马云阅读材料整理版

Ma’s crazy success

WHAT do you do when you get frustrated (沮丧的)?

[1] Jack Ma (Ma Yun), 50, went to see a film, one he claimed he had watched about 10 times. “My hero is Forrest Gump. Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie,” he said on CNBC on Sept 19. “I watched the movie before I came here to New York.”

[2] There Ma witnessed (见证) the Alibaba Group opening on the New York stock exchange with the largest initial public offering (IPO，新股发行) in American history.

[3]Alibaba, “the world’s largest Inte rnet commerce (商务) company”, according to The New York Times, “puts China on a par with (与…水平相同) the US in the rapidly increasing global competition for technological innovation (创新) and economic transformation (转型),” commented the South China Morning Post.

[4] It has also made Ma China’s richest man with a fortune of around $25 billion (153 billion Yuan), reported Reuters(路透社).

[5] Ma’s rags-to-riches journey is just as spectacular（壮观的）as his Internet empire. Ma failed

University on his third attempt. He studied English. After graduation, Ma became an English teacher for years after he failed to get jobs at a local KFC, a hotel, and the city police, reported USA Today.

[6] “Mr. Ma is a big believer in perseverance (毅力),” commented The Wall Street Journal, also talking about Ma’s English studying experience. Starting at the age of 12, Ma said he woke up at 5 am to walk or cycle to Hangzhou’s main hotel so he could practice his English with foreign tourists. He did this for nine years and acted as a free tour guide to many.

[7] However, it was his vision（视野）and goals that launched his career.

[8] During a short trip to the US as an interpreter（口译）in 1995, Ma first experienced the Internet. He believed in the Interne t’s business potential（潜能）when few other Chinese people did. He started Alibaba in his Hangzhou apartment, with 17 friends and $60,000 of funds. At the time, when e-commerce (电子商务) was unheard of in China, “I called myself a blind man riding on the back o f blind tigers,” he once said, according to The Guardian. His unusual ideas earned him the nickname “Crazy Jack Ma” and Chinese media used words like “insane (疯狂的)” and “paranoid (妄想狂的)” to describe him.

[9] Indeed, Ma is different. Although he is very th in and about 160cm tall, “Ma is yet animated and forceful, with a bulging (凸起的) forehead and expressive (善于表现的), restless hands,” said The Guardian. “He is funny, creative, and a compelling (引人注目的) speaker. I often thought he has another career in stand-up comedy,” Duncan Clark, a Brit who is a Beijing-based technology consultant (顾问), told USA Today.

[10] While Ma joked to The Wall Street Journal that he had “a unique and ugly face so people always recognize me”, it is “his readiness to make fun of himsel f, and speak his mind that is a contrast to China’s often conservative (保守的) corporate(公司的)leaders”, commented USA Today.

[11] Ma told Time magazine that he was “old for the Internet”. He started to slow down and looked around. According to The Wall Stre et Journal, Ma “plans to open a tai chi club with the actor Jet Li, build an entrepreneurship (企业家) university in Hangzhou and continue to work on several environmental projects.”