#212 its not about how, but who（28/06/2026）

Photo: Taken when I personally went to deliver goods, when the weather was scorching hot, over thirty degrees.

A long time ago, a senior once told me, "It's not about how, but who." He meant that often, when we encounter problems in life that we can't solve or find difficult, the solution is never to ask "how to solve it," but rather "who" can help me solve this problem. For a long time, I didn't quite believe this saying, because I thought, how could I ever meet someone who knows how to solve this problem, because those people wouldn't care about me. And indeed, in my work, for the past few years, I've mostly been fighting alone, having to solve problems myself. Some people might not understand this, because they know I come from a family in the bedding industry; the company background is "Wei Kee," started by my grandfather, doing bedding in Hong Kong. They might think there must be relatives or family who can help me. But actually, in my situation, they can't really help me solve my problems. Instead, sometimes I have to think about how to solve the problems they face. The reasons cannot be explained in detail here, but it's also because of this situation that I've had to explore and learn to solve various problems myself. This process has been very painful, but looking back, it's a good thing, because it forced me to improve and learn about more areas, which is a way of equipping myself and avoiding being deceived. Some people once said that it's good to endure some hardships when you're young, or to go through more training and tempering while you're young. I used to not believe it, thinking it's best not to, but it's true. The reason you need to experience it young is because if you experience it when you're older, it will be too late. Learning and hardship are definitely better to experience early.

I also want to talk about a principle my dad taught me when I was little (it seems there was another principle my dad taught me in article #210). When I was little, I lived in Sha Tin, and there was a Cafe de Coral downstairs from my home. I remember one time when I was little, my dad took me downstairs to Cafe de Coral for breakfast. I don't remember the specifics too well, but I remember near the end of the meal, there were two food items left on my plate: one was a sausage (which I liked and wanted to eat), and the other was a tomato (which I didn't like). I looked at the two items and chose to eat the tomato first. My dad asked me why I wanted to eat the tomato first, and I told him it was because I wanted to save the best-tasting item for last. Then he told me about the two principles: "bitter first, sweet later" and "sweet first, bitter later."

At the time, I didn't quite understand, thinking these principles only applied to decisions like whether to eat the tomato or the sausage first for breakfast. Later, I feel that now, after working for a few years, I understand that what he was talking about was work, and life.

But sometimes I have to admit, when God closes one door, He opens another. When you suffer to a certain extent, perhaps someone in the world will truly see it and give you an opportunity that helps you.

This week, on one of the days, I went to a-fontane's domestic office with their colleagues to discuss some product matters. There were some production problems I'd been trying to solve for the past year, but couldn't. Even people I knew in the industry told me they were unsolvable. So I went online again to find information, and asked people I knew who knew other people, and so on, but still couldn't solve it.

Unexpectedly, when I presumptuously asked a-fontane about this problem this week, they immediately and cheerfully said: "Oh! That problem, yes! We've encountered it too, and it's all resolved now! Look, it's like this..." And they solved this problem that had been bothering me for a whole year in just 10 minutes. Of course, their 10 minutes today are the result of decades of effort.

But if I were to go back, if I hadn't kept trying and working hard these past few years, perhaps I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet a-fontane and receive their help today, an ordinary person like me... Nevertheless, I am very grateful to them. I will certainly keep this in mind and will definitely look for opportunities to repay them later. Although, being so successful, they don't really lack anything, but I will definitely repay them.