Life aristocrats from the slums

Poor and strong,

The slum 'dishwasher' goes to Oxford

Wei Ming 'en, originally from Zhuhai, Guangdong province, is a descendant of Hakka people whose parents emigrated to Britain in the early 1970s. On January 19, 1977, he was born in the East End of London, England, which is near the docks, and the residents are mostly poor laborers and immigrants. It was in such a slum with narrow streets and dense houses that Wei Ming spent his childhood.

As a child of Chinese descent living in a slum, Wei Ming understood that if you want to get ahead, you have to struggle on your own. He taught himself French and German after school, using two tattered books from the 1950s that his father found for him at a garage sale.

Once, due to a long-term lack of sleep and overwork, Verwoing was washing dishes piled up in a western restaurant in London when he suddenly felt a knife-like pain in his abdomen. He was afraid to ask for leave because the harsh boss said he was "cheating". Despite the pain, he kept working through his teeth. Twenty minutes later, with a loud clang, a pile of plates was smashed to pieces, and Verming fell to the ground.

The boss sent Wei Ming En to the hospital to check that he suffered from acute gastroenteritis. Unexpectedly, the restaurant owner, who has a reputation for being strict and stingy, not only gave Wei a paid sick leave for half a month but also visited him home many times with gifts. The boss was Wei Ming En's diligence and perseverance deeply moved, after which two people have become forgetful.

Two months later, instead of "burying his talent" in the restaurant, his boss hired him to tutor his two children for three times the salary he earned as a dishwasher. Years later, the boss's beautiful daughter went to Cambridge University and became Verming's wife after graduation. Up to now, British people talk about this matter, but also have praised the boss of discernment, in the back of the kitchen can help his daughter "catch" a wealthy husband!

After graduating from middle school in 1995, Wei Ming 'en, who had excellent academic performance, was admitted to the world-renowned Oxford University, majoring in modern languages and German. He was the only graduate admitted to this "great school". It is nothing short of a miracle that a Chinese kid from the slums could get a full scholarship to Oxford with astonishingly high marks.

Instead of a million-dollar salary,

Mr. Big Society wins the prime minister's favor

After graduating from Oxford in 1999, he went to work for McKinsey & Company, the prestigious management consultancy. It is a company specializing in marketing, merger, and listing planning for the world's largest enterprises, with nearly 100 branches in 52 countries and more than 9000 global top talents. He has worked as a consultant for the firm, covering venture capital and venture capital, and has also been assigned to lead operations in Asia, the US, and Africa. Due to his outstanding workability, his annual salary and bonus have reached nearly one million dollars three years after he joined the company.

His parents and wife were proud of him. But just then, Wei Ming made a surprise decision: he was going to quit his well-paid job and move to an unappreciated career -- public service.

Verging said he was not acting on a whim. "I keep thinking, when I'm old and I look back, what mark will I have left in the world? We already have Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and everyone wants to be like them, so a lot of people are focused on making money, but people have to do social work, too. I want to apply my talents to solving social problems and making the world a better place."

In 2002, the 25-year-old NAT Wei, together with their friend Brett wigdortz founded the "teach first" public welfare organization, its main job is to absorb, train excellent graduates, encourage them to participate in, society, especially to work in the education in remote areas, change the local some people are reluctant to accept education or the condition of low quality of education.

Nine years on, Teach First is recognized as the UK's best-known education and training organization, with almost all of the UK's top 100 listed companies sponsoring it. After years of hard work, Wei Ming 'en and his colleagues are delighted to see that college students are no longer looking for money, they begin to sympathize with poor children in remote areas, and realize that it is a noble thing to "volunteer teaching" in distant places, and the situation of teacher shortage has been improved.

Later, Verwoon created an interesting charity organization dedicated to "bringing the British lazy people into society". When it comes to British laziness, we are surprised. In Britain, low-level jobs such as washing dishes, washing cars, and cleaning jobs have long been done by foreign workers, and the local poor would rather be a laid-back "pauper" who stays at home and is supported by the state than do these "uninteresting" jobs. The British poor are so big, that life is not only leisurely and moist. They rely on the state's generous welfare policies, such as free education, medical care, and pension, so they have no worries.

In addition to laziness, the growing estrangement between people and neighbors in the local society made Wei Mingen think deeply, "How can we make every citizen actively integrate into the society, be passionate about life, and feel happy and glorious work?" He began to seriously analyze the shortcomings of the state system and tried to find solutions.

Later, Wei Ming 'en gradually formed his idea of a "big society". He believed that the government should "delegate power to the people" more so that every citizen would actively participate in the management of society. At the same time, an organization should be set up to guide people to help each other and communicate more, to form a social community with harmonious relations between neighbors.

In 2005, Wei Minden and his colleagues set up a series of public welfare organizations related to education, people's livelihood, and humanistic care. He also created a platform for individual citizens to voice their ideas for reform. Soon, their public welfare organization was thriving and caught the attention of the mainstream media. People called Wei Ming "Mr. Big Society". It wasn't long before he caught the eye of David Cameron, leader of Britain's Conservative Party.

Mr. Cameron's "broken society" has long been used to describe the UK, "sweep the snow in front of the modern society of individualism, generous welfare used the" dependency culture "and other ills, made him look not pleasing to the eye, and through the" big society "plans of NAT Wei, volunteers and community autonomy organizations can play a greater role in British society, people are willing to participate in more public services, In many ways, the state and government can "let go" and "reduce the burden". Because of the political coincidence, Cameron was very appreciative of the young talent.

At the end of 2005, Cameron, who also graduated from Oxford, met his Chinese primary school brother for the first time and praised Wei Ming En for his great contribution to society. Verwood soon joined the Conservative Party. In the years that followed, Verhorn remained in close contact with Cameron as his adviser. In early 2009, Verwoing began drawing up detailed plans for the implementation of the Big Society as a trump card in Cameron's later campaign to become prime minister.

Made a life peer,

The young Lord lived in poverty

On May 6, 2010, the United Kingdom held a general election. Verwoon's "Big Society" project, launched nationally as a Conservative campaign platform, was widely accepted as a new idea. The Conservatives eventually won power, and David Cameron became prime minister, quickly adopting Verwoon's "Big Society" project as official government policy at home. He was appointed as an adviser to the government to promote the project.

But Verwood, a rising star in British politics, is a "senior volunteer", in that the role of government adviser is an unpaid one. Not wanting to dismiss his Oxford schoolboy so easily, Mr. Cameron recommended Verwoon to the Queen for a baronet in June 2010.

On 16 June, a life peerage ceremony was held at Westminster Abbey. Flanked in a line of white-haired knighthoods before Queen Elizabeth II, with the "sword of the state" gently placed on his shoulder, the 33-year-old Chinese ghetto man became the youngest life peer in British history. The version was then sworn in as a life member of the House of Lords.

As an adviser to the Big Society project, Verwood has an office under Mr. Cameron's nose in Whitehall. Every day, he is busy in the no-frills office like a company receptionist: constantly answering phone calls, and taking notes, he even forgot his own life. In July 2010, he started two blogs, one for his work and one for his life. Both became work blogs to document and introduce his beloved Big Society project.

Today's British peerage has nothing to do with money and power. The only benefit Verwarne gets from being an adviser to the prime minister, a life peer and a peer is an £86.50 transport allowance for every time he attends the House of Lords. If he doesn't attend the meeting, he won't even have that money.

At his lowest, Verwoon had only ￡1,000 in his bank account and a family to pay for. One day in February 2011, he announced that he would have to cut two days a week from his Cabinet job to make time for his family. His wife had to stay at home to take care of their two children and could not work, so the poor young nobleman had to find another job to support his family.

However, he did not cut back on his workload, often working late into the night on cabinet duties. To cut costs, the family of four moved out of a cottage and into a council flat in London, "with the advantage of not having to worry about a huge mortgage, but still having to pay rent."

On the evening of April 2, 2011, "The World is Beautiful because of You -- Influence Chinese around the World Ceremony" was held at Peking University. Wei Ming 'en won the public welfare field award. "First of all, I want to thank my parents for training me to be a useful person to society. And my heartfelt thanks to my wife, who has quietly supported my work and choices over the years." Those who know him well know that the Chinese star of British politics is still a good husband at home.

China has a special meaning for Vering. "I went to Zhuhai 10 years ago and saw our family tree there. "It was fun to learn about my family history, and I felt a deep connection to China." Not long ago, he was invited to visit Shanghai and Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. "The prosperity of Shanghai and the beauty of the water villages in the south of the Yangtze River are unforgettable," he said. At the same time, he found that many British people's understanding of China was completely out of date. Since then, he has actively acted as a "matchmaker" for cultural exchanges and economic cooperation between China and the UK. He is proud and happy to contribute to the development of friendship between the two countries.