“Detroit Made Me, China Changed Me
I come from a place where survival teaches you instinct, and instinct teaches you everything else. Detroit—gritty, unfiltered, and full of soul—shaped the core of who I am. But it was China that stretched me, broke me open, and quietly rebuilt me into the man I’ve become.
At 18, I was a kid from the East Side of Detroit. Raised primarily by my mother, I knew early on that I wanted more than the generational narrative I was born into. After moving in with my dad at 15, my worldview started to shift. That move planted a seed. It gave me the first glimpse of what life could look like outside the boundaries of what I thought was possible.
After high school, I enrolled at Michigan State University, majoring in International Relations. At the time, I was set on working in U.S. intelligence—think CIA, but without the Jason Bourne fantasy. My options? Study Arabic or Chinese. I chose Chinese… not because of a grand plan, but because it offered more college credits and I was trying to graduate faster. That decision—casual, maybe even random at the time—completely rewrote my life.
The first week of Chinese class, I tried to drop out. It was hard. The tones, the characters, the culture—it was all foreign in the truest sense. But it was already too late to transfer. I stayed. And thank God I did.
I ended up on a study abroad program—thanks to an Obama-era scholarship called “100,000 Strong”—and landed in Harbin, China. So here I was, a Black kid from Detroit living in what felt like a Chinese village, surrounded by snow, dumplings, and people who had never seen someone like me in real life. We studied Mandarin four hours a day. No English allowed. If you got caught speaking it, you were forced to run around the campus three times. They were dead serious. That discipline forced me to surrender—and eventually, to fall in love with the language.
Over the next 12 years, I didn’t just learn Chinese—I became fluent. And China became my second home. I’ve lived in both Beijing and Shenzhen—one the historic capital, the other the Silicon Valley of Asia. I’ve traveled to more than 15 countries, worked in everything from luxury magazine marketing to consulting, education, and tech manufacturing. I’ve managed global teams. I’ve visited factories where they’re building the future—flying cars, smart pods, drone delivery systems. I now have a joint venture with a Chinese factory building Vessel Homes—futuristic capsule living spaces designed for minimalists and dreamers alike.
I met my wife here.
I became a man here.
And soon, I’ll be starting a new chapter in Armenia—where I’ll become a father.
Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I had dropped that Chinese class, or stayed stuck chasing someone else’s version of success. Maybe I’d be sitting in a cubicle somewhere, disconnected from the part of myself that longs to build things that matter.
But instead, I’m here. Writing this. Living proof that you don’t have to follow the path you were handed.
You can rewrite the story.
Because Detroit made me. But China changed me.
And both of them—together—shaped the version of me you see today. - Keith
