July 16, 2016
“A future icon of Chinese entrepreneurship, Jack came into the world at a time when private enterprise had almost been completely extinguished. Ninety percent of industrial production had been taken into the hands of the state.”
July 16, 2016
“As a boy, Jack fell in love with the English language and literature, particularly readings of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that he listened to on a shortwave radio. Later it was the arrival of foreign tourists in China that provided Jack with his opening to the outside world. In late 1978, when Jack was fourteen, China launched the new “open door” policy, initiated by Deng Xiaoping, in pursuit of foreign trade and investment. After a decade of turmoil the country was on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needed hard currency.”
July 16, 2016
“Jack relished any opportunity to practice his English. He started waking up before dawn and riding his bicycle for forty minutes to the Hangzhou Hotel to greet foreign tourists. As he recalled, “Every morning from five o’clock I would read English in front of the hotel. A lot of foreign visitors came from the USA, from Europe. I’d give them a free tour of West Lake, and they taught me English. For nine years! And I practiced my English every morning, no matter if it snowed or rained.”
July 16, 2016
“An American tourist whose father and husband were named Jack suggested the name and Ma Yun became known in English henceforth as Jack. He is dismissive of the quality of his English: “I just make myself understood. The grammar is terrible.” But Jack never dismisses how much learning the language has helped him in life: “English helps me a lot. It makes me understand the world better, helps me to meet the best CEOs and leaders in the world, and makes me understand the distance between China and the world.”
July 16, 2016
“David’s father, Ken Morley, once described his first impressions of Jack as a “barrow boy,” or a street hawker. “He really wanted to practice his English, and he was very friendly. Our kids were very impressed.”
David described how the family stayed in touch: “What followed that meeting was a pen pal relationship that I kept up for a few years until my father started to take an interest in helping this young man.” Jack would correspond regularly with Ken, referring to him as “Dad,” who asked him to “double space his letters so that any corrections could be sent back in the spaces.” David explained, “The original with corrections was returned for learning purposes with the reply letter. I believe this greatly helped and encouraged Jack to continue with his English studies.”
July 16, 2016
“Armed with his improving English, rich knowledge of the history of the area, and a knack for storytelling, Jack embraced the opportunity to show more foreign tourists around the sights of West Lake. He relished visiting Hangzhou’s teahouses, where locals would play Chinese chess and cards and recount “tall tales.”
July 16, 2016
“But these skills were of little use against one of Jack’s earliest foes: math. In China, all high school students hoping to go on to higher education have to pass a merit-based national higher education entrance exam, commonly known as the gaokao, literally the “high test.” The gaokao takes place over two or three days. Math, along with Chinese and a foreign language, is mandatory.
The gaokao is widely seen as one of the most challenging in the world, requiring a huge amount of preparation and memorization. Today there is growing criticism of the exam’s negative social consequences, including depression and suicide.”
July 16, 2016
“ Jack resolved to have a different fate, and took the gaokao again. This time his math score improved slightly, to 19/120, but his overall score dropped considerably.
Jack once again set about applying for jobs to make ends meet. He sent out eleven job applications but all met with rejection. Jack likes to tell the story of how even KFC turned him away”
July 16, 2016
“Undeterred, Jack became a regular every Sunday at the library of Zhejiang University, where he committed to memory the formulas and equations he would have to master to pass the test.
Jack never gained admission to a prestigious university in Beijing or Shanghai. But in 1984, when he was nineteen, he raised his math score sufficiently to win acceptance to a local university, the Hangzhou Teachers College.”
July 16, 2016
“In the years before he died, he would witness some of Jack’s early success, expressing his embarrassment at the money and gifts Jack and Cathy liked to shower on him. Instead he treasured most, he said, the honor that Jack and Cathy bestowed on him by naming their eldest child after him (calling him “Kun,” an approximation of Ken). China impacted the Morleys, too: Susan Morley went on to study Chinese in Sydney for several years. The Ma and Morley families remain close friends to this day and continue to vacation together.”
July 16, 2016
“fter his day job at the institute, he started teaching English classes at the Hangzhou YMCA. According to Chen Wei, who first attended a class in 1992, Jack’s English classes were popular because he spent little time teaching grammar, vocabulary, or reading out texts. Instead Jack preferred to pick a topic and engage in conversation”
Notes From: Duncan Clark. “Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built.” iBooks.
