Chapter 4: A Message from the Future

The first thought to flash through Su Mu’s mind was that he was listening to a prank radio show. It was simply impossible to pick up a broadcast from 2018 in 1984; that was common sense to anyone. Who was this Elon Musk? What was SpaceX? He had never heard of them. Rockets, though—those he knew about. The world was still in the midst of the “Star Wars” era, with the US and the Soviet Union locked in an endless arms race, vying for dominance in outer space. The Challenger shuttle launched repeatedly; even the moon had been trodden by Armstrong. None of that was out of the ordinary.

In Chinatown, you could hear every variety of Chinese accent, but rarely such clear Mandarin. Across the Pacific, Mandarin was being promoted, but not in the US—Cantonese ruled the streets of Chinatown. The Su family’s ancestors had settled in Shanghai, and it was only after arriving in America that they gradually picked up Mandarin.

Finding it all rather amusing, Su Mu took out his textbooks from his bag while continuing to listen. Chinese immigrants, venturing into business, were often bullied, so many believed that studying was the only way out. If a family’s child got into medical school, or found a job as a lawyer or accountant—any middle-class profession—it was a cause for a grand celebration among relatives and friends.

Su Mu was diligent in his studies, a habit instilled in him by the tireless teachings of Old Man Su. For now, he aspired to be a lawyer or work in finance—professions both lucrative and respected.

“What a load of nonsense. How come I’ve never heard of a billionaire named Musk, supposedly worth twenty billion dollars?” Su Mu chuckled to himself, holding an eleventh-grade history textbook, though he was only in ninth grade. American high school wasn’t especially rigorous, and Chinese students advanced quickly if they applied themselves. The pressure wasn’t crushing, but those aiming for a good college had to work much harder.

He listened to the host, this “Da Bin,” as if it were a whimsical show conjuring up a fantasy of the future—cars powered by electricity, journeys to Mars. It was all quite entertaining.

At that moment, the Chinese teenager, blissfully unaware of the extraordinary fortune that had just befallen him, was captivated by the host’s next words. Curiosity flickered across his face as he listened:

“Recently, the media published a chart of Musk’s life—what a wild ride! From it, we can see his entire trajectory: he finished reading his local library by age eight, completed a six-month Basic course in just three days, a prodigy from the start. At twelve, he made a computer game and sold it for five hundred dollars. In 1992, he and his brother founded Zip2 and coded it themselves, selling it in 1999 for twenty-two million dollars. In 2000, he acquired a company that let people transfer money online by email—much like Alipay—called PayPal, and sold it for two hundred fifty million!”

“PayPal is widely used in the West, much like Alipay, though not quite the same. It allows individuals to use their email addresses as identification to transfer funds from one company to another…”

Su Mu paused, startled. He had never touched a mouse in his life, and could barely count the times he’d seen a computer. Still, kids of his generation knew what a computer was and had a general idea of how it worked. He grinned, impressed by the host’s imagination, picturing the process of transferring money by computer. It seemed fascinating—certainly convenient.

But that was all it was: interesting. Anything deeper was beyond his comprehension. Computers had yet to become widespread, and the world’s vision of the future remained a realm of fantasy.

Edison, the great American inventor, once said, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. But that one percent of inspiration is the most important—even more so than the ninety-nine percent of sweat.” The same principle applied to entrepreneurship, especially in the inspiration-driven Internet age. Many of the most successful people—Jobs, Gates, and countless others—rose to prominence thanks to a single spark of creativity.

Su Mu had no idea what he was really hearing, but one day he would. For now, this stroke of luck meant nothing to him; he was more concerned with his studies.

The room was small, and a cockroach crawled from the rotting wooden doorframe. His father had sprayed insecticide recently, but clearly it hadn’t worked very well.

Compared to the many homeless on the streets, Su Mu considered himself fortunate. His parents were not lazy, but despite their hard work, they gained little. Most Chinese immigrants were the same—doing the dirtiest, most exhausting jobs in the city for wages that barely covered daily needs. If someone in the family fell ill, it meant disaster.

The Su family had little in the way of savings. Even sending Su Mu to the most ordinary private high school was difficult, let alone paying for the far more expensive universities. Many Chinese gave up the opportunity for college simply because of the prohibitive tuition. Higher education in America was never a charitable endeavor.

Since studying was the only apparent way out, Su Mu applied himself with diligence. The radio continued to murmur in the background, and whenever something interesting came up, he listened. When the host mentioned that Steve Jobs had once taken an interest in Musk’s Tesla electric car company, that Apple was now worth eight hundred billion dollars and might one day enter the electric car business, Su Mu smiled again, amused by the host’s wild imagination.

He knew about Apple—a newly established company selling personal computers. Du Zhong’s family had just bought one of their machines. There was no company on earth worth eight hundred billion dollars; even IBM, king of the computer world, didn’t come close. Apple’s market value was only a little over a billion. He knew selling computers was profitable—a single machine cost thousands—but he couldn’t fathom how many would have to be sold to reach such a valuation. This only reinforced his belief that the host was a master of exaggeration, though he had to admire such vivid imagination. It all sounded so real.

Just then, the host, Da Bin, changed the subject:

“I recently bought an iPhone X, Apple’s tenth-anniversary model released last year. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but when I got my hands on it, I was amazed—facial recognition, a stunning high-definition display, everything about it just felt right. A 5.8-inch bezel-less screen, 2436 by 1125 resolution, a six-core processor, 3GB of RAM, excellent cameras front and back… But lately I’ve been feeling nostalgic for older models. Nokia, which brought us so many classic flip-phones and sliders, has just made a comeback with a new release…”

At this point, Su Mu’s mind was blank. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of phone this was. The more he listened, the less credible it sounded. Finally, he turned the dial and switched to another station.