Fabian Grosskopf
Met 2025-12-03 15:00 at InterContinental Shanghai Ruijin, Shanghai.China's recent stages:
…-1980s = CRAZY
1990-2020 = BOOM
2022+ = NORMAL
Things aren't booming like they were. For 10-20 years it felt like every business was successful no matter what. Now with the economy cooled down a bit, they have to be more competitive. It's normal.
As a teenager in Germany, he got the itch to go somewhere very different. Chose China and majored in international studies in university, learning Chinese. Moved here in 2012.
Does industrial real estate development from here, but worldwide regional projects.
Met his wife who's from Shandong (like Confucius) and their daughter is 8 now. You can live somewhere for years and still be an outsider, but once you have a baby with someone, you're really inside the culture. Wife's mother helping with the baby and such.
Understanding the grey areas. We have the same interest in cross-cultural stuff. Regional jokes (about other neighboring regions) are very informative. “Germans love Italians but don't respect them. Italians respect Germans but don't love them.” Stuff like that. Trying to understand why places are the way they are.
Where should we raise our kids? The importance of living even a couple years in another place helps your kid's self-image since that place was home.
Fabian's a happy person often shining a sunny perspective into the pessimism of some Chinese people that grew up in harder times.