By Liu Weiling and Diao Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-20 06:51

When Zhou Haijiang, a 22-year-old graduate, quit his job as a university lecturer and returned in 1987 to his then-obscure family factory, life did not seem rosy at all - his mother cried, his girlfriend left him and neighbors suspected that the boy was fired because of some "serious mistakes".

Today, as chairman of Hongdou Group, one of China's largest textile companies, Zhou said he is most happy that he had made the choice.

"I knew teaching wasn't my dream," he says. "I wanted to go out and create something."

He did. His company now employs over 20,000 workers - among the largest employers in privately owned companies in the nation. Sales revenue of Hongdou reached 14.3 billion yuan (US$1.88 billion) in 2006 and he was recently elected a delegate to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China scheduled for this autumn.

And before all that happened, his college sweetheart became his wife and gave birth to two children.

Competition first

Unlike many private businessmen in China who barely have a formal education, 41-year-old Zhou holds a doctorate degree in business administration and has had a wide-ranging education, ranging from a Party school to overseas studies.

Related readings:  Hongdou still seeking guarantor for 700m yuan bond issue  Jiangsu Hongdou to raise up to US$36.66m in share issue

He enrolled in a university in Shenzhen in 1984, a city that later became famous for Deng Xiaoping's "southern tour" and a long-time testing field for China's reform and opening up policy.

"Once an economist from Beijing came to our school and predicted that the liangpiao will finally be cancelled," Zhou recalls, "We all laughed because we had stopped using it in Shenzhen for quite a while."

Liangpiao was a rice coupon used under the grain rationing system. Beijing residents did not stop using it until 1993.

      1   2   3   4     

      1   2   3   4