InsideGFW

Just down the street from Fudan University, one of the top colleges in China, and across from a massive shopping complex that has a Wal Mart, a couple of Starbucks and KFCs, H&M, Sephora and Zara, among other Western brands, lives Feng Zhenghu who for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is barred from leaving his home. (more…)

Shanghai, China (CNN) — Since the high-profile escape of a blind Chinese activist in April, life has become worse for Feng Zhenghu, a dissident who lives in an apartment on the outskirts of this Chinese metropolis.

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Walk into Southern Belle on a Wednesday night and you’ll probably see 28-year-old Tom Pang sitting alone on the terrace smoking. He doesn’t have a band, there’s no upright bass or banjo in his set, but Pang strums Shanghai’s best bluegrass. (more…)

One man’s barbershop trimmings are another man’s industrial protein. And it’s 31-year-old Jiangsu native Wang Wei’s job to get the hair off the floor and to the factory. (more…)

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Chengdu, March, 2011. When I first meet Gan I was resting in front of a bank outside the Wuhouci with a friend as I chain smoked in the fresh Chengdu air. (more…)

Preface: This post is one of the three articles [I hope it can all be done] that talk about Shanghai’s homeless cats. The topic was inspired by my lovely cat, and by a documentary made by Ai weiwei called San Hua, which is about the cat business chain in China. It talks about the homeless cats of Shanghai and the cat trappers who try to catch and ship them to Guangzhou, where a massive cat meat industry sells them to restaurants. (more…)

I interviewed Mino at Starbucks, one of his favourite meeting spots. He is 22 years old, and freelances in various Shanghai jobs, such as night club photographer, model agent and a formal garment store owner. He is also a current finance major at Fudan University, where he hardly shows up for class. (more…)

Yesterday I was cycling to The Camel to watch the America VS Ghana football game. While biking through Ju lu road, I saw a Cheng Guan vehicle parked beside the street. Some Cheng Guan were driving some homeless people away from their camping spot.

These homeless people were kind of different from the normal ones. They had bikes with three super big bags on the rear axle of each bike. It seemed like they were doing some kind of garbage recycling for a living.

After evicting them from their spot, the Cheng Guan got into their vehicle and left. I followed, waited until they found another place and settled in, then I went forward to have an interview with one of them. (more…)

“He is a real Buffet menu in China” people say about Liu Yi Qian.

From time to time people say that the chances to succeed in China are unfair, The government controls all the resources and could easily smash individuals, but the existence of 47 years old Liu Yi Qian seems to be a tough argument to refute. He was born into a normal family and has already become a successful Chinese entrepreneur.

“I will not let any chance of making a great profit slip away” he has said. At his school, teachers always told their students to study hard and every day (study for a better social status) and university students are greatly respected by society, but young Qianyu said to his peers: “You guys keep on studying, I am going to quit school and start making money.”

After quitting middle school he went into the shoe trade for ten years working at a small family factory where he learned that the easiest way to make money is by letting other people do the job. So he taught the workers to make different parts of shoes that he then assembled together. “I could make more than 100 RMB every day.”

In the mid 1980s, taxis were really rare and the people in the cities were always waving their hands to try to catch one even with the possible charge of 50 to 60 for a three to four kilometer drive. So he spent 16,000RMB to get a driver’s license and bought two cars to run a taxi business with his brother for two years. Then after that he opened a shop in Yuyuan market.

The Chinese stock market first opened in the early 90′s when the people did not understand stock and trade very well, so some of stocks’ price went sky high. Liu took this chance and bought 100 shares of the Yuyuan market at 100 RMB per share, and sold it one year later when the price was 10000 RMB per share.

After he found out that money is the easiest way to make more money, he started reselling stock licenses (it’s like a lottery, if you get the right number you would have the right to buy stock) in 1992. From calculations he discovered that ten percent of the licenses will get the right number and could be sold for the price of 6000 RMB. So he bought a lot of licenses at the price of 30 and sold those with the right numbers for 6000 RMB and made a fortune.

After saving up enough capital, he started his own company Xin Liyi. This was a holding company with four employees and it’s only function was to buy corporate shares not available to individuals. With this company he controlled the shares of several holding companies and insurance companies which helped him to increase capital and buy more companies. Now he is the #256 richest man in China according to the Hurun rich list of 2008.

There is a story about how when once a government official wanted to have an interview with Liu at the Shangri-La hotel in Shanghai and where he had turned up wearing a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, the mayor had felt really uncomfortable about it. “They gave me a suit and shoes and made me wear them” said Liu.

Liu also seems to be very much a family man. Every day he will go back to his home to see his wife and son. “I always felt uncomfortable when I was not at home” Liu said. “My wife looks out for the family a lot and in my office there are pictures of my wife and mother hanging everywhere” he added in addition.

“Yes, I made a lot of money from the stock market, but the largest profit I ever made is from art. I do not know anything about art. “I bought this because I wanted to have it; I want to take it away from other people and I like this kind of feeling” Liu said after buying a 4,365,000 RMB ancient Chinese painting.

Some people say that Liu is the living example of the Chinese dream, as even within such an unfair society, Liu has achieved his dream and become a tycoon.

But what liu says about this? I interviewed him last day and when I asked him does he think the Chinese young man could achieved their dream now, he told me ‘No, time is different now, at my time everybody is the same, nobody had the money and we all had the same basis, but it is different now. The society was already finished its classification, people who born with nothing do not have that kind of chances anymore.