22/07/2019
- Sun Ling became a cyber star in China after she responded to an online question: how can you get an overseas education if you are dirt poor?
- ‘I just put my story out there to show there is a possibility in your life even if you have a low starting point,’ the 29-year-old says
Sun Ling works as a contract software engineer at Google in New York. Photo: Sun Ling
To get where she is today, Sun Ling has beaten very long odds.
Born in a rural hamlet in central China’s Hunan province, Sun shot to Chinese social media stardom for her rags-to-relative-comfort career trajectory. Her story begins in a household of such modest means that her mother had to sell blood to make ends meet and a primary school education interrupted by the need for her hands in the family’s fields.
She has no fancy college degree, having gone to work on the assembly line at a Shenzhen factory directly from high school.
Yet today, the 29-year-old works as a contract software engineer at Google in New York, coding on workdays and playing frisbee on weekends, with an annual salary of about US$120,000.
Sun Ling with her parents, brother, niece and nephews in China. Photo: Sun Ling
Sun’s journey from factory worker to high-paid software engineer has garnered Chinese social media headlines such as “the most inspiring story of all times”, and internet users have applauded her as a “positive energy girl”.
But others have not been as flattering, with some questioning the credibility of her story and saying what she has accomplished is almost too difficult to be true amid growing concern about the lack of opportunity and social mobility in China.
“I don’t consider myself a success and I have no intention to become a role model,” Sun told the South China Morning Post on Thursday. “I just put my story out there to show there is a possibility in your life even if you have a low starting point.”
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Her story became known in China after she posted an answer on Zhihu, the Chinese version of Quora, responding a question: how can you get an overseas education if you are dirt poor?
In the answer she posted earlier last month, Sun detailed her 10-year journey in making the seemingly impossible possible.
“It is not the orthodox way of studying overseas, just for your reference,” Sun wrote in the post, which has received nearly 35,000 likes on Zhihu. The answer was picked up by other social media; one of her most popular stories, which is circulating on WeChat, has been viewed more than 100,000 times.
Sun said her story was not a textbook “American dream” or “Chinese dream comes true” experience, but rather one driven by the simple motivation to forge a better life.
I just put my story out there to show there is a possibility in your life even if you have a low starting point Sun Ling
When Sun was born in 1990, her parents were farmers in a small village about a 2½-hour drive from Hunan province’s capital city, Changsha. Growing up in a place where a middle school education was considered good enough for a girl, Sun was forced to temporarily drop out of school when she was about 13 to ease the financial burden on her parents, who favoured her brother, the only son in the family.
“I begged and begged till my father allowed me to return to school,” she said. “But to be honest, my strong desire to stay at school at the moment was mainly because farming was too hard. The work got calluses on my hands.”
Sun in her home village in Hunan province in 2013. Photo: Sun Ling
Among her 11 village friends, she was the only one who completed high school. But the education she received at the rural school failed to get her into any college in China. So, like her peers in the village, she went to Shenzhen to become a factory worker.
But the routine of shifts spent examining the quality of batteries bored her. “I have no idea what kind of life I want to live, even today. But I am very certain about the life I don’t want to live,” Sun said.
She quit the factory job after eight months and enrolled in a computer training programme to learn what she regarded as the must-have skills to leave the blue-collar life behind.
That is the thing I like about America: they value what you are able to do more than where you come fromSun Ling
To have enough money to complete the training to become an entry-level software engineer, she worked three part-time jobs, including sending out fliers and waitressing at restaurants, and lived on three credit cards.
After more than a year of training and a debt of 10,000 yuan (US$1,450), in September 2011 she was hired as a software engineer by a Shenzhen company responsible for developing an online payroll system. With her own cubicle, a monthly salary of 4,000 yuan and weekends for herself, the job met all of Sun’s expectation as a “white-collar office lady”.
But the excitement of the new life didn’t last. She started to feel small in a big city where “everyone else is so excellent, with fancy degrees”.
To overcome her educational disadvantage, she signed up for an English training programme and a long-distance programme that allowed her to earn a degree from Shenzhen University. All of this took place while she maintained her software engineering job.
To practise her English, in 2014 she picked up ultimate frisbee, a game where in Shenzhen at the time, most of the players were expats. With a different circle of friends, most of whom had overseas experience, Sun started to dream of a life outside China’s borders.
Sun was born in a rural hamlet in central China’s Hunan province. Photo: Sun Ling
In early 2017, she discovered a master’s programme at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, which features a controversial “consciousness-based education” system that includes the practice of meditation.
Sun applied and was accepted into the university’s computer science programme.
According to her, its design fit her well as it allowed students to have internships or jobs on a work-study visa after months of attending classes on campus. The rest of the programme could be completed remotely.
After nine months studying on campus and 60 job interviews, Sun received a job offer from EPAM Systems, a vendor for Google, late last year.
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Of her work as a contract software engineer at Google’s Manhattan headquarters, Sun said she was very “lucky” since many of her colleagues had a PhD or studied at top-tier American universities.
“But none of them treat me like I don’t deserve all of this,” she said. “That is the thing I like about America: they value what you are able to do more than where you come from.”
However, her story has not been without controversy in China’s cyber world.
Supporters have sent an increasing number of messages from various online channels, thanking her for an inspiring story and seeking her advice on life decisions. Sceptics claim she just got lucky, and some have accused her of being an advertising tool for Maharishi University of Management.
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“At first, I got really angry,” Sun said. “I don’t think I deserve all the criticism for simply sharing my real life experience. But then I realised that not everyone has the same attitude in life.”
“I had no resources and I had very few options,” she said. “It is natural that people think it is difficult or even impossible to do. But for me it is actually not that difficult. Just keep learning and keep trying new things step by step, day by day.”
Her journey continues. Sun has been practising English and trying to fit better into her life in the US by doing short video interviews on the streets of New York streets. She has also taken courses about artificial intelligence online.
“My next goal is to become an in-house Google software engineer,” she said. “It won’t be easy. But your life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
Source: SCMP
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08/07/2019
- More than one billion views of Mulan discussion in China hours after trailer screens during Women’s World Cup final
- While some quibble over technical details, the vast majority are eagerly awaiting Disney’s first Chinese princess
Crystal Liu Yifei as Mulan in Disney’s live-action film which is eagerly anticipated in China.
Anticipation over Disney’s live-action movie Mulan is running high in China, with more than one billion views of the subject on Chinese social media in the hours after a teaser trailer was unveiled during Sunday’s final game of the Women’s World Cup.
While some online commenters had their doubts over technical details, most internet users appeared exhilarated at the prospect of Disney’s first Chinese princess, played by Chinese-American actress Crystal Liu Yifei.
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By Monday afternoon, the hashtag Hua Mulan had been viewed more than one billion times on the Twitter-like Weibo service and nearly 770,000 comments had been made on the topic. Some 450 million views had been recorded for the topics “Mushu no longer in the movie Mulan” – a reference to the heroine’s fast-talking dragon companion in the 1998 animation – and “the look of Liu Yifei”.
“I got carried away by the fighting scenes. Mulan is courageous and strong. I look forward to seeing the eastern heroine Hua Mulan going global,” said one Weibo user.
“This is the first Chinese Disney princess. It’s so great and we feel so proud,” said another.
The movie, scheduled for release on March 27 next year, casts renowned action star Jet Li as the emperor who ordered the military draft to fight a northern invasion, and internationally-acclaimed actress Gong Li as a powerful witch. Donnie Yen Ji-dan, star of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the Ip Man movies, plays Mulan’s martial arts mentor Commander Tung.
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Mulan tells the story of a fabled Chinese heroine who posed as a man and became one of the greatest warriors of her time, arguably in the Northern Wei period, or about AD400 to 600. She is one China’s best known fictional characters, with numerous theatrical references and poems which many Chinese know by heart.
The familiarity of the tale has presented a challenge for the production, with many Chinese online commenters questioning the historical details which can be discerned from the sketchy details provided by the trailer.
Many took exception to the opening scene of Mulan riding a horse to her home, built in the architectural style of tulou, common in the southern province of Fujian, when the legend places the heroine in the north.
“The poem said Mulan bade farewell to her parents in the morning and slept near the Yellow River at night. How can she live in a tulou in Fujian? Did she take a fast-rail train?” one internet user teased.
Another used the example to call for Disney to pay more attention to technical details when telling Chinese stories. “Please don’t be arrogant about Chinese stories.”
Also questioned in China was the message from the trailer that Mulan had become a warrior to escape a forced marriage, rather than the well known detail that she was saving her father from being drafted into the military in an act of filial piety.
But the overwhelming response was that fans should put aside their own perceptions of Mulan and celebrate the new edition as one of the few fully-Asian cast international movies, as well as its depiction of a powerful woman and Chinese values as “the only Disney princess who was not saved by a prince but instead became a fighting warrior”.
“Can our domestically produced period dramas meet the standard if we are here to be picky about looks and architecture? Even domestic directors can’t be perfect in restoring ancient costumes, make-up or architecture. Why should we ask so much from a foreign one? We should celebrate the cultural exchange rather than splitting hairs to find faults,” said one Weibo user.
“Mulan in the battlefield has outperformed men and showcased the traditional values of courage and protecting the country when needed. Chinese values, presented to the world by Chinese actors, is worth looking forward to. Please throw away the technical faults such as architecture,” said another.
Source: SCMP
Posted in architectural style, battlefield, best known fictional characters, Chinese, Chinese princess, Crystal Liu Yifei, Disney, fabled Chinese heroine, Fujian Province, Hua Mulan, Ip Man, lights up, live-action, martial arts, mentor, Mulan, Mulan trailer, Northern Wei period, riding a horse, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, social media, tulou, Uncategorized, warriors, Women’s World Cup final |
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