Latest WSJ Earn Your Luck column: The Woman Who Built Beijing
After a childhood of privation, Zhang Xin educated herself abroad and rode China’s real-estate boom to become a billionaire. Then she left it all behind.
Meet powerhouse Xin Zhang, the woman who catapulted herself from a factory assembly-line worker at age 15 in 1980 to one of the 10 richest self-made women in the world by 2010. A sobering reminder that young mainland Chinese could work in Hong Kong, study abroad, and, in Xin’s case, return and rebuild skylines during the greatest urbanization in China’s 5000-year history. She tells us, “It was such an incredible moment to mobilize the whole country; everyone felt so excited, and there was such optimism in the air.”
Read on, and please consider subscribing to publications that educate and inform…which may, in turn, mobilize us to fix problems in our own communities. A lot of my Substack readers email me about paywalls, but the Wall Street Journal offers a $2-a-week subscription! (And the New York Times now has a $1 a week Spring offer subscription!)
Great article Holly! This is a sharp and insightful interview, I love the ups and downs and the idea of constantly reinventing oneself.
Really enjoyed reading about Zhang, exceptional woman. What a role model.