The Most Awesome Chinese Couple: Selling Beijing Property to Travel Abroad, Returning After 8 Years to Find They've Earned 20 Million
How many people dare to say 'let's go'
In his youth, the promise 'let's go on a trip' was made. How many people really did it? Those who weren't smoothed out by life, couldn't find that initial passion, truly able to pursue their inner selves and embark on a new life journey, only a few.
And Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong were such people. This Chinese couple sold off the 'good life' that friends and family saw, and moved the Beijing company and house, raising tens of millions of travel expenses, and practiced their youthful dreams by going on a long journey, which lasted 10 years.
Similarly, some people ended up exhausted and returning home after endless wandering, while others saved every penny to travel on a shoestring budget. But Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong's trip was different—they made 200 million.
People are different, so are their results.
'The world is so big, I want to see it.' This is a dream for many people, but reality is that there are not enough people with such hearts and actions. Students don't have money, white-collar workers don't have time, the old can't move… many people think 'let's wait and see, when the time comes, you will go' and eventually, they've turned gray and white with age and lost that desire to go out and explore.
As for Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong, you have to start with a rumor from the backpacker community.
In the backpacker community, there's a rumor about a couple in Beijing who ran a business and, for years, waited to realize the promise of 'going out' and would sell their Beijing company and properties to raise travel expenses.
The 'most awesome travelers' of China
For everyone, this couple is neither a celebrity nor a star, but their ordinary trip attracted countless likes. When Zhang Xinyu was 27 years old, he was very fat, weighing 270 kilograms.
Of course, they can make money through their own hands. They grilled lamb skewers, opened restaurants, worked as sanitation workers, and cleaned public toilets—they did everything imaginable, just to create their desired future. Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong met, started a jewelry shop in Beijing, and step by step, became successful.
Both of them have their own industrial companies, and the profits are not bad. Like ordinary people, they also indulged in spending money. They recalled that when they bought houses in their youth, they treated them like vegetables; cars were the same. The most exaggerated thing was that they had more than 50 cars at their disposal.
But people get used to things. As you gradually get used to a certain lifestyle, the desire to go out and explore starts to stir. They became tired of this monotonous life.
They remembered their youthful dreams of traveling the world. The couple were stubborn, so they worked hard to establish their company, and sold it for 1 million.
Then, they started their own journey, getting farther and farther, and longer and longer.
You never know which one will come first, whether it's tomorrow or an unexpected event.
Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong once thought that money earned through their own hands and hard work should be used to enjoy life. If they hadn't seen the disaster, they would still be immersed in the pleasure of money, continuing their 'youthful ignorance' frenzy.
But life gave them a lesson, a profound one.
In 2008, the Wenchuan earthquake struck, which moved the hearts of all Chinese people, and completely changed Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong's lives.
Three days after the earthquake, Zhang Xinyu and the Beijing Hope Rescue Team rushed to the worst-affected area of Hanwang, responsible for the disease prevention and control and disinfection work for 5,000 disaster victims. Zhang Xinyu, who was doing foreign trade at the time, had a batch of rescue equipment with him, so he went straight there.
The sign at the entrance of the school read: 'Please park your car here.' After the earthquake, all the students' bodies were under the sign where the sign read: 'Please park your car here.' Those men who had broken their legs in childhood didn't cry when they were in Wenchuan.
The earthquake made Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong see the insignificance of human beings and the fragility of life.
People's lives should be lived like this—to work hard and earn money, and to never stop.
They spent two years preparing for this trip. They knew that this trip was not a wasteful, superficial tourism, but a true journey—to explore the world. They filmed the trip and put it on the internet, creating a documentary that millions of Chinese people could share.
They went to the terrifying city of Somaliland, where people held guns and bullets flew over their heads. Children with broken legs smiled at them and said, 'At least I'm still alive.'
They went to the coldest place in the world—Lake Eyre, Australia, and set up tents to sleep in temperatures below -40 degrees.
In 2012, at the memorial to the 71.2 degrees Celsius monument in Lake Eyre, Australia, Zhang Xinyu proposed to Liang Hong.
They went to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone, where the city was shrouded in radiation.
They also went to the volcanic island of Maremalu, where they married according to the local custom. When they left, the chieftain of the locals said to them in Chinese, 'People who speak Chinese are the best people in the world.'
They even had a wedding in Antarctica, and the foreign researchers at the research stations watched them with different eyes, saying that Chinese people were not what they imagined. They could also sail to Antarctica.
This experience was crazy and unique, as Zhang Xinyu said, 'It's terrifying, it grabs your heart, making you addicted.' Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong filmed all the scenery they saw along the way and created a documentary series 'ON THE ROAD', which was played on major video websites and attracted a large number of fans.
Following the trend, they also started live streaming, taking millions of viewers with them on adventures.
After 10 years of travel, the flowers spent, the money earned, they began to liquidate their assets, but unexpectedly found that only by relying on documentaries and live streaming, they earned 20 million.
Facing such an unexpected windfall, Zhang Xinyu and Liang Hong were very calm. They believed that everything would eventually follow the law of energy conservation, and everyone needed to learn to balance their giving and taking. Just like 10 years ago, they turned their bank numbers into a 10-year life journey, this was just a way for them to preserve their wealth.
The 10-year life journey ended, and they were about to face a new chapter. Hopefully, everyone can live as wonderfully as this couple, cherish the present, and live a fulfilling life.
