Why France? Honestly my reasoning at the time was simple: it was a developed country, the social foundations and security were better than China's were back then, so I went over full of expectations.

What actually pushed me to go was three things:

1. A lucky coincidence — my university had an exchange program; 2. My mother's death — the blow that year was too heavy, subconsciously I wanted to escape; 3. France's policies — public university fees were modest, no high requirements on the family's financial situation, and you could work part‑time.

I got on the plane with two or three hundred euros in my pocket.

Toulouse, two years: quiet — and my first real encounter with the "two faces of multiculture"

Toulouse, to me, was a very quiet city. Over those two years I crashed at classmates' places, at friends' places, I lived frugally — studied during the day, worked nights in a Chinese restaurant and a French pizzeria.

Quiet didn't mean no impact. The people in Toulouse came in all shapes, and they weren't as friendly as I had pictured — I did get insulted on the street, in different languages. That was the first time I directly felt it: "multiculture" has a shadow side, too.

Its shadow side goes like this: in a mono‑cultural country, you don't have to explain yourself every day — your skin, your accent, your surname, everything automatically falls into the "one of us" bucket. In a multicultural society, every label on you becomes a visible entry point; some people get curious about it, others get impatient about it. Both attitudes exist at the same time, and neither one ever goes away.

It also has a bright side. I met my old landlord, who later became my business partner — my benefactor in France. I treat him like an older brother, and we're still working together to this day. Years later I realized: the deepest gift of multiculture is meeting people you would never have crossed paths with in a single‑culture life.

Paris, two years: inside Master 2, I saw a "garden of joy"

After two years in Toulouse, I decided to move to Paris. The reason was simple: too quiet, missing some passion, some challenge. Whatever the cost, I wanted a bigger city.

Paris is never gentle.

The challenges: rent could eat close to half of my income, the cost of living jumped up a tier. Restaurant pay was sometimes worse than in the provinces, and the bosses were tougher. Every day: classes, homework, evening shift, back home, more studying. Exhausting.

The opportunities: but Paris is far more tolerant than any small French town. It's too international, too mixed — which dilutes the "strange looks." For a Chinese student, that mattered a lot.

The bigger gift was in the studies. In Paris I did one year each at two different universities:

  • First year at Université d'Évry / Paris‑Saclay: Public Administration · International Cooperation and Solidarity (2013–2014)
  • Second year at Université Paris‑Est Créteil (UPEC): M2 International Local Project Management (2014–2015)

The pure theoretical level at French universities is actually not weak — quite the opposite. What really surprised me was how finely the disciplines are branched — the catalog of available paths is far broader, and far more specific, than at Chinese universities. In China the directions usually stop at coarse buckets — "business / law / computer science" — whereas here I could drill down to niche tracks like NGO governance, municipal management, international cooperation and solidarity. That fine‑grained granularity gave me things you can't get in a Chinese setting, and it directly broadened the direction my career took later.

The second year especially. The professors really cared about the cohesion between students; the whole class felt like a big international family — perfect, almost idealized. I still think those were the two most beautiful, most precious years of my entire student life.

Why Master 2 was a garden of joy — I only figured this out afterwards: it wasn't an accident. The syllabus had built‑in icebreakers, cross‑cultural collaboration exercises; the grading system also pushed people toward mixed groups — if your group was all Chinese, you wouldn't get the top mark. In other words, "fusion" wasn't left to the students' goodwill; the system itself pushed it into existence. Across those two years what I saw wasn't a bunch of people who got along by accident — it was a designed multicultural friendliness. I only realized later: the essence of France's so‑called "garden" is that it knows multiculture doesn't happen on its own, so it pushes you at the level of the system.

In that class there was a classmate named Camille who would often spontaneously ask me whether I wanted to look at her notes. A small thing, and ten years later I still remember it. A few friends from that period later ended up working with me.

If I had to find a single word for those days — a garden of joy.

Ten years of building in France later: idealized school vs. real society

From graduation to now, I've been building businesses in France for exactly ten years. Looking back, the complexity and management difficulty at the level of real society are an order of magnitude harder than the idealized tolerance you find in school.

Multiculture at school has teachers maintaining it and a system pushing it; multiculture in real life is each person deciding, on their own judgment, how to treat the next person. Where is the gap? The gap is in friction — on the street, on the metro, at a government counter, and when you become an employer facing employees from different countries, you realize there's no "teacher" grading anyone anymore; everyone has to own their own biases and their own patience. At that point multiculture isn't a garden anymore — it's something you have to actively maintain.

In real life, multiculture brings plenty of problems. But I believe it: France cannot back away from the multicultural path.

History and civilization move forward; backward movement isn't allowed. I'm not saying it has never happened — the resurgence and religious regression in some Middle Eastern countries, in my view, is exactly that. But as a long‑term trend, multiculture won't reverse.

I often compare France with the US. American multiculture looks more like a "platter" — each color stays sharp and distinct, but the pieces aren't very keen to blend. French multiculture looks more like a "solution" — on the surface it's less colorful, but once you're dissolved in, everyone is soaking in the same set of secular republican values. Both paths have their cost, but both are much harder than "mono" — and both are closer to the future than mono is.

As an immigrant, I've taken my share of unfair treatment. But on a horizontal comparison, this kind of unfairness, across all developed countries, is still relatively fair. That's a judgment I didn't feel ready to make until ten years in.

On my two daughters, and the whole "100% integration" thing

I have two daughters, both in France.

First‑generation immigrants like us carry a double pressure: cultural shock, career, family. Saying we don't want to integrate at all — that's false. Saying we're 100% integrated — that's also false; for both internal and external reasons, we don't quite get there.

But for my children's generation, I'm full of hope.

What I can do as a parent is to not pass on the fatigue of an incomplete integration; to encourage them to embrace this multicultural future, and to grow into adults who are truly international.

I want them, when they grow up, to never feel out of place just because they are "the daughters of a Chinese man," and also to never forget where they come from just because they grew up in France. Real multiculture isn't either / or — it's holding both at the same time. Their generation has that chance — far more than mine did. What I can give them is to step out of their way, and to tell them about the pitfalls my generation walked into, so they don't have to start from zero.

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In a way, this is my full answer to the two words "multiculture":

  • Before France — a developed country.
  • Toulouse — multiculture has a shadow side, and a bright side.
  • Paris — the idealized multiculture is a garden pushed into existence by design.
  • Ten years of building later — there's friction between the ideal and the real, but the direction is right.
  • Looking at my children's future — I believe.