Xie Chuanqin

Xie Chuanqin

Birth	1967
Associated Brand(s)	An*Tai*Na

Xie Chuanqin (谢传琴) was born in Yangzhou, China in 1967. She is best known as the founder of An*Tai*Na.

Life and Career

Xie Chuanqin was born in 1967. She is eldest of 4 children, with a younger brother and younger twin sisters. When she was young, her sisters became ill and developed a kidney disease. The family was deeply impoverished, and could not afford to pay her 1 yuan elementary school fee. In 1979, at the end of her first year of junior high school, she dropped out of school to support her family doing farm work for 3 cents a day. She later got a job working as an apprentice in a hand-weaving factory where she wove wicker flower baskets, and the wage was 30 cents per day. In order to earn more money she worked multiple jobs and did odd jobs like street sweeping, child care work, cleaning work and sold clothing in a street stall.

In 1988 a well off relative opened a factory in Kunshan and helped her get a job there. She was recognized as a hard worker for putting in extra effort cleaning up after work, and was promoted to a team lead position, and was given training on the machines. She stayed with a family in Kunshan, and they tried to help set her up with a husband, but everyone they introduced her to was unsuitable, and eventually they told her she was too old. She was 21. At 23 she went home to visit her parents, and brought lots of gifts, but the people of her hometown gossiped that she must be working the streets to earn so much, and she became depressed. Eventually, at 26, all her sisters were married and her grandmother began to pressure her, so she decided she would marry any man just to be married. She married a man who was 12 years older than her and from a modest background, assuming that he would therefore treat her well. At first he was polite, but when she became pregnant after they were married, he started cheating on her. 1996 when her son was two years old, her husband opened a shoe factory in Shanghai and became even more popular with women. In 1999 she moved to Taiwan and gave birth to her second child, a daughter. When she returned two years later, she found her husband had taken a mistress who was pregnant with his child. But she had been raised to give deference to the male head of the family, and did not even consider the possibility of getting a divorce. They continued to argue about the affair and eventually she decided she needed to become self reliant.

She sold her house in Shanghai and bought land in Kunshan where she opened her own shoe factory. However, her husband became a drunk and wouldn't let her leave. He mismanaged the factory causing her to lose 1.8 million yuan and she had to sell the factory in 2007 to cover the loss. This finally pushed her to pursue a divorce, but her husband had a stroke before the paperwork could be finalized and she felt it would reflect poorly on her character in the eyes of her elementary school aged children if she went through with it, so she decided not to divorce him and paid to care for him for the next 14 years instead.

After selling her factory, she had an outstanding 1 million yuan shoe order from a Japanese company that hadn't shipped yet, so she used the money from the sale of the factory to set up a small shop at her home selling those lolita shoes, but the shoes didn't sell. The shoes weren't popular in China at that time. She met someone who was going to sub-lease the shoe shop from her to open a restaurant, but ultimately their deal fell through. The girl liked the shoes, so she gave her a few pairs and the girl suggested that she sell them on Taobao.

According to an interview in Southern People Weekly (南方人物周刊), in 2008, she opened her online store. A interview ThePaper however, puts this at 2007. It's unclear what the exact date is. The NanaLolita antaina taobao shop says it was opened October 21st 2006, while the Love is Blind antaina taobao shop says it was opened May 7th 2008. There was not much competition, and the shoes sold well online to the budding Chinese lolita market. She recruited new staff and designed new shoes, specializing in thick soled platforms and high heeled lolita shoes. For the first 10 years, she worked from 7am-2am every day. For the first year, there were only 3 people working in the shop, one doing the uppers, one doing the soles, and Xie Chuanqin doing the sales, management and everything else. After a year, she hired a second person to help her because it was too much for one person.

A typical day in her life involves sending out the orders that are going to be made that day in the morning, doing customer service for the online shop, cooking the workers a noon meal, and then more work in the afternoon continuing until 9pm when the workers leave for the day. After that, she takes care of the shop and puts goods on the shelves. In a 2021 interview she said "I haven't even had time to cry in the past ten years."

She has had a customize option in the online shop from the beginning, mainly for people with large feet. In a 2021 Chinese language interview with Southern People Weekly (南方人物周刊), she states that in 2013, someone asked if they could order a pair of shoes with different platform heights. A different 2021 article in English in the South China Morning Post tells the story of a man who arrived at her home asking for help. He had been in an accident and ended up with a disability that caused his legs to be two different lengths. He had used carboard and tire rubber to try to raise one of his shoes 5cm. She says she immediately fixed his shoes on the spot and he wept with thankfulness and suggested she offer this service to others.

This opened her eyes to a need in her community, and according to an interview in Southern People Weekly (南方人物周刊), she began to offer a service where she would change the soles of existing shoes to two different heights for just 100 yuan (versus the 300-400 yuan she charges for a new pair of shoes). In an English language article in South China Morning Post, it's reported that she charges just 10-20 Yuan for this service, and will do additional adjustments for free. Over the span of 8 years, she said in a 2021 CCTV interview that she has helped over 2000 people, and in a 2021 South China Morning Post interview she states she has helped over 3,000 people with some living as far away as Russia.

She also has made shoes worn by Japanese girl group AKB48.

In 2019 she gave over most of the work to her apprentices, but held out making these specialty shoes herself to make sure the service continues, however in 2021 she said plans to fully retire and turn over even this part to her apprentices over the next two years.

She was introduced to lolita via her customers, and started to wear the style herself after her daughter was uninterested in it. It has become her daily style and she has a wardrobe of about 20-30 dresses, and 70 pairs of shoes. She says she doesn't care if people criticize her, she just likes these clothes.

In 2022, she gave a TED Talk in Chinese about her life story.

External links

• TED Talk: Second life after 50 years old – Chinese audio
• TED Talk: Second life after 50 years old – Youtube mirror, Chinese audio
• 暖心！55岁lo娘帮2000残疾人改鞋 – Video about her custom height shoes