An adventurous spirit is a component of the shrewdness that is typical of southerners. There are other components, too, such as their pursuit of profit and their profound understanding of money. These were at the core of Boo Xinsheng's reform, formed by his experience as a tailor in a small southern town."

In 1956, at the age of 17, Mr. Boo became a tailor, working for the Cartel Sewing Cooperative, which would later become the Haiyan Shirt Factory. He worked there for over two decades. However, for all that time the factory was struggling, and unable even to pay employee pensions.

Feng Haichun, former Secretary to the Director of Haiyan Shirt Factory, said, "It was the first years after the Cultural Revolution. Industrial production was largely anarchic. Many policies, especially the iron rice bowl, discouraged productivity."

In July 1978, the Washington Post published an American reporter's investigation into a Chinese state-owned enterprise. He described the loose regulations thus: "Overstaffing results in little work for the individual worker. I even found three women workers doing nothing but chatting when I arrived."

The American reporter further discovered that jobs in SOEs were inherited. When a worker retired, his or her child could take over. He commented that "The management dared not impose many obligations, as they all belonged to the working class."

In the late 70s, Mr. Boo was appointed director of the Haiyan Shirt Factory, and immediately set about introducing a series of reforms in such areas as business operation, HR, distribution and insurance.

He proposed performance-based bonuses, product research and development, brand marketing, and opening new markets. Many of his ideas were highly original, and ground-breaking. The reforms brought major benefits for the factory and transformed the workers' lives.

1984 was a key year in China's reform and opening. By then the basic economic groundwork had been laid, and there was hope that the process could be accelerated. Early in the year Deng Xiaoping traveled to the south, visiting such cities as Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Xiamen, and signaled an expansion of the reform and opening. Before long, changes were taking place in various fields, and the reform was speeding up.
Xinhua News Agency alone ran 27 reports about him within a month, totaling 34 thousand words. Such major propaganda campaigns were rare after the founding of the PRC. In fact, Bu Xinsheng's case was second only to those of Lei Feng and Jiao Yulu.

In March, at a Seminar of Directors and Managers in Fujian, 55 key personnel from leading SOEs presented a petition in which they demanded more freedom in operating and managing their companies. The petition was first published in the Fujian Daily, and then reprinted in the major newspapers across the country. It came to the attention of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic Systems, and suddenly the word "freedom" became synonymous with reform.

Boo's reforms were carried on by the entrepreneurs who followed him years later. Ma Shengli, director of the Shijiazhuang Paper Factory, claimed: "I began my reform following the example of Boo." Lu Guanqiu, a renowned Zhejiang-based entrepreneur, also said: "Only through reform conducted the Mr. Boo way, can we run a factory well."