Freed from Slavery and Poverty
Wang Yan and her husband with CEO Aaron White
Wang Yan was born into a poor family in a farming community of Sichuan Province, not far from the city Hefei in eastern China. At four years of age she was abducted and sold into slavery, one of millions of children who grow up knowing nothing but forced labor, offering the marketable asset their older counterparts have sacrificed or outgrown – small nimble fingers, necessary for tying knots in rugs and other handmade textiles many in the West have grown accustomed to importing.
When she was old enough Wang was sold again as a cleaning woman and ultimately as a bride to an abusive man who over the next few years made her a mother twice. When the torment reached an intolerable crescendo Wang waited for an opportunity to escape and fled to Hefei, never to see her two children again. There she met and subsequently worked for Zhou Ping, a kind and gentle man who operated his own small milk delivery business. Though he was considerably younger than she, they fell in love, married and a couple years later had a child of their own.
Not long after their daughter Ling was born, while the young struggling family was out running errands together, their house was burglarized and they lost everything, including the bicycle used to deliver the milk. Wang today confesses that this coda to all else she had endured, brought such grief she began making plans for suicide. It was at that dark juncture when she was about to give up all hope that dawn broke and a friend came across a brochure advertising business loans for poor families like theirs. “Could this possibly be true that a bank would loan money to an illiterate person with no collateral,” she wondered?
With nothing to lose, and buoyed by deep love for her husband and daughter, she made an inquiry. Within days Zhou received a loan of 8,000RMB, approximately $1,150 to restart his delivery business. Grateful and determined, the couple paid off the loan within six months and took out another, this cycle for $1,700, repeating the process every six months for the next two years, each time receiving a slightly larger loan and each time expanding his enterprise.
In addition to delivering milk, with some of the profits they had stocked a little grocery store that Wang managed while her husband was out delivering milk. Then about three years ago, she decided to open a little breakfast restaurant out of the store, took a loan of her own and started serving various Dimsum dishes.
As of early 2009 they were on their ninth loan, seven year old Ling was in second grade, they were employing two people in the restaurant and six others selling and delivering milk, and Zhou had just finished reading “The One Minute Sales Manager,” borrowed from his loan officer at the bank. The couple leases a second apartment where they board six of their employees, whose daily compensation also consists of a homemade breakfast, prepared for them by Wang before they set out on their milk route.
Exuberance and pride spewed from smiling eyes as this couple recounted how they had grown their enterprise and the impact they were having on their community. They made nothing of the fact that they arrive at the store every morning at 5:30 to receive and unload the “Baidi,” the truck delivering dozens of racks of one liter bottles of fresh milk. Or that by noon the six bicycles will return to the store having delivered heavy glass bottles to apartments and offices all across town. Or that at least one of the parents will remain in the store until 10:30 every evening, selling groceries while caring for their daughter. Or that this grueling routine is repeated seven days every week.
Hardship creates resilience in a way that luxury never will. What we might consider afflictions are to the poor accomplishments, stripes of perseverance and medals of success. Seeing her daughter gain the education she was denied springs hope and joy. Offering food and shelter to the homeless, having been a victim herself, spawns self esteem. Borrowing and repaying a debt, never considered possible, creates dignity. For Wang Yan, who knows real slavery, hers is not a life of bondage but of bliss.
