Sudan was looking out of the window from his own company. Photo provided to Hangzhoufeel

In the week before the 2021 Spring Festival, Sudan Regmi climbed onto the Wushan Mountain and prayed for blessings for the new year with his family.

Ten years ago, Sudan didn' t realize that his life had been put on a giant roller coaster.

The centuries-old folklore "there are gold and silver everywhere in China" still has a wide appeal in Nepal that, back in 2010, his parents sold their ancestral properties for a bigger "gold mine". "My son would study medicine in China and come back as a respected doctor.”

Sudan was enrolled in a language program in Jinhua Vocational and Technical College before being transferred to Hangzhou Normal University, which has one of the best medical schools in Zhejiang.

Leave or stay?

The dip of the roller coaster came very soon. In 2011, his agency stopped to cooperate with Hangzhou and wanted to bring him to Guilin.

Sudan could not think of a worse situation than this one. He told me that, the uncertainty of the future would cost more than a huge penalty for breaking the contract. Aged 23, Sudan bet his life on staying in Hangzhou, always having trouble finding the next meal.

China does not have gold on the ground. After the incident he worked part-time as an English tutor and sold Nepali handicrafts in Xiasha.

Wang Qian was then the famous "Laobanniang" (the so-called "wife of the shopkeeper") among the stalls. She was at that time Sudan' s girlfriend, helping him to manage the business in a two-square-meter stall big enough to load their dreams. "We will open our own company in Hangzhou." They were optimistic about their future.

When one' s misery was shared by a beloved one, it turned to be a joy. The couple laughed on the day when the purse was stolen in Yiwu' s market and lost all of their weekly earning, but cried on the night in April, 2013, when they got the key to their first apartment. The couple would hunt for vegetables at discounted prices just to pay the loan. They would also save the best bite of the food for each other.

Qian addressed that it was his upright and perseverance personalities that really touched her on.

"Everyone said it' s a loss for me to date Sudan." Qian said with a big sigh, "My grandpa was so furious that he flipped over the table."

The roller coaster was fueled to soar

Soon, people stopped talking behind their back.

Even though Sudan had to squeeze every minute to study, he was the every-year scholarship owner. In August, 2013, he represented Zhejiang for the finals of the Chinese Bridge (an international Chinese speech competition) in Beijing. In front of the camera, the couple was watched by the whole nation. "And who could've thought that Qian was my Chinese teacher in the university." Sudan smiled.

When I asked Qian how Sudan convinced her parents of the marriage, she jokingly said it was because Sudan handed over his first salary to them.

From the first startling dip, onto the top of a view in the roller coaster, it took 8 years to accumulate financial and social capital that eventually rewarded him in starting his own trading company in 2018, after the new policy in Hangzhou was passed to simplify the company registration procedures.

All the way from Bejing, Henan to Guangzhou or north of China, Sudan attended a roster of trade shows to find the right suppliers and other points of interest. Sudan did not study medicine after all. Instead, this ambitious man switched the major to economics, and used the knowledge to make annual sales of over a million yuan. Last year, they finally bought their dream townhouse.

It was fun that on a bus an old gentleman asked him if he knew the "famous Sudan in Xiasha".

"I am just an ordinary person lucky enough to have Qian, and two lovely baby boys Reno and Jony." From a student to a businessman then a father, he played each role at his best.

He is now giving free classes to kids at the community's English corner, and created a WeChat account sharing free stories in English. Sudan would volunteer whenever available, doing every little thing to pay back to the city that accepted him fondly with open arms.