Zhang Xingrong is a voluntary editor of Netscape's Open Directory Project (dmoz.org). He receives a monthly check of about $100 from Google for its ads on China Pig Breeding Net (pig.org.cn), the first website that pops up when one googles "pig breeding" in Chinese. He is the site's initiator, programmer, operator, as well as its discussion forum webmaster. Apart from that, he is a session researcher at Hunan Unicom for which he gets about 400 yuan ($53) a month. He's all that, and a farmer who breeds pigs in a Chinese village for a living.

After passing junior high school, Zhang joined the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and was a field soldier posted in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province for three years. He began breeding pigs after leaving the PLA in 1997, when rising pork prices prompted many people in his village to the same. His father was one of them; he built two sties that the Zhangs now use.

He found a job in a pig farm in Changning, where he worked till it set up an office in Guangzhou and sent him there in 1999. He returned three years later to join his family business.

Good news awaited him back home. New Wellfull, a big pork producer, rented land from his father to raise pigs in the village. But the company was unable to pay in time, and left nearly 2,000 pigs and the pig farm to his father. The sons inherited them. But Zhang's lack of managerial know-how cost him dear, and he went bankrupt by 2004.

But by that time, pork price had begun rising - reaching 10 yuan a kg. Zhang decided to start all over again. That was August 2004, and he succeeded this time.

Zhang taught himself how to use a computer. He began surfing the Internet like most youngsters in cities, and applied to be a Chinese editor for Open Directory Project. He had to wait for months before being accepted as the "only farmer editor". By then, he had developed a much more thorough knowledge of the Internet, and the desire to communicate with other pig breeders compelled him to open his own website, Pig Breeders Cooperative.

His daily routine: waking up early in the morning, washing the pigs four times a day, feeding them twice, updating his website (now renamed China Pig Breeding Net), communicating with breeders and wannabes on his discussion forum, talking with others in the profession, as well as a number of computer geeks on his two online chatting groups, and editing some copies. He sets apart some days to carry out research for Hunan Unicom.

Zhang is thankful to his wife for taking care of their two kids, and his younger brother for helping him in the business since late 2005.

(China Daily 08/15/2007 page12)