Enjoying free admission, popcorn and drinks, students as well as people of the community attended a documentary film about the company alibaba.com and the struggles the creator, Jack Ma, went through to gain success.
As a part of the Atlanta Asian Film Festival, the Center for Diversity and Inclusion showed “Crocodile in the Yangtze” in the Campus Center Ballroom on Oct. 17. The documentary was written, directed and produced by an American and employee of Ma’s, who worked for him for eight years. The documentary depicts the struggles of China’s first global internet company and the struggles Ma faced to gain success for the company internationally. Only then did they become profitable. Ma fought to keep the company’s services free until they became international.
The history of alibala.com includes a battle with America’s big company, eBay and their fight to control dominance in the Chinese market. The company established a bridge between China and international markets involving the ever changing internet.
“It was a good experience learning about China’s first internet company,” said Malcolm Yates, a student at UWG. “It surprised me that it even got into a competition with eBay.”
During the film, it is learned that Ma doesn’t want the company to be easily influenced by the world. He wants to stick to their culture, dreams and responsibilities as humans.
“I love Jack Ma’s positive attitude throughout all of his struggles,” said Jennifer Smith, another UWG student. “He proudly fought to keep alibaba.com a free site for users until they became respectively profitable as an international business.”
Throughout the evening, many audience members laughed at scenes that depicted Ma as a crazy, funny and laughable guy who loves to dance and have a good time. Because of this, he has received many journalism stories about this topic and in the film one hears him say in a speech, “I’m glad they think I’m crazy. That makes me and this company different.”
His success story has brought great change to the market and internet use of China. The Chinese government agreed with his dreams and decisions in business because he was a major job creator, working with companies such as Yahoo.
“The lady introducing the film said ‘Jack Ma reminds me of Steve Job’s story of successes,’ and I couldn’t agree more,” said Jeff Hoyle, a resident of the Carrollton community.
A questionnaire was distributed asking questions about whether they had learned more about China and their international marketing. Another question asked if there should be more films shown like this. Many students marked that they agreed.
“This film is a true showing of mistakes, regressions and success,” said Steven Brooks, a UWG student.
