Amidst the misfortunes of our era and personal trials, I still glimpse life's manifold blessings. Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy — these are the flavors of food; joy, anger, sorrow, delight — these are the tastes of living.
—Yu Hua

We grow accustomed to being awed by kings and weeping for heroes, forgetting that we all ultimately return to the ordinary — to the world of ordinary lives.
—Lu Yao

The Chinese have determined life's true purpose with singular clarity: it lies in cheerful acceptance of fate and the savoring of simple existence.
—Lin Yutang

★By Liang Xiaosheng, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize and author of the original novel "A Lifelong Journey" (adapted into the hit TV series), featured as a key recommendation on CCTV's literary program.

★ Focusing on ordinary lives, portraying common people's stories.
Migrant workers optimistic despite uncertainty about the future, literary youth maintaining resilience through setbacks, Small business owners meticulously navigating life's challenges...The full spectrum of human experiences, with all its joys and sorrows, comes alive through these pages.

★ Understanding contemporary Chinese society, discerning its moral fabric.
Liang documents everyday struggles with a novelist's vivid prose and a social critic's keen insight. From mundane interactions, he extracts profound reflections — celebrating the kindness, tolerance, and fortitude that define humanity, allowing readers to see themselves in these narratives and draw strength from the writer's wisdom.

Liang Xiaosheng's "Four Books on Chinese Humanities Observation" includes:
"An Analysis of Social Strata in China"
"The Character of Chinese Culture"
"The Humanity and Life of the Chinese People"
"The Chinese People: A Look at Daily Life"

This work captures the kaleidoscopic realities of everyday Chinese citizens through Liang Xiaosheng's dual lens — a novelist's narrative flair and a social observer's analytical rigor.
Within these pages emerge: migrant workers clinging to hope amid uncertainty, aspiring writers embracing life's setbacks with humor and shopkeepers practicing frugal diligence...Their collective warmth, generosity, vulnerabilities, and quiet heroism collectively form the nation's emotional temperature.
Liang's chronicles radiate compassion for the marginalized, probing humanity's essence while championing cultural empathy — a relentless inquiry into contemporary China's moral consciousness.

Liang Xiaosheng

He was born in 1949 in Harbin with ancestral roots in Rongcheng, Shandong. He is a renowned contemporary Chinese writer and scholar. Currently, he serves as a senior professor at the School of Humanities of Beijing Language and Culture University, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), and a researcher at the Central Research Institute of Culture and History. To date, he has authored over ten million words of literary works, including essays, novels, commentaries, and documentary literature. His representative works include "Tonight There’s a Snowstorm", "The Rings of Time", and "Educated Youth". In 2019, he won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize for his novel "A Lifelong Journey".

I. Ordinary Virtues and a Nation's Character
Memories of Old Friends / 003
Musings on First Love / 033
The Garden of the Mind / 042
Eternal Regret / 048
Liu Hongfei of Shanghai / 052
Unblemished Reputation / 059
Yangchun Noodles / 065
Ode to Fallen Leaves / 070

II. The Other Half of China
The Bicycle Watchwoman / 079
The Sheepskin Lampshade / 086
The Little Garbage Girl / 093
The Gaunt Old Man / 099
Sister Yushen's Stocks / 118
Three Square Meters of Financial Tsunami / 128
Where Have All the Carpenters Gone? / 136

III. Why Can't We Be Tolerant?
The Tense Alleyway / 147
Consideration for Sons / 161
The Glazier and His Boy / 166
Passengers and the Illegal Cab Driver / 174
Gallery of Paintings / 182
Scenery by the Old Waterwheel / 194

IV. The Journey Back to Humanity
Love and Serendipity / 201
The Child and the Wild Goose / 210
Leaving Home / 217
Who Should Empty the Wastebasket? / 235
Liang Xiaosheng Can't Buy a Sleeper Ticket / 240
The Girl Who Knocked on My Door / 247
My Encounter with a Romantic Youth / 257
Warmth Persists in This World / 265

V. The Ice-Cold Concept
Terrifying Applause / 277
Dali's Death / 280
My Elementary School / 292
The Ice-Cold Concept / 307
Questioning Officials, Questioning Laws — Also Speaking for Farmer Ma Suiyi / 332
Two Kinds of People / 341
Roots of the Mountain / 351
Mini and Bart / 359

On the vast northern lands, March passed like a brash young man in hurried strides. It took almost nothing away and left scarcely any visible traces. March in the north is always thus — as if fleeing from some entanglement, as if shaking off lingering affections, deliberately leaving no impression. It calls to mind Xu Zhimo's verse: "I wave my sleeves, not taking a single cloud with me". Yet March in the north never has pristine clouds to begin with; when its "sleeves" wave, southwestern winds chase northwestern ones across landscapes still dominated by melting ice and residual snow...
Then April arrived with graceful steps.
Compared to March, April resembled an unassuming elder sister. In truth, April in the north simply keeps its warmth restrained. It stores this solemn, understated tenderness in each of its days. As its footsteps wander seemingly aimlessly across the northern terrain, the land awakens patch by patch. Sensing April's faint spring breath, the earth begins its quiet, daily transformation toward vitality. The clouds — dingy from a year's neglect, ignored by March like dust-laden cotton — are gently swept away by April's winds, no one knows where. April ushers in fresh, clean clouds, likely blown up from the south: white, fluffy, as if just rinsed in southern springs and casually hung across the northern sky without even a wring. Snow persists only on mountain backs now; elsewhere, it has melted into cool, glistening streams that seep into the soil. Rivers shed their ice completely. Grass sprouts from the earth. Willow twigs soften from brittleness. Treetops tinge green. And flocks of wild geese, flying by day and resting at dusk, return tirelessly from the south...
On this northern land flowed a river that annually overflowed its banks each spring at a sharp bend, flooding the grassy plains on either side. Come April, these banks transformed into marshlands beloved by returning geese.
Two or three miles from the river stood a village where every household struggled in poverty. The poorest family had a child — exceptionally bright and fiercely devoted to school.
Since age six or seven, he'd often fished by the river. At fourteen, in his second year of middle school, his parents told him with pained resignation, "We can't afford to keep you in school..."
The boy was crushed. Wronged, yet with no one to complain to, he went alone to his usual spot by the river to weep. Children, like adults, seek solitude when hurt. The clever ones, like the strong-willed grown-ups, only shed tears in places others rarely go—places that feel like theirs alone.
It was an April evening. As he cried, his gaze caught a flock of geese gliding gracefully through the twilight. Why can't I be like them? he thought. Goslings need no schooling to grow into full-winged geese. He even wished for death...
Of course, the boy didn't act on it. Returning home, he declared solemnly, "I'll keep studying. I'll become educated." His parents scolded his naivety. "I'll pay my own way", he insisted. They dismissed it as childish defiance.
Yet that year, he stayed in school — funding it himself. From then on, menus in the nearest county town featured "wild goose" dishes. Not in name only: in kitchen after kitchen, geese were chopped, fried, stewed... all supplied by the boy.
When wildlife protection laws reached the county, restaurants discreetly removed "goose" from menus. But cunning owners would whisper, "Want something special? We've got goose." If customers recoiled, they'd laugh it off as jokes. If eyes lit up, fresh or frozen goose meat would hit the chopping block — fresh in April-May, frozen thereafter.
The geese still came from that boy, now enrolled in a top county high school. Dealing with restaurateurs had taught him what he deemed "necessary cunning".
His parents knew his methods. "Son, it's illegal", they warned privately. "Laws are broken everywhere", he countered. "I'm an honor student catching a few geese for tuition — would the law really crack down?" "But geese aren't poultry — they're celestial spirits! This is sinful!" "What choice do I have? I'll make it to university. Should I quit now?" Seeing them silenced, he added, "I know it's wrong. I'll atone my way someday." The restaurateurs probed endlessly for his secret: How did he catch wild geese?