{"id":133548,"date":"2012-03-15T22:16:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T05:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=133548"},"modified":"2012-03-15T22:42:51","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T05:42:51","slug":"the-liu-wen-express","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/03\/the-liu-wen-express\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liu Wen Express"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the New York Times, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/18\/t-magazine\/liu-wen-visits-china.html\"><strong>Christina Larson profiles supermodel Liu Wen <\/strong><\/a>and travels with her back to her hometown in Hunan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8230;Her rise is due in equal measure to the extraordinary moment in China\u2019s history from which she emerged. When Liu was born, in 1988, the daughter of a construction worker, many of the brands she has modeled for \u2014 Dior, Chanel, Jean Paul Gaultier \u2014 were unknown in the country. Beijing was then a sea of bicycles, and thick coal dust in the air darkened both shirt collars and the sky. China\u2019s per capita annual income was just $704<\/p>\n<p>(last year it was $5,184), and only a sliver of the population could afford such luxuries as skin creams and handbags.<\/p>\n<p>With roaring economic growth every year of her childhood, Beijing was transformed by the time Liu moved there in 2006, as an 18-year-old aspiring model. No longer a wasteland of sleepy state-owned department stores, the capital was throwing up stadiums, shopping malls and car dealerships. At the same time, the city had become a magnet for China\u2019s young dreamers \u2014 artists, writers, designers, punk bands, models.<\/p>\n<p>It was into this energetic new world that Liu stepped one November morning after a 20-hour train ride from Yongzhou. She had come alone, clutching two suitcases full of warm clothes and snack foods her mother had packed. That fall, she had won a modeling contest in Hunan; her victory gave her the idea that modeling might be a career, but in no way assured success. She insisted that she\u2019s \u201cnot pretty, pretty, pretty by Chinese standards \u2014 big eyes and small nose and mouth.\u201d She had come on a leap of faith. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the New York Times, Christina Larson profiles supermodel Liu Wen and travels with her back to her hometown in Hunan: &#8230;Her rise is due in equal measure to the extraordinary moment in China\u2019s history from which she emerged. When Liu was born, in 1988, the daughter of a construction worker, many of the brands [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,20,14745,14746,5],"tags":[6284,1049,5778],"class_list":["post-133548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-culture","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-society","tag-beauty-standard","tag-economic-reform","tag-models","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Liu Wen Express<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/03\/the-liu-wen-express\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Liu Wen Express\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For the New York Times, Christina Larson profiles supermodel Liu Wen and travels with her back to her hometown in Hunan: &#8230;Her rise is due in equal measure to the extraordinary moment in China\u2019s history from which she emerged. 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