— Ch. 1 · The Bicycle And The Radio —
Jack Ma.
~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
On the 10th of September 1964, Ma Yun was born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. He became interested in learning the English language as a young boy and began practicing it with English-speaking visitors who frequented the Hangzhou International Hotel. At the age of 12, Ma bought a pocket radio and began listening to English radio stations frequently. For nine years, Ma rode on his bicycle every day to work as a tour guide of Hangzhou for foreigners in order to practice his English. He became pen pals with one of those foreigners, who nicknamed him Jack because he found it hard to pronounce his Chinese name.
In 1980, while riding his bike to practice English with tourists, he met Ken Morley, who was traveling with his family with the Australia-China Friendship Society. Ken's son, David, became pen pals with Ma and kept in touch after the family left China. Years later, the Morleys hosted Ma in Australia, changing the course of his life completely. Ma later said: Those 29 days in Newcastle were crucial in my life. Without those 29 days, I would never have been able to think the way I do today.
His academic journey began with significant hurdles. In his primary school days, Ma struggled academically, and it took two years for him to gain acceptance at an ordinary Chinese high school, as he only got 31 points in mathematics on the Chinese high school entrance exam. In 1982, at the age of 18, Ma failed the Chinese college entrance exam on his initial attempt, obtaining only 1 point in mathematics. Afterwards, he and his cousin applied to be waiters at a nearby hotel. His cousin was hired, but Ma was rejected on the grounds that he was too skinny, too short, and in general, protruded a bad physical appearance that may have potentially ended up hurting the restaurant's image and possibly tarnishing its reputation.
The Ugly Website And The First Dollar
In 1994, Ma heard about the Internet and also started his first company, Hangzhou Haibo Translation Agency, an online Chinese translation agency. In early 1995, he travelled abroad to the United States on behalf of the Hangzhou municipal government with colleagues who had helped introduce him to the Internet. Although he found information related to beer from many countries, he was surprised to find none from China. He also tried to search for general information about China and again was surprised to find none.
So he and his friend created an ugly website pertaining to information regarding Chinese beer. He launched the website at 9:40 am, and by 12:30 pm he had received emails from prospective Chinese investors wishing to know more about him and his website. This was when Ma realized that the Internet had something great to offer. In April 1995, Ma and his business partner He Yibing opened the first office for China Pages, and Ma started their second company. On the 10th of May 1995, the pair registered the domain chinapages.com in the United States.
Within a span of three years, China Pages cleared approximately 5,000,000 RMB in profit which at the time was equivalent to US$642,998. Ma began building websites for Chinese companies with the help of friends in the United States. He said that The day we got connected to the Web, I invited friends and TV people over to my house, and on a very slow dial-up connection, we waited three and a half hours and got half a page, he recalled. We drank, watched TV and played cards, waiting. But I was so proud. I proved the Internet existed.