A High-Tech New Opportunity Growing up, Taiping could hardly have imagined making a fortune by any means, let alone by talking into his phone. Born in the plains of Inner Mongolia, a region in northern China where temperatures can plummet to minus 20 degrees, he left school after fifth grade, working as a herdsman, security guard and truck driver. He hardly spoke Mandarin, China’s dominant language, as his schoolteachers had taught mostly in Mongolian. In 2015, noticing that his town’s scenic grasslands were attracting tourists, Taiping, then 30 years old, decided…
The Shining Promise and Dashed Dreams of China’s Live Shopping Craze
