Most Chinese remember this photo, taken by Xie Hailong who was a photographer for the China Youth Daily in 1991. The girl in the photo is Su Mingjuan, who became a spokesperson for the Hope Project, a government-funded quasi-NGO that funds education for children from poor families. After the photo was taken in 1991, people started calling Su Big Eyes.
The photo was featured in an ad campaign that helped Project Hope to get sponsorship from both charity organizations and large corporations like Motorola.
This summer Su, now 20 years old, has been doing an internship at Motorola. She’ll graduate from university in a year’s time.
Yesterday, a Beijing News photographer captured Su selling newspapers on a Beijing street to help pay her university fees (pictured on the front page reproduced here).