Gallery: Families Pose Next to Everything They've Ever Bought Online
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Liu Jun and his family live in Inner Mongolia. They started shopping in 2012. He has since spent more than 30,000 yuan on the shopping site Taobao.
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Li Nian lives in Beijing. The 26-year-old started shopping online in 2007 and likes to buy model planes.
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Mao Hongwei is 48 years old and lives in Yuanling, Tonglu County, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. His first online shopping experience was in 2014 when Taobao ran a special promotion. He has since used the Internet to purchase all the furniture and provisions for his new house.
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Jia Yuhao and Lu Xuefeng are both in their thirties and live in Lhasa, Xizang province. They’ve been shopping online since 2005 and now purchase roughly 80 percent of their belongings on the web, including the sleeping bags they’re wearing.
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Gyatsoling Rinpoche is a 25-year-old Tibetan monk. He lives at Pinto Lin Temple in Changdu, Tibet. He started shopping online last year and uses the Internet to buy goods like butter lamps and candles that he uses at the temple.
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Wang Yafeng lives in Mohe County, Harbin, Heilongjiang province. The 28-year-old started shopping in 2009. He says he has spent over 220,000 yuan on the online shopping site Taobao.
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Thirty-four-year-old Aer Yingming and her family started shopping online in 2008. They live in the Gucheng District of Lijiang, Yunnan Province. She told Qinjung that there’s something from the online shopping site Taobao in every corner of her house.
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Mahmoodjan and his wife live in Kashgar, Xinjiang. The 28-year-old started shopping online in 2006 and has since purchased a Kindle and iPhone online, among several other items.
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Lu Qunzhi is 43 years old and lives in Baisha Village, Lijiang, Yunnan province. He’s a farmer and told Qinjung that his two brothers bought him an irrigating machine online.
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Twenty-eight-year-old Huang Jianguang lives in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County, Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He buys bicycle parts on Taobao and builds the bicycles himself. He’s spent some 40,000 yuan online to support his cycling hobby.
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Sun Bin is 31 years old and lives in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. He has spent more than 550,000 yuan in the past six years on home decor and other items through shopping sites like Taobao.
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Zhang Boya lives on Chaoyang Park Road in Beijing. She is 28 years old and first began shopping online in 2009. Since then she has purchased 80 percent of her furniture, including lamps and lanterns, online.
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Liu Chunxiao lives with her family in Ji’an County, Tonghua, Jilin province, near the border of China and North Korea. Since 2012, she’s been shopping online, mainly buying toys and clothes for her son.
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