Daily Life

Cities were always so noisy, their streets packed with traffic and their roads buzzing with voices. Even though it was already winter in the south, the streets remained lively. That was the mark of a big city: lots of people.

With his hands clasped behind his back, Wang Yan strolled alone along the straight sidewalk, utterly relaxed. It had been a long time since he had taken such an easy walk, and he was enjoying it now.

Without question, the present environment was better than it had been decades ago, when war raged and no one knew whether they would survive from one morning to the next. Perhaps it was even beyond what those before them had dared to imagine. This greatness had been forged through the arduous struggle of three generations.

For a nation to develop, it always had to face all kinds of problems, both external and internal. There was a term for it: "growing pains." They were inevitable in development and reform. The phrase sounded light, but when it fell upon reality, it became a mountain too heavy to move. No one wanted to be the one in pain. Still, no matter what, life was always getting better. Even in a fifth-tier city, serving dishes at a restaurant could get you room and board plus a monthly salary of three thousand yuan—enough to keep you from starving. Decades ago, that had already been the life people dreamed of.

But times developed, society progressed, and the contradictions people faced kept changing. Such comparisons clearly meant little. What remained unchanged, however, was the spirit of hard work and struggle.

Perhaps the many contradictions in modern society had made many people resent the notion of hard work and struggle. And they had every reason to resent it, because when many