New | Meet the Chinese property tycoon whose museum business brings him joy, fame – and hopefully ‘immortality’
Fan Jianchuan knows he can’t take his wealth with him when he dies, so he wants his name to live on through his cluster of 26 museums
Billionaire Fan Jianchuan is a self-confessed workaholic.
“My work is my holiday,” the 57-year-old real estate developer turned museum owner said.
During his interview with the South China Morning Post, he busied himself replying comments on his Weibo account.
“Weibo is like a diary for me. It’s a self-publicity medium. I frequently interact with my followers,” he said, adding that he updates his 480,000 followers on his daily work at his museums or comments on hot news topics.
Fan has spent the past 12 years building up his Jianchuan Museum Cluster on some 33 hectares of land on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan province.
It is now China’s biggest private museum cluster, featuring 26 museums with exhibits covering the Sino-Japanese War, the Cultural Revolution and Chinese folk culture, among others.
His latest museum, called Evidence of the Japanese War Crime, opened its doors on July 7 – the day the Sino-Japanese war began. Its opening marks the 70th anniversary this year of China’s victory against Japan during the second world war.