An elderly woman passes the newly built residential buildings in Peizhai Community (QIN BIN)

A self-made man

On the wall of the exhibition hall of Peizhai hangs an old black-and-white photograph in which a boy, wearing shabby and grubby clothes, stands akimbo. It is Pei Chunliang when he was young.

The boy had to drop out of school at the age of13 because of poverty. When his father died three years later the family was too poor to afford a casket. So the village head led villagers to chop down a tree and make one. They also donated money to buy grave clothes for the dead man and buried him. Pei Chunliang felt grateful to the villagers, thinking he would return their favor someday.

His first job was working in a brickyard. Because of his diligence, his boss gave him a raise. Later, he left the brickyard to learn TV repairing at a technical school. But after completing the course, he found that not many people needed the service and he had to look for other ways to make a living. He decided to learn how to cut hair at a barber's shop.

In the beginning, the barber refused to teach him for fear that he would become a competitor. But Pei Chunliang won him over by doing chores like fetching water. Moved by Pei Chunliang's earnestness, the barber finally relented and taught the boy his skills.

At the barber's shop customers liked to chat with Pei Chunliang. When he learned through such a conversation that the neighborhood needed a photographer, he learned photography. He cut hair and took photographs during the day and repaired TV sets at night, working hard and saving some money.

But he did not stop there. After learning that some out-of-town merchants who had come to the village to buy walnuts and hawthorns could not find a place to eat, he rented a house, opened a restaurant, and started selling stewed noodles. His noodles sold well and he invested his saving in a bigger restaurant, hiring more than20 people. His life finally began improving.

Pei Chunliang always kept an eye out for business opportunities. He would carry a pen and a notebook with him everywhere he went, jotting down all the useful things he saw, even advertisements stuck on electric posts. In this way, he found many business opportunities unnoticed by others.

From the customers eating at his restaurant, he heard that selling marble in Beijing and Shanghai was a lucrative business. That inspired the ambitious Pei Chunliang, and leaving the restaurant under his fiancee's care, he went to Beijing to sell marble.

In Beijing, Pei Chunliang zipped around the city on a bike day after day to peddle marble. He made a fortune, amassing as much as90,000 yuan ($12,980) from one order.

"My experiences in those years taught me that as long as I am down to earth and do things one step at a time, nothing is impossible," he said.

A gregarious man, Pei Chunliang likes to make friends and help others, which has contributed to his business growth.

After returning to his hometown from Beijing, he partnered with his friends to buy mines and began trading. His businesses grew bigger and bigger. He became a successful entrepreneur, whose businesses included hotels, casting services, mining and cement production.

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