Much bitterness makes a person mature – Fred Wang (32), Wenzhou


In Connecting China we have Fred Wang as the next participant.

Bitterniss is a word that shows up regularly when Fred Wang talks about this childhood. Born in an impoverished peasant family in Shaanxi province, Fred struggled to get an education. “I was crazy about foreign languages, and was actually good at school,” he says. “But you cannot choose your parents background, can you? I took my bitterness as a precious experience.”
His father had to lend money each year to pay for his tuition, often with great trouble, so he had to stay at home until all the money was together. An uncle helped out, every now and then, but Fred remembers one summer, when he studied English from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon and then had to help carrying bricks.
That education sets him apart from people of his same age in Shaanxi, he says, that now have to make a living as migrant workers. “They could not go to college, like I did.” Fred Wang is now teaching English and works as a business man in prosperous Wenzhou. His He married there a local girl and they have a 5-year old daughter.
“My daughter speaks the local dialect with my wife, and mandarin with me,” he says. Her life might be better than his, I suggest. “I’m not so sure,” says Fred Wang. “But I will certainly do my best for her.” Wenzhou produced in the past decade one economic miracle after the other, while Shaanxi province is much more struggling. His brother and his wife joined Fred in Wenzhou, but otherwise not many others followed them. “In my old home-town people are still old-fashioned and reluctant to follow new ideas,” says Fred.
There are very few moments when Fred is at home and not online: most of hier four IM-services, introduce him as an international business man. Later more about doing business in Wenzhou.
Connecting China will in the weeks to come first expand the number of participants, let them tell a bit about their life in China, then later we move on.