World's wealthiest self-made woman

[spindrifter]

The Times October 12, 2006

By Jane Macartney in Beijing

A CHINESE woman has become not only the wealthiest person in the world’s most populous country but the richest self-made woman on Earth.

Cheung Yan, 49, is a paper tycoon with a fortune even greater than that of Oprah Winfrey or J. K. Rowling. The short-haired, simply dressed and slightly stocky Ms Cheung is chairwoman of China’s biggest paper-recycling company, Nine Dragons Paper.

<snip>

Like many of the new breed of super-rich entrepreneurs in this Communist country, Mrs Cheung keeps a low profile. This is in part to avoid attracting the limelight in a system where private businesses only won protection of their property under the constitution as recently as 2004.

<snip>

In the early 1990s, Ms Cheung and her Taiwan-born husband, Lai Ming-chung, moved to Los Angeles where they created America Chung Nam, which is now the leading exporter of scrap paper in the United States.

<more>

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2399577,00.html

[dorktv]

1. no one is self made.

[bloom]

2. yeah - but some people are more self-made than others. nt

[dorktv]

3. that does not make sense really...

everyone got a helping hand from someone or had someone else give them just the right lucky break. That is all I am saying, plus the government nowadays invests in the education of all the workers so...

[bloom]

6. Some people inherit a company already formed.

Some people have been given millions of dollars from their parents - capital to get themselves started.

Some people have to work for everything - putting themselves through college.

What country are you living in? "plus the government nowadays invests in the education of all the workers" - doesn't sound like this one.

[dorktv]

9. Since when does any level of the US government system:

Federal, state, local not put any money into the education system through taxation of our dollars?

In China, the government pays for the education of the students and requires them to attend for 9 years.

Now a person can put themselves through college-usually taking out a loan or two. They also still have to run a business with employees and unless I am mistaken, they do not adopt children and raise them to be their employees.

The point I am making is that someone has to have some help along the way to riches and a successful business. They do not do it all by themselves alone with no help from anyone.

[spindrifter]

5. I think the intent of the statement is

that she did not get a job working for someone else--like most other people. No one is an island. Everyone has help of some sort or another, but the idea that someone is building from Jump Street is more interesting than she got a job for X corporation and somehow managed to amass vast quantities of money.

[dorktv]

8. That is true. I just hate the term "self made" because that implies

no one else ever helped the "self-made" person.

[jeff30997]

4. I know the drill...

How much blood does sh have on her hand ?

[bloom]

7. exporting scrap paper seems like one of the more innocuous things

a person might do. recycling. sounds like just the thing.

"She began building her fortune in 1985 when, with less than $4,000, she set up a wastepaper trading business in Hong Kong. The economy boomed and within six years she had accumulated substantial capital.

In the early 1990s, Ms Cheung and her Taiwan-born husband, Lai Ming-chung, moved to Los Angeles where they created America Chung Nam, which is now the leading exporter of scrap paper in the United States."