April Featured People: Rah Xu

Xindanwei April Featured People: Rah Xu

This month at Xindanwei, our monthly featured co-worker for the new section “People” goes to young Chinese entrepreneur Rah Xu. Rah quit his decent full-time job from a 4A advertising company and launched his own event management company named Côte-à-Côte about one year ago, and has since then started his long-term relationship with Xindanwei. “I like Xindanwei, and that is mostly because of the people here. The physical environment is appealing already, while what actually keeps me here are the people, which we call co-workers in a Xindanwei style term.”

The route Rah has picked up – getting away from the big company and starting up on his own – is not a rare case among young Chinese. They got bored from the repeating daily jobs, and came up with an ambition that they could work the job out more efficiently if they work independently. Rah is the kind of the guy that steps forward without hesitation when an idea comes to his mind. Côte-à-Côte was thus founded.

It was not an easy way to go, however. Rah was not really fully prepared for his quick start. He was motivated with passion but without a solid conception. During a long time, Rah felt lost in finding a way out – he basically accepted all the commissions he could get without a second option of what he really wanted to work on, which was not exactly what he expected. At times, he got some inspiration and sources from the platform of Xindanwei, “but they don’t always work for my problems,” Rah said.

However, Rah is not the kind of ambitious careerist who is desperate in achieving the never stopping business success. The starting of the undertaking is merely another way of making the living, which is rather a required need than a personal pursuit. Rah has his interest in other aspects of life. He believes in that one’s interest should be kept away from what he makes for a living. He tries hard to maintain the purity of his true fond. And the solution he finally figured out is rather sensitive – If he has to compromise in order to make a living with what he loves, he would rather not to do that. He would rather separate the two businesses with two different attitudes and from two different points of view.

Rah wrote a novel during his college years, which was published by Shanghai Literature And Art Publishing House. “No repercussions, it was like nothing actually happened,” Rah confessed his concern on the status quo of the literary and art field in China, “There is a rare chance that a literature writer, especially a young writer, would be able to make a decent living solely by writing. And this is not just about the physical living, but about the spiritual feed as well.” He could almost foresee himself somewhat being trapped in a dilemma if he ever put himself into the professional author career. He would rather not to try. “What I’ve picked is the easier way for me.” Rah said.

Currently, besides Côte-à-Côte, Rah is conceiving and preparing a new project about sharing and broadcasting creative info through blog, which will call up a team of contributor collective for the regular updatings. “It’s still under conception,” Rah said, “My starting point is to create a read-worthy, high quality and intensively updated info blog focusing on creative technology and design. It is not for profit, at least not designed for it. I don’t know where it would go and how far would it be, I would certainly like to eventually connect it with my current business Côte-à-Côte, but until now I don’t see the connection yet.” So this is Rah, a Gemini who separates his dream and reality in two routes, two routes côte-à-côte, yet nonetheless uncrossed. Xindanwei takes it as its responsibility to do something for Rah and more Rah-like young people in the country on their way merging the dream and reality together.

Rah’s new project will be launched through Xindanwei platform in near future.

Tagged as: people