---
title: "At 18! Zong Qinghou Goes to the Countryside, Tao Huabi Marries, Zhong Shanshan Works as a Mason, Zhang Liaoyuan Fails in Business... May You Wander Half Your Life and Return Still Young"
description: "The article reflects on the trend of people posting their 18-year-old photos, marking the adulthood of the last batch of the post-90s generation. It then profiles several FMCG legends at age 18, including Zong Qinghou, Tao Huabi, Zhong Shanshan, Zhang Liaoyuan, and Gao Qingyuan, highlighting their early struggles and achievements."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2018-01-02"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YVsT0DXE249dSqEOGTW7fg"
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# At 18! Zong Qinghou Goes to the Countryside, Tao Huabi Marries, Zhong Shanshan Works as a Mason, Zhang Liaoyuan Fails in Business... May You Wander Half Your Life and Return Still Young

> The article reflects on the trend of people posting their 18-year-old photos, marking the adulthood of the last batch of the post-90s generation. It then profiles several FMCG legends at age 18, including Zong Qinghou, Tao Huabi, Zhong Shanshan, Zhang Liaoyuan, and Gao Qingyuan, highlighting their early struggles and achievements.

18-year-old photos are flooding social media. What's the story? It turns out that on December 31, 2017, the last batch of the post-90s generation (born December 31, 1999) celebrated their 18th birthdays. This means that legally, the entire post-90s generation has reached adulthood, collectively bidding farewell to their youth, and the post-00s have finally taken the stage!
Today, let's take a look at the 18-year-old food industry entrepreneurs, these FMCG legends, and what they were doing at 18.

**Zong Qinghou Goes to the Countryside**
In 1963, Zong Qinghou's difficult teenage years came to an end. With a casual wave of fate's hand, he began a new life journey. After graduating from junior high school, Zong Qinghou was sent to the countryside to work at the Zhoushan Mamu Farm. At the time, for Zong Qinghou, who was tired of hawking goods on the streets of Hangzhou, this meant an opportunity to change his fate. He bid farewell to his mother.
Zong Qinghou was only 18 when he first arrived in the countryside. His frail body became sturdy through carrying stones, breaking rocks, and digging ditches. At that time, when reclaiming tidal flats, the soil underneath was soft. They used a bow-like tool with a wire to cut out large chunks of earth.
All Zong Qinghou could do was remain silent and wait. He had to silently pull carts on the beach, accept that he would earn only a little over nine jiao for each cartload of stones he hauled back and forth, and accept the hardships of life.
"Looking back on those years, I deeply feel that the suffering I endured in my youth is a treasure."

**Tao Huabi Marries**
In 1965, Tao Huabi was 18. Due to the influence of the preference for sons over daughters, she never attended a single day of school. From a young age, she cooked for others, and even then, she loved chili peppers and used various seasonings to flavor her dishes.
She met an accountant from the 206 Geological Team, and the two fell in love and married. In her youth, Tao Huabi, in her own words, was a flower, strong-willed and capable. Her husband was an honest man, innocent throughout his life, but talented and of good character. After marrying, Tao Huabi left the mountain village and moved to Chongjiang and then Guiyang. They soon had a family of four.
When her two sons were still infants, her husband fell seriously ill and eventually passed away. To survive, Tao Huabi had to work away from home and set up a street stall. A woman with little education, she had to raise two sons alone, carrying burdens of over 100 jin despite weighing only 90 jin. It was during that time that she developed frozen shoulder, arthritis, and cervical spondylosis, and to this day she still relies on medicated patches.

**Zhong Shanshan Works as a Mason**
Zhong Shanshan was born into a scholarly family and started as a mason.
In 1954, he was born in Hangzhou. In the fifth grade of elementary school, due to the Cultural Revolution, his parents were labeled as rightists and sent from Hangzhou back to their hometown in Zhuji, Shaoxing. Zhong Shanshan was forced to drop out of school. At 18, he was just a mason.
In his youth, Zhong Shanshan moved between various towns and cities near Shaoxing, working as a mason, bricklayer, and carpenter. In the eyes of his relatives, his family kept to themselves, rarely visiting others except during festivals.
In 1977, the college entrance examination was reinstated. That year, Zhong Shanshan was 23. He suddenly announced that he would take the exam with his younger sister. He took it twice, both times missing the cutoff by more than 20 points, so he had to attend a TV university. After graduation, he became a journalist in the rural department of Zhejiang Daily.
After working at Zhejiang Daily for five years, Zhong Shanshan traveled to over 80 counties and cities in Zhejiang, interviewed more than 500 entrepreneurs, and even met several of his later business partners during that time. To this day, he still speaks of his "Zhejiang Daily complex."

**Zhang Liaoyuan Fails in Business**
Zhang Liaoyuan, born in 1976, calls himself "Squirrel Dad." Starting at 18, he "wandered the world," selling clothes and cold drinks, working as an electrician, and driving a motorcycle taxi, but he never succeeded.
In 2003, the internet e-commerce boom began. At that time, Zhang Liaoyuan was engaged in marketing pecans. He worked his way up from a small clerk to marketing director over nine years, but he missed the initial wave of e-commerce. In 2010, sensing the changes of the times, he keenly perceived the arrival of the B2C e-commerce era. He opened an online store selling pecans called Keke Guo, and by 2011, sales reached 20 million yuan. He realized that e-commerce could build a national nut brand.
He gave up his existing benefits to found Three Squirrels. Zhang Liaoyuan has a fierce determination to fight against fate, believing that life's ups and downs are necessary to become a great general.

**Gao Qingyuan Achieves Early Success**
Gao Qingyuan, former chairman of Uni-President Group, was born in 1929 in Tainan County, Taiwan. His father, a cattle dealer, passed away when Gao was 13. Forced to shoulder the responsibility of supporting his family, Gao left his hometown at 13, carrying a wooden box, to work as a child laborer at a straw shoe store, earning only 15 New Taiwan dollars a month.
A few years later, Gao became an apprentice at Hexing Cloth Store, starting from the most basic tasks. Through his diligence and hard work, he earned the appreciation of his boss. In 1947, when the boss expanded the cloth business to Shanghai, he entrusted the Taiwan operations to Gao, who was only 18 at the time.
At 26, Gao became the first business manager of Tainan Textile Company. From then on, he began to shine and learned many arts of corporate leadership.

We post our 18-year-old photos on social media.
Some say this trend is because we've all been poisoned by Director Feng's film "Youth";
"The youth of a generation has passed, and things have changed beyond recognition. Although they still chat and laugh as before, it's not hard to see the changes time has brought to everyone. Forgive me for not wanting you to see us grow old; let the screen preserve our fragrant years."
In fact, it's not that we can't bear to part with the old times that can't be returned to; it's that we can't bear to part with the most beautiful years, the unforgettable feelings and lingering little beauties of that time...
Just as the FMCG industry is as deep as the sea, looking back at the 18-year-old FMCG legends, now that you are 18, what do you want your future to look like?
May you wander half your life and return still young.

Source: Food Entrepreneur (shiyehome)
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