CROSSTALK IN FASHION: Gao Xiaopan (left) crosstalks on the stage (CFP)

"I only sleep for three to four hours each night, and sometimes have to give that up if shooting at night," said Gao, "I am really very tired sometimes and want to reduce the workload. But I know that my presence, which the audience is familiar with, ensures our group's constant development."

There is no certain rule

Old Boys, a 42-minute short movie, swirled on the Internet in 2010. It is the story of two Michael Jackson fans. They played music in school, tried to get to know girls and got married. The scenes in the movie recalled many viewers' memories of growing up. Just within 11 days after it came out, it was streamed 8 million times.

"It is a living memory of our past days," said Xiao Yang, one of the producers and directors of the movie. Born in 1980, Xiao came to Beijing in 1996 from his hometown in Hebei Province with a dream to get into the high school affiliated with the China Central Academy of Fine Arts. He shared a small room in a basement with two other students. After being refused the first year, he tried again.

After graduating from high school in 2001, Xiao went to the Beijing Film Academy to learn directing. In 2007, he met Wang Taili, who is 11 years older than Xiao. Together they made a 6-minute comedy movie Memoirs of a Male Geisha, which became very popular on the Internet.

"I made it for fun at first," said Xiao, who then became a partner with Wang and named themselves "Chopstick Brothers."

"It is quite Chinese and chopsticks also means we won't separate."

LOOK AT ME: Xiao Yang (left) and Wang Taili, known as "Chopstick brothers" on a TV show in Shanghai on January 9 (CFP)

Their works were never shown on TV or at cinemas. "I don't want to follow a certain rule and I don't want to be controlled by other people," said Xiao. "Life is hard already, why should we put more burdens on ourselves?"

Wang Maomao's business started in a more unexpected way.

Wang, whose real name is Wang Liyuan, was born in 1985 and grew up in a single-mother family. When she was a child, she was a very silent girl and liked to draw pictures. "When I became emotional, I really wanted to express it with exaggerated actions, but I didn't dare. So, I drew it on paper."

In 2006, as a sophomore student at the Communication University of China in Beijing, Wang created a cartoon rabbit at random in class. She named it Tuzki and sent it to one of her classmates. One week later, she got the same image from another friend, who said it had become popular on the Internet. Within one month, Tuzki became an online phenomenon and some journalists even contacted Wang for interview appointments.

"I never thought that this rabbit would become so popular," said Wang, who then started to use the rabbit to express her emotions and record her everyday life. "It is like writing a dairy with pictures."

"It doesn't matter whether there is one person or 100 persons interested in my work. It means nothing to me, said Wang. "Actually there are only few people who really care about you. I just want my mom to lead a better life."

In 2007, Motorola Inc. used the Tuzki images to promote its Motorola Q9h smartphone in Asia, touting its Internet and instant messaging capabilities.

In 2009, the book I, Tuzki, U? , a collection of Wang's Tuzki cartoon pictures was published. The eyes of the rabbits are two straight lines. "It is impossible to be happy everyday, so why don't we ignore some unhappy stuff in life and just relax," said Wang.

Compared to other award winners, Lou Nanshi, who was born in 1985 and went to New Zealand at 16, is not as local and has more international experiences.

At the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Lou experimented with four different businesses, including selling clothes and antiques.

In 2008, with two schoolmates from the university, Lou started up her new business in Hong Kong. With a sharp nose for fashion, especially for scents, Lou sells perfume but she makes it in a special way.

"We found the fragrance industry has a lot of potential in China, and after market research we decided to introduce the Demeter brand first," she said.

Demeter is a brand that was established by perfumers Christopher Brosius and Christopher Gable in New York in 1993. After getting a Demeter's distributorship in China, Singapore and Malaysia, the three opened their first store in Beijing's Sanlitun area in November 2009.

Named Fragrance Library, Lou's store smells like an old library. There are cabinets containing drawers of trial fragrances, bottles on bookshelves, and each bottle sold to customers is packaged with a gift box resembling a book.

"We contain many kinds of smells in our everyday life, like the smell of tomato, the smell of dust, even the smell of rotten food. Some are not very good, but they all exist in real life," said Lou. "It is more about evoking emotions and feelings from fragrances than simply selling products to customers. Customers found it very interesting."

"I know that it is not that easy for three young women to start up a business, and I prepared for the worst result," said Lou, "But, after all, we are still young, so there is no need to worry about failure."

"Loving your work is very important," said Lou, who claimed that entrepreneurs born in China after the 1980s are more open to all kinds of viewpoints because of the country's growing economy. "We know how to make the best use of the Internet and many of us have studied abroad."