, we were representing less than 100 enterprises, but last year the number was 1 million. The world has seen the responsibilities China’s taking,” said Wang, winning a big applause from the audience.

At the events, Wang found that most mainland entrepreneurs, including himself, tended to be self-conscious when communicating compared with their Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singaporean counterparts, and that’s because they were less fluent in English and less knowledgeable.

This discovery took him on another adventure to the classrooms of Harvard, where he studied traditional Chinese philosophy with undergraduates, marveled at Westerners’ passion for China and found a renewed understanding of Chinese culture.

“Today I see a lot of young attendees here. But I might be a better reference for your parents, because I have a say in how to live a life after 60. As long as you have a dream or a goal, it’s never too late to explore,” said Wang.