
And I learned, at the time, that the German people—I was just 11, but they already treated me like an adult. Like, I am supposed to be pünktlich (punctual), alles in Ordnung (everything in order), to keep my own way of relating with people without hiding behind adults, which was the usual way in East Asia. And so it taught me this idea of the Pygmalion effect. If we trust people, even 11-year-olds, with the ability to set the direction of their community online, they can actually mature up and grow up very quickly.