產業結構對社會的影響: 中國出現淘寶村

The posters plastered on walls in the isolated village of Donggaozhuang, in China’s northeastern Hebei province, do not extol the usual communist ideals of social harMony or party loyalty.

在中國河北省的偏遠村莊東高莊，牆上貼的海報並沒有歌頌社會和諧或者忠誠於黨之類常見的共產黨理想價值觀。

Instead, they promise to reveal the secret to becoming an ecommerce millionaire and to help the town’s residents “reach your dreams of fortune”.

相反，它們承諾傳授成爲電商富翁的祕訣，幫助村莊的居民“實現發財夢”。

Donggaozhuang is just one of a dozen of so-called ‘Taobao villages’ across China – rural townships transformed by the possibility of reaching millions of potential customers with the click of a mouse, often on Taobao, the Alibaba-owned site.

東高莊不過是中國各地十幾個所謂的“淘寶村”之一。只需點擊鼠標，便可接觸到成百上千萬潛在客戶，這樣的機遇改變了它們。它們往往以阿里巴巴(Alibaba)旗下的淘寶網爲電子商務平臺。

“You don’t need to go anywhere, all you need is a computer and a network cable, you can search all the customers in the whole country,” says Liu Yuguo, a resident of the village and the owner of a growing online cashmere store.

“哪兒都不用去，只要有電腦和網線，就可以尋找全國的顧客了，”村民劉玉國（音）說。他經營羊絨的網店越做越大。

Instead of enduring a life of back-breaking work in fields for a meagre monthly income, or choosing to become migrant workers in far away coastal areas, peasants and their families in Donggaozhuang are opening online businesses selling Inner Mongolian cashmere to fashion-conscious web shoppers.

東高莊的農民和家人既不用在田間辛苦勞動，掙得微薄的收入，也不用選擇去遙遠的沿海地區打工，而是辦起了網店，向有時尚意識的網上顧客銷售內蒙古羊絨。

At the centre of this transformation is Alibaba, the Hangzhou-based company that controls 80 per cent of ecommerce in China and is set to be valued at more than $100bn when it becomes publicly listed this year.

變革的中心是阿里巴巴。這家總部位於杭州的公司控制着中國80%的電商業務，它擬在今年上市，估值將超過1000億美元。

On Alibaba’s ecommerce sites alone, the number of online stores from rural areas has increased by nearly 50 per cent since 2012, to more than 1m. Seven out of 10 areas in China where online shopping is growing fastest are in rural, less developed parts of the country, according to Alibaba.

光是在阿里巴巴的電商網站上，來自農村地區的網店數量自2012年以來已經增長了近50%，達到100多萬家。阿里巴巴表示，在中國網購增長最快的10個地區中，有7個來自較不發達的農村地區。

In Donggaozhuang, some villagers have taken this opportunity even further, by hosting online masterclasses for others wanting to cash in on China’s ecommerce boom.

在東高莊，一些村民進一步利用機會，爲其他希望在中國電商熱中賺一筆的人們舉辦在線講習班。

For Mr Liu, the decision to open an online store in 2007 was an easy one, after various failed attempts to start more traditional businesses.

對劉玉國而言，在2007年決定開設網店並不是個艱難的選擇——他之前試圖創辦更加傳統的業務，但均告失敗。

“I would never have this business offline even if I worked my whole life for it,” the 35-year-old former farmer says.

“我哪怕辛苦一輩子，也不會在線下擁有這樣的生意”，這位35歲的前農民表示。