Li Anli got fed up with her work as an Air China stewardess. She had had enough of serving green tea to tired Chinese businessmen and trying to stop them getting up before the plane taxied to a halt, which they always do.
She quit and started her own business, a trading company based in Shanghai.
It prospered. She became rich. And now Ms Anli has fulfilled her wildest dream. She has bought her own private aircraft, the first woman to do so in the People's Republic.
Ms Li recently took delivery of a $500,000 Bonanza A36 luxury single-engine aircraft for her own exclusive use.
The former stewardess has joined a growing number of Chinese who have followed the maxim of former leader Deng Xiaoping that "it is glorious to be rich". Her purchase was reported in the official media as a glorious piece of news.
So too was a list published on Friday of China's 50 richest business people. All but one or two said they were happy to be included, despite the deep-seated reluctance in China to make details of private wealth available to jealous compatriots and avaricious officials.
The list, published by Forbes Global magazine, is a measure of how fast the rich are becoming richer in this supposedly Communist country. When it was first compiled last year the bottom person was worth just $6 million. This year the cut-off figure was $42 million.
The person to squeeze into 50th place shows just how the vagaries of the political winds can decide the fate of individuals. Mr Yin Mingshan (50) spent 20 years in prison or doing forced labour as punishment for his capitalist tendencies. He is now the country's leading motorcycle dealer.
Top of the list is Mr Rong Yiren (84) China's most famous "red capitalist". Worth an estimated $1.9 billion, Mr Rong is founder of the CITIC investment conglomerate and a scion of the wealthiest family in China before the Communists came to power in 1949. Plus ca change . . . The second richest Chinaman, worth $1 billion, is Mr Liu Yongxing, who made his money in animal feed. Third comes former People's Liberation Army officer Mr Ren Zhengfei, who is worth a cool $500 million. Mr Ren (56) founder of the telecom equipment company Huawei Technologies, instils in his sales personnel the aggressive corporate idea that they must behave like a "pack of wolves".
Like the wealthiest people on the Forbes 500 list in the United States, these rich Chinese are mostly entrepreneurs in their own right. Most started up with money from families and friends rather than from China's banks, which devote most of their assets to bank-rolling failing state enterprises. They do not include the "princelings" who made fortunes through corrupt party or military connections, or by hijacking state companies, according to Mr Rupert Hoogewerf, who compiled the list for Forbes.
The 14 high-tech and Internet entrepreneurs who got onto the index this year mostly had to raise venture capital overseas, among them Netease creator Mr William Ding, who at 29 is the youngest in the top 50.
China's seriously rich are still only a tiny percentage of the population, but they are growing in number and form a privileged upper class in a society founded on the principle of egalitarianism. Like their counterparts in other countries some are drawn to politics. Twelve of the top 50 have become members of the National People's Congress, the unelected legislature that formalises the policies of the Chinese Communist Party.
For these capitalists it may be a case of "If you can't beat them, join them", but the party is also happy to co-opt them into the charade which passes for national political debate in China. "It's a pragmatic approach - when there's a local bigwig, they feel he should be represented in the NPC," Mr Hoogewerf said.
The multi-millionaires are also creating a demand for the lifestyle of the rich and famous in a country where over 100 million people live on less than a dollar a day. They travel the world, wear gold watches, invest in real estate, buy Ferraris, acquire thoroughbred horses (Beijing's Ferrari dealer has raced horses at the Curragh), and like the former stewardess Ms Anli, aspire to private planes.
The first owner of his own aircraft, Mr Zhang Yue, who made his money from air-conditioners, already has a small fleet of three Bell helicopters and a jet aircraft from Cessna. Now that the Civil Aviation Administration has given its blessing to privatised air travel, the era of the corporate jet is dawning in Red China.
Socialism with Chinese characteristics - the current official ideology - means apparently that for the rich, the sky is the limit.