Chinese Life: Bitter-Sweet Portraits 1991-2008

This book contains 87 interviews reflecting a wide range of personal experiences between 1991 and 2008. The interviewees come from different occupations and different places. They include a jaz player in Heilongjiang Province, a rock-and-roll drummer in Tibet, an elderly fruit farmer in Shanxi Province, a Bejing boss just 14 years old, a retired 68-year-old man who ventured alone in Africa, a college student who has adopted a younger sister despite poverty and hardship, and a woman entrepreneur who ranked No. 1 on Hurun China Rich List.
Their stories present the real lives of Chinese people since the 1990s. In the course of the great social transformation brought about by reform and opening up, in their pursuit of well-off lives the Chinese people have striven to maintain their traditional virtues of a simple lifestyle and unselfishness. They have clung to their traditional culture while absorbing new and foreign cultural sustenance. All the interviewees related their experiences, joys, sorrows, challenges, grievances and hopes in a candid way.