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China tutor ban: masters graduate who lost business becomes internet celebrity with new job as a motorcycle taxi driver
- Du has ignored the judgemental and status-focused critics who have attacked him for taking up a driver job to survive after he lost his livelihood
- His tutoring studio used to earn 400,000 yuan (US$62,230) a year, but was closed in August after the government’s after-school tutoring crackdown
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Alice Yanin Shanghai
A man with a master’s degree from a prestigious Chinese university who lost his business has become a minor celebrity in China after he started working as a motorcycle taxi driver to survive.
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Du Yang, 38, now spends his working hours driving passengers around Changsha, the capital of central Hunan province. He started driving last month after his English-teaching company was shut down by Beijing’s crackdown on the private tutoring industry, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The story of a graduate of the prestigious Sun Yat-sen University with a masters in international economic law soon made the headlines in the local media.
While many praised Du’s pragmatic attitude, some mocked him and said it was a waste of a degree.
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Among the judgemental critics was Du’s status-conscious mother who told him to stop driving because she felt “humiliated”. Du’s son also asked him not to continue after he heard about his father’s new job from his classmates.
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