Barefoot Country Boy Dreams Big

In the 1990s, a deeply rutted road forced me to drive so slowly that a wizened granny grinned and waved as she passed me on foot. Highways were little better. We were stuck in a remote Sichuan village for three days when rains washed out that area’s only national highway. But two decades later, China has the world’s most extensive highway and railway system, and I was fortunate to explore 20,000 km with one of the men who helped make it possible.

Mr. Lin Zhengjia, a truly rags-to-riches entrepreneur with only four years of schooling, proudly showed me many of his dozens of tunnels, from Xiamen’s dual 3-lane undersea tunnel plunging 70 m below the sea to Tibet railway tunnels, which at 5,000 m above sea-level, are the highest in the world.

Lin had no shoes until he was a teen, and learned Kung Fu to fend off schoolyard bullies and give himself confidence, but he doesn’t lack confidence today—in either himself or in China. He wears many hats, including entrepreneur, adventurer, martial arts expert, philanthropist, historian and film-maker, promoter of Chinese culture and publisher of the magazine Artitude, and head of the overseas Chinese association. He has also donated over 50 million Yuan for poverty relief, education and international cultural exchanges.

Pingtan Island: Home of World’s First Seafaring Explorers

Mr. Lin was born on Pingtan Island, the part of the mainland closest to Taiwan, and is proud of his home’s heritage as the origin of Austronesian culture. “I have no diploma but I do have culture!” he said. “All Pingtan people have the island spirit that drove tens of thousands of our ancestors across the seas to settle on the islands.”

The world’s first truly global ocean adventurers, ancient Pingtan people settled not only in Taiwan but also the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands from Easter Island and Hawaii in the East to Madagascar in the West and New Zealand in the South. Today, 386 million people speak one of the 1,257 Austronesian languages.

Pingtan’s extensive trade helped give rise to the legendary Maritime Silk Road, and for over two centuries the island was strategic for both mainland and Taiwan coastal defense as Pingtan’s Haitan Fort and Taiwan’s Penghu Navy exchanged troops for three-year stints. Not surprisingly, many Pingtan and Taiwan people are related.

I suspect that Pingtan folk explored the world simply because survival was so difficult at home. “We said Pingtan has ‘stones but no grass’,” Lin said, “because not even grass survived here.” But tough terrain breeds tough people. “We lived by the sea and off the sea,” and on sweet potatoes and peanuts because they could survive in sandy soil.”

Pingtan is also famous for its unique stone homes, some of which are centuries old. Mr. Lin showed me the stone house of his childhood, which he is restoring. “I had eight siblings, so with grandma we had 11 living in this tiny 25 squ. m shelter. And our school’s teachers were just village school graduates. That’s why my Putonghua (standard Chinese) is so poor. I’m uneducated.”

I had wondered why he had such a strong accent that he sounded like a foreigner.

Kung Fu Confidence

“Other children looked down on me because I could not afford the 4 or 5 Yuan tuition,” Lin said. “So I studied martial arts to stop their bullying and increase my confidence.”

“How many years did you practice?” I asked.

“Over ten years,” he said. “And as my strength and confidence grew, I tried to join the army, which was my dream – but they turned me down! So I worked as a laborer in the army for ten years and learned more martial arts with the military police, though in the 1980s, many people studied martial arts because of Chairman Mao.”

A 24-year-old Mao Zedong wrote, “If one seeks to improve one’s body other things will follow automatically.” For Mr. Lin and his second son, who is now a special commander in Singapore, martial arts became both a physical and mental discipline.

“Martial arts changed my life,” Lin said, “and engineering changed my career – and the two influenced each other. Us martial arts practitioners had the confidence and strength to work 14 h without a break when others collapsed after 12, and only we dared face winters at the Qinling tunnel site. And while others worried about kidnappings at remote sites, I was never afraid. Even if approached by four or five suspicious people at night, I had confidence!

“But the dangers were so great that sometimes heaven alone helped me survive. I often inspected the Qinling Tunnel site at night in case the workers had cut corners.”

“Now that life is easier, do you still practice martial arts?” I asked.

Lin grinned and let loose a kick higher than my head. “I still practice for hours, and still climb hills at dawn. I’m in good health. Without martial arts, I’d have died by now.”

Struggle Succeeds Thanks to Reform and Opening up

But Mr. Lin admitted that even his dogged determination would have been fruitless had it not been for China’s changes. “Without reform and opening up,” Lin said, “those of us born in the 1960s would not be here today. Life was a struggle, and poor children were often forced to take charge of their household early. But as we Fujian people sing, ‘Struggle to succeed!’ and we all dreamed of making something of ourselves.”

Pingtan’s poverty arose in part from its isolation. The fierce winds—over 50 kph 200 days a year—and violent waves led global experts to declare Pingtan as one of three places on the planet impossible to build a bridge, the others being the Bermudas and Cape of Good Hope. But thanks to the 2010 completion of Pingtan’s “impossible bridge”, and the world’s longest cross-sea road-rail bridge in 2019, the once sleepy island is now thriving and even leading the nation in fields from 5G and self-driven buses to shipping and tunneling.

Fujian Dream: Love of Home

“Pingtan should be China’s number one county in maritime shipping,” Mr. Lin said. “We have the island spirit, and we take root wherever we go and dare strive to thrive. But we are also nostalgic and cherish our Fujian culture, so for hundreds of years, wherever we Fujianese go in the world, if we get rich, our dream is to return and help our hometown. Patriotism and love of country are integral to traditional Chinese culture.”

His comments reminded me of Henry Noel Shore,Footnote 1 who in 1881 wrote of Fujianese’ love for their homeland:

…Very many (Fujianese) settle down in their adopted countries, but great numbers return home after amassing a competency; some, indeed, after death to be buried near their ancestors, for the Chinese have a deep regard for the mother country, and make a point of having their bodies embalmed, if, that is to say, they can afford it, and being sent back to their native place for burial.

“I understand why. Seafaring is in your blood,” I told Mr. Lin, “But why does Pingtan account for 70% of China’s tunnel industry?”

“Two reasons,” Lin said. “Firstly, during war years, we dug underground shelters from solid rock, so we are adept at working rock. Secondly, we had no other way to make money. Other people avoided tunneling because it was so dangerous but Pingtan people dared to do anything. So over the years we not only mastered the technology and techniques but even improved upon them, and today tunneling is Pingtan’s largest industrial chain.

“When I dug my first tunnel 20 years ago in Yan’an, it was as grueling and dangerous as digging mines. We’d dig by hand one meter, prop it up with wood, and dig another meter. We had no tractors so we dragged out the dregs on skids. At only a few dozen centimeters a day, it took ages to dig a 1,000 meter tunnel, and if there was a landslide, we had no support at all. But I kept learning new tunneling techniques, and I adopted the faster and safer New Austrian sequential tunneling method. In Gansu, I was able to dig up to 12 meters a day. Now looking back, I’ve no idea how I did it.”

“Maybe you whacked the rocks with your Kung Fu fists?”

Lin laughed and threw a rapid punch that came close enough to scare my moustache. “It became normal for us to dig dozens and even hundreds of meters in a month. I was always learning, and whenever I saw new equipment, I bought it—even equipment that state-owned enterprises did not buy. I did this to build a brand, and that could only be done by making progress. As our reputation grew, we got better jobs, and we also got better workers because they needed reliable jobs and they all knew that Lin Zhengjia’s team was good and honest.

Battling Goliaths Together

“But as a small private enterprise we were always competing with state-owned giants, and unlike them, we did not have a parent company to protect us. We could only borrow money from family and friends because banks would not loan to someone who had no money. But I succeeded in business for 20 years because my parents taught me, ‘Son, you need to become a leader, but a leader must have integrity and be dedicated.’ We rural families always helped each other. When I was young, neighbors were all like brothers and sisters. If something happened to your family, and I did not help you, I could not live with myself. And my parents taught me to not fear suffering or exhaustion. To get ahead, you must step out – but after stepping out, you must return home again.

“So I did step out, and my 20 years’ experience was quite profound. In my third year I earned enough to buy an off-road vehicle because I had to do site inspections but there were no highways to my projects. My driver and I traveled 130,000 km that year and 110,000 km the following year. From 2001 to 2002, I built the Fenghuang Tunnel on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the highest tunnel in the world. At that time, no one else dared work at such altitudes. Within days our lips were cracked. But our team slowly grew and the team culture became more powerful. I couldn’t personally visit every site but I kept studying the latest tunnel strategy and technology in China and abroad and continued to improve. We were very conscientious and improved rapidly, and I named my company Jiaxin Haitan Holding Group, which means “Jia Family Pingtan enterprise based on integrity. For almost ten years I didn’t return home for Spring Festival because progress and profits were faster during holidays.”

China’s First Undersea Tunnel

“Did you earn a lot from Xiamen Xiang’an undersea tunnel job?” I asked.

Lin laughed. “Actually, I lost a lot on that job. Four companies initially competed for the project but two dropped out. We progressed only six meters a month because the German supervisors directed us by book knowledge that didn’t fit our real life situation. The supervisor, construction team and design team were not a family and when the foreign supervisors fought each other, everything stopped for a month or two. I lost over 40 million Yuan. Finally, I held a meeting with my company and reminded them of Fujianese’ motto, ‘persistence is victory!’ I said, ‘This is China’s first undersea tunnel so we must certainly do this, and do it well.’ We persevered, finished the tunnel and quickly passed all inspections. I made no money on that tunnel but I learned a lot. And I attended many schools to improve myself, including EMBA at Tsinghua University, Peking University and Changjiang Business School. But in 2007, I switched my focus to investing, and since 2011 or 2012 I’ve been focusing on promoting culture.”

Lin smiled proudly. “So much has changed now! I had to squeeze a month from my schedule to travel with you around China but I wanted to see the tunnels we built and to witness for myself the results of our efforts. I was very moved by the experiences. Only 20 years ago, China had less than 2 km of expressways; today, 120,000 km of expressways! China had 50,000 or 60,000 km of railways back then but over 140,000 km today. Such earthshaking changes in only 20 years – and someone like me, a kid born in the 1960s, was able to experience it.”

From Commerce to Culture

“So why do you now focus on culture?” I asked.

“Money is earned from society,” he said, “so naturally it should be returned to society. Our bellies are full; now we need to fill our spirits. I shot a documentary about the South Pacific’s Austronesian Culture and donated tens of millions for related documentaries. I also made a documentary on Chen Jiageng [the “Henry Ford of Asia” who founded Xiamen University], who started out as a Chinese laborer. And I filmed about 1,000 people for the 60-episode documentary about overseas Chinese who sought their fortune abroad but returned to help their hometowns by building schools and roads. I plan to shoot 100 episodes in total.”

As a Singapore resident, Mr. Lin is technically also an Overseas Chinese, but he spends much of his time in the mainland, and since 2012 has increased his push to protect and restore traditional Pingtan culture. “I firmly favor opening up Pingtan but we also need to respect and protect the traditional culture. My 2012 proposal was rejected but Xi Jinping visited Pingtan in 2014 and changed everything with one sentence. He said, ‘A true treasure should never be exchanged for a fake treasure.’ After that, People’s Daily and Fujian Daily published articles about my proposal, the government supported it, and eventually it was rated as a Top Ten outstanding proposal.

“Stone is the culture of Pingtan,” Lin said, “symbolizing our tenacity and unstoppable spirit. And it is our common culture with Taiwan. Taiwan has many stone houses just like those in Pingtan. No one but Pingtan and Taiwan people can build such houses. It takes craftsmanship.”

Mr. Lin sees Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative as a vehicle to promote cultural exchanges. “In recent years, I have been promoting the Belt and Road Initiative. Now that China’s highways are so good, I hope that China’s culture will be like China’s highways.

“The true international language is not English,” he said, “or any other language. Culture is the only truly borderless, transnational language. I’ve worked for years to promote China’s culture to the world but it must go both ways. I also want world cultures introduced to China, so I donated 10 to 20 million Yuan to start a China International Cultural Exchange Foundation. A truly new era needs new thinking, with bidirectional and integrated cultural exchanges.”

“So what can the world learn from Chinese culture?”

Lin smiled. “I think a great element of the Chinese nation is the spirit of hardship and hard work. We don’t fear suffering or toil. This spirit is something the Chinese nation deserves to carry on. Why can 60 or 70 million Chinese live so well overseas? It is because of this spirit. They work hard, prosper, and love their home. So I don’t believe there is any reason for the Chinese to not prosper.”

Superior Culture, Leading Spirits

Over the years I’ve read biographies of many historic Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs who, with little or no education, amassed great fortunes which they used to help not only their homeland but also their adopted homes. As I explored China with Mr. Lin, I could see clearly that today’s generation is just as capable as its ancestors, and they will continue to enrich not just China but the world. As MaclayFootnote 2 wrote in 1861, Chinese throughout Southeast Asia relied upon their keen work ethic and integrity to … become the “leading spirits” of their adopted homes.

The Chinese work ethic that Maclay wrote of in 1861 has survived the ages, and is a powerful force to this day, because it is being perpetuated by educators who are both traditional in morals and values and highly innovative in teaching—teachers like Prof. Hu Min, whom we visited in Beijing.

Prof. Hu Min, CEO of New Channel, is one of China’s most respected educators, but had it not been for a country teacher’s intervention, he would have never even finished high school.