It's Great to Be a Billionaire but you Better Speak Mandarin to Say Congratulations!

A list of the world's twenty richest self-made women was released today and surprise of all, most of them are from China. Mainland China, at that. Only eight of the twenty are not Chinese.

Among them, are Zhang Yin, a big manufacturer of container-board products, weighing in at a $5.6 billion self-worth, making her the world's wealthiest entrepreneurial woman. The industries in which they made their money are varied: publishing, semiconductors, real estate, landscaping, steel manufacturing, media, eyeglasses and my favorite, a woman who founded the largest producer of collagen sausage casings. That one really caught my eye. She's number #19 on the list.

Author JK Rowlings of Harry Potter fame is #20. A British "Dame" who manufactures eyeglasses made the list. Russian mogul Yelena Baturina makes pre-fab housing. Giuliana Benetton, clothing. There are only four Americans on the list: Oprah, Meg Whitman, Doris Fisher and Ruth Parasol.

Oprah, a household name here, needs no introduction. Meg Whitman, for those not on the west coast, is the Republican nominee currently running for Governor of the great state of California against tried and tested Jerry Brown. Meg made her fortune at eBay, with some stops at Goldman Sachs, Disney and other giants along the way.  Doris Fisher, along with her husband, founded Gap. She is now in her 90s but still embraces the business world.

Ruth Parasol, at 43, is the youngest of the Americans. She spring-boarded her father's million-dollar phone-sex business into an online gambling empire becoming a billionaire with partygaming.com in 2001. Her stateside partying business was cut short after a few years when the government decided to take measures against online gambling. She fled to Gibraltar where she now lives with her husband and kids. They say if she comes back to the US she could face a trial.

Imagining that the paths those twelve Chinese women had to follow was one crooked road, I am wondering exactly what they had to endure to reach the top. How did most of them even make it in a country known to abandon girls? To only allow one child per family? Are their mothers proud of them or do they think they lead misguided lives? Are they able to enjoy their money and live freely?

However they did it, I say, "congratulations" or however one says that in Mandarin or Cantonese.