Building a community

In 2018, Cai and his classmate in college, Xu Xudong, who is also hearing impaired, set up LFORU with the aim of creating a community for people with the same condition.

Their first employee was Wei Wei, a native of Liaoning province who was laid off from his job in an animation production company in Shanghai because of his inability to communicate well with his colleagues.

Today, Wei is in charge of making the scented candles at LFORU.

The next hire was 29-year-old Liu Rongfang from Meishan in Sichuan province, who joined the team last year.

For Liu, getting to work at LFORU is akin to a dream come true. She says though she has always harbored a passion for the arts, her college teacher discouraged her from majoring in this subject as a career in this field would require much communication with others.

Liu ended up majoring in food instead.

"I felt sad but didn't know what to do. I even wanted to quit school. But I thought that I should stick to it since I had applied," she says.