8-Year-old "Mini Jack Ma" Have Never Attended School...
| Alibaba's Jack Ma to fund education of 8-year-old look-alike |
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"Mini Jack Ma" Fan Xiaoqin (web photo)
Jack Ma, China's second richest man, will fund the education of his eight-year-old doppelganger, according to a statement from e-commerce giant Alibaba released Sunday.
The boy, Fan Xiaoqin, earned the nickname "mini Jack Ma" when photos of him showing a striking resemblance to the Alibaba founder were posted online last year.
Ma was impressed with the look-alike.
Younger Jack Ma (Left) (web photo)
"At first glance, I thought it was a photo of me when I was little," he wrote in a post on Sina Weibo last year. "I thought I was looking into a mirror."
"The only difference between us is the way we fastened our buttons," he added.
The photos and video of little Fan, who lives in Yongfeng County in east China's Jiangxi Province, were originally taken and posted online by a fellow villager in the winter of 2014. The boy soon became a cyber-celebrity and his plight has moved many.
Born into a poor family, the child and his elder brother have never attended school. His mother suffers from polio and lost an eye after getting hit by a buffalo. His 83-year-old grandmother has dementia. His father, 59, the family's sole breadwinner, lost a leg in an accident.
"Mini Jack Ma" Fan Xiaoqin (web photo)
The boy's story circulated online once again during this year's Singles' Day. The annual online shopping event on Nov. 11 was first launched by Alibaba, and this year, the company's sales topped 120 billion yuan (17.6 billion U.S. dollars).
Social media users remembered Fan and his family, and urged Ma to help the child.
Ma noticed the buzz and reportedly announced his decision within the company to fund the boy's education, from primary school to college.
Ma, 52, is a rags-to-riches story. He worked as an English teacher and translator early in his career, and today, with an estimated wealth of 28.2 billion U.S. dollars, ranks second on the 2016 Forbes list of China's 400 richest.
Younger Jack Ma (Left) (web photo)
"[Fan's situation] is not a joke. It is a serious fact," said the Alibaba statement.
"There are still many poor people in the country. The problem of growth and education of China's rural and left-behind children is alarming," it said.
By the end of 2015, China still had 55.75 million people living in poverty. About 40 million children live in impoverished areas nationwide.
According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the country also has 9.02 million left-behind rural children whose parents are migrant workers, or who have one migrant-worker parent and another incapable of guardianship.
"To fund one child's education is easy, but in order to help millions of poor children, more resources need to be used," said the Alibaba statement.
More than 700 million Chinese people have been raised from poverty over the past three decades. China vows to lift all of its poor out of poverty by 2020.
The Chinese government assigned poverty relief funds totaling 189.84 billion yuan from 2011 to 2015, and will allocate more in the coming five years, according to a white paper published by the State Council Information Office.
news.xinhuanet.com
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