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Rags to riches: one migrant's odyssey
By Xie Zuocan and Xu Wei |
January 31, 2011, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WEN Kang, a post-80s graphic designer of "Painting Circle," a professional periodical edited by the Lu Yanshao Art Gallery, is a rags-to-riches story of how a rural migrant with talent struggles to find success in the big city.
Wen, who also heads the Shanghai Kangyi Culture & Arts Co, was once such a migrant worker, with only a middle school diploma to his name and few prospects for a prosperous future.
He was born to peasant parents in a small village of Hubei Province. While his parents toiled to eke out a living, Wen was raised by his grandparents.
"Among the 140 households in our village, my family is one of the three poorest," Wen recalls.
In 2004, six years after leaving school, Wen finally managed to pay off the 729 yuan (US$112) debt still owing on his school tuition. The school officials had set his diploma aside until the debt was paid and couldn't find it when Wen squared up the account.
That mishap and the grinding poverty of his family precluded the idea of continuing his studies, even though he had done quite well at school. The old Chinese adage that "Within books, one can find houses of gold" didn't offer much solace to the family's financial situation.
So Wen, then 16 years old, decided he would join the wave of rural residents who migrated to cities looking for decent wages.
To make better preparation, Wen figured he needed to get some kind of vocational training. He found a class in computers very interesting, but he couldn't afford the 300- yuan fee and couldn't count on any financial help from his relatives.
Wen decided to apply for a loan from a rural credit cooperative.
"At first, the cooperative was reluctant to help me," Wen says. "But I kept pressing them, and finally my application was approved out of sympathy if nothing else."
That loan began Wen's life with computers, planting the seeds that would later blossom into a graphic design career. The training class unexpectedly shut down after two months, which came as somewhat of a relief to Wen, who was doing farm work for his teacher to cover tuition for the second month's study.
In December 1998, still in Hubei, Wen answered an advertisement for a security guard in an auto parts factory. He got the job, but quickly found that he was on a dead-end road. The monthly salary of 300 yuan barely covered his daily expenses, and the work was boring in the extreme. He lasted four months before quitting.
Back at home, he was involved in a bicycle accident that hurt the man he hit. He couldn't afford to pay the medical expenses. His life looked like a broken bicycle at that point, so he decided to accept an uncle's offer and move to Shanghai with him.
His uncle had hoped to get Wen a job at the Hudong Shipyard, but his application was rejected because he was then less than 18 years old. For two years, Wen was an urban vagrant, taking odd jobs in a DVD rental store and construction sites.
He wandered around the city's fringes for more than two years. Sometimes he didn't have a meal in two days. He, without residence permits, was caught twice by the social security management authorities, and even sent to Anhui Province. But his spirit and will to succeed could not be broken.
In the autumn of 2002, with the help of a classmate, Wen got an interview with an advertising company at Jiading's Nanxiang Town. After successfully demonstrating that he could install a lighting circuit on a billboard, he was hired.
"The salary for an apprentice like me was only 230 yuan per month, but the job came with free accommodation," Wen says. "I was determined to make a success of it."
Wen was the first to arrive and the last to leave work every day. In his spare time, he borrowed books to study software and graphic design.
As his abilities improved, so did his salary. He was finally earning 1,000 yuan a month, but resisted urgings from friends to get a job in factories where they worked for salaries of 2,000 yuan a month. He wanted to stay closer to work associated with computers.
In March 2004, Wen left the company and joined another advertising firm run by Zhang Enwei, who was to become the first important mentor in his career.
Under Zhang's tutelage, Wen improved his design skills and worked on important projects, like the promotional material for Jiading's third annual sports meeting, Jiading bamboo-carving exhibition and several gala events that celebrated the district's 10th anniversary of development.
His work began to draw notice. After seeing Wen's exquisite designs in "Painting Circle" and the Jiading District Museum's magazine, the publisher of "Collected Essays on Ancient Chinese Imperial Exam Culture" invited him to be its graphic designer.
There followed a succession of mentors who helped his career. With their support, he went to work for Xietong in 2008, where he honed his administrative skills.
Two years later he left to found his own company, Kangyi Culture & Arts, which specializes in artistic design and publishing of arts periodicals and journals. Among Wen's current projects is designing a unique image for Jiading District.
Wen, who married a hometown girl from Hubei, has a five-year-old daughter. His wife, Zheng Haiyan, works at Kangyi, handling financial matters.
He says he remains grateful toward all the people who helped him rise from poverty to business and artistic success. And there's still further to go, he adds.
Wen, who also heads the Shanghai Kangyi Culture & Arts Co, was once such a migrant worker, with only a middle school diploma to his name and few prospects for a prosperous future.
He was born to peasant parents in a small village of Hubei Province. While his parents toiled to eke out a living, Wen was raised by his grandparents.
"Among the 140 households in our village, my family is one of the three poorest," Wen recalls.
In 2004, six years after leaving school, Wen finally managed to pay off the 729 yuan (US$112) debt still owing on his school tuition. The school officials had set his diploma aside until the debt was paid and couldn't find it when Wen squared up the account.
That mishap and the grinding poverty of his family precluded the idea of continuing his studies, even though he had done quite well at school. The old Chinese adage that "Within books, one can find houses of gold" didn't offer much solace to the family's financial situation.
So Wen, then 16 years old, decided he would join the wave of rural residents who migrated to cities looking for decent wages.
To make better preparation, Wen figured he needed to get some kind of vocational training. He found a class in computers very interesting, but he couldn't afford the 300- yuan fee and couldn't count on any financial help from his relatives.
Wen decided to apply for a loan from a rural credit cooperative.
"At first, the cooperative was reluctant to help me," Wen says. "But I kept pressing them, and finally my application was approved out of sympathy if nothing else."
That loan began Wen's life with computers, planting the seeds that would later blossom into a graphic design career. The training class unexpectedly shut down after two months, which came as somewhat of a relief to Wen, who was doing farm work for his teacher to cover tuition for the second month's study.
In December 1998, still in Hubei, Wen answered an advertisement for a security guard in an auto parts factory. He got the job, but quickly found that he was on a dead-end road. The monthly salary of 300 yuan barely covered his daily expenses, and the work was boring in the extreme. He lasted four months before quitting.
Back at home, he was involved in a bicycle accident that hurt the man he hit. He couldn't afford to pay the medical expenses. His life looked like a broken bicycle at that point, so he decided to accept an uncle's offer and move to Shanghai with him.
His uncle had hoped to get Wen a job at the Hudong Shipyard, but his application was rejected because he was then less than 18 years old. For two years, Wen was an urban vagrant, taking odd jobs in a DVD rental store and construction sites.
He wandered around the city's fringes for more than two years. Sometimes he didn't have a meal in two days. He, without residence permits, was caught twice by the social security management authorities, and even sent to Anhui Province. But his spirit and will to succeed could not be broken.
In the autumn of 2002, with the help of a classmate, Wen got an interview with an advertising company at Jiading's Nanxiang Town. After successfully demonstrating that he could install a lighting circuit on a billboard, he was hired.
"The salary for an apprentice like me was only 230 yuan per month, but the job came with free accommodation," Wen says. "I was determined to make a success of it."
Wen was the first to arrive and the last to leave work every day. In his spare time, he borrowed books to study software and graphic design.
As his abilities improved, so did his salary. He was finally earning 1,000 yuan a month, but resisted urgings from friends to get a job in factories where they worked for salaries of 2,000 yuan a month. He wanted to stay closer to work associated with computers.
In March 2004, Wen left the company and joined another advertising firm run by Zhang Enwei, who was to become the first important mentor in his career.
Under Zhang's tutelage, Wen improved his design skills and worked on important projects, like the promotional material for Jiading's third annual sports meeting, Jiading bamboo-carving exhibition and several gala events that celebrated the district's 10th anniversary of development.
His work began to draw notice. After seeing Wen's exquisite designs in "Painting Circle" and the Jiading District Museum's magazine, the publisher of "Collected Essays on Ancient Chinese Imperial Exam Culture" invited him to be its graphic designer.
There followed a succession of mentors who helped his career. With their support, he went to work for Xietong in 2008, where he honed his administrative skills.
Two years later he left to found his own company, Kangyi Culture & Arts, which specializes in artistic design and publishing of arts periodicals and journals. Among Wen's current projects is designing a unique image for Jiading District.
Wen, who married a hometown girl from Hubei, has a five-year-old daughter. His wife, Zheng Haiyan, works at Kangyi, handling financial matters.
He says he remains grateful toward all the people who helped him rise from poverty to business and artistic success. And there's still further to go, he adds.
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