Xiaosheng escaped being buried in history's wrinkles — a fortune he acknowledges. His autobiographical writings reveal this awareness when contrasting himself with the erased. Yet he stands with them, bound by shared fate, to voice their stories.
—Zhang Yiwu, Literary critic

As the common people's advocate, Liang Xiaosheng focuses almost entirely on society's vulnerable. These are not mere objects of pity but stubborn existences resisting injustice in their own ways.
—Chen Xiaoming, Peking University professor

That today's literary landscape still has an idealist as steadfast as Liang Xiaosheng is a blessing for contemporary Chinese literature.
—He Shaojun, Shenyang Normal University professor

★A philosophical essay collection by Liang Xiaosheng — China's literary "evergreen", 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize winner, and original author of the TV series "A Lifelong Journey".
★A cross-generational dialogue dissecting modern spiritual exhaustion and contemporary life's pressure points. With a clear-eyed yet childlike sincerity, Liang guides readers beyond mental burnout to rediscover life's vibrant humanity and their own authentic way of living.
★"A Lifelong Journey" moves readers to tears; "Living Well" compels reflection.
Spanning different historical periods and circumstances, Liang's plainspoken prose captures life's resilience — weathered yet warm. After seven decades navigating China's changes as a "chronicler of ordinary lives", he offers today's anxious generation a spiritual balm.
★Survival isn't enough — one must find one's own way to live.
We live simply to live, transforming pain into forward momentum after embracing life's ordinariness. When darkness convinces "no way out", these essays may part the clouds.

The lasting imprint of family origins...
The dilemma of whether to migrant into megacities or remain in hometown stagnation...
The stifled courage of middle-aged people...
The awkwardness of the elderly...

This essay collection explores life's myriad ways of being.
Opening with "The Beginning: Frame and Brush" — a meditation on how family origins influence but don't define us — the book unfolds through "Classmates" (warm friendships and the author's deep contemplation of life and society presaging "A Lifelong Journey"), "Ode to a Generation" (midlife perseverance against historical tides),
"The Singer on the Bridge" (urban migrants' relentless pursuit of dreams in hard times, revealing the author's admiration for every dream-seeker)
Across eras, Liang diagnoses modern spiritual exhaustion while guiding readers through their mental dilemmas and toward self-rediscovery with sincere words.

Liang Xiaosheng (original name ​​Liang Shaosheng​​) is one of the representative symbols of contemporary Chinese culture and one of the representative contemporary Chinese literary figures. He is also one of the important contemporary Chinese realist writers. He is known as the “writer of the common people” because he is good at focusing on the ups and downs of ordinary people's lives in great times. His works are characterized by a strong sense of reality and a commoner's sentiment. Together with Wang Meng, Lu Yao, Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Tie Ning and others, he has become an important window for observing contemporary Chinese society and cultural trends.

Some readers consider Liang Xiaosheng as the “Chinese Balzac,” because he is committed to writing a “social encyclopedia” and portraying the destinies of people from all walks of life. His works are often used as important texts for studying and understanding Chinese social and cultural developments between the 1980s and 2020s. His work Chinese Peach and Plum is included in the collections of many overseas libraries. His work Father is selected as a textbook for advanced Chinese courses published by the University of Washington Press in the United States.

He has so far created more than ten million words of works, including essays, novels, miscellaneous discussions, and documentary literature. His representative work, The Story of "A Lifelong Journey​", won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize. This novel has a cumulative circulation of more than 2 million copies and are called the “fifty-year history of Chinese people's lives”. The TV drama adapted from it caused a nationwide viewing craze as soon as it was broadcast and set a new record for the prime-time viewership of CCTV (with a total audience scale of 371 million people). Disney purchased the overseas distribution rights of the drama in the first month of its production. His another long novel Snow City is selected into the “70 Classic Chinese Novels of New China's 70 Years”.

His works have been translated into English, French, Russian, Japanese, and Italian. The author was awarded as one of the “Top Ten Writers of the 2024 Hall of Fame Annual Humanities List”. In 2023, he was named as the “Cultural Figure of the Year” among the “2022 Annual Influential People” by China Newsweek. Since 1984, his name has been listed in the "World Who's Who" in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Chapter 1: Youthful Dreams in Passing
The Beginning: Frame and Brush
My Son and I
On Understanding My Son
Classmates
Thoughts on "New Year's"
New Buds, Fresh Joy
The "Ideal" Fallacy
Let Your Youth's Flag Fly

Chapter 2: Doubt and Clarity
What Did My Mother Sow?
Profiling Chinese Women
Educated Youth and Knowledge
Midlife Reflections
Revisiting "Forty Without Doubt"
Alternate Lives, Alternate Bonds

Chapter 3: A Generation's Divergent Paths
Looking Back at "Little Girl"
Fan Shengqi: The Cool Old Man
The Chinese Farmer's Priceless Son
My Take on "Educated Youth"
Ode to a Generation
Becoming a Sponge
Standing Straight Isn't Easy

Chapter 4: The Singer on the Bridge
Dali's Death
The Singer on the Bridge
Musings on "Home"
People Who Love to Read
Reading and Life — A Speech at the National Library
Condemnation Alone Is Not Enough
On "Bearing to See"

Excerpt: "Reading and Life – A Speech at the National Library"

When it comes to reading, I hope children can read more entertaining, joyful, imaginative books from an early age. Children shouldn't watch cartoons merely for amusement.
I hope young people read some history books. They don’t need to start from ancient times, but they should at least read modern and contemporary history, have some basic understanding — this understanding is crucial! When I first started teaching at the university, I considered skipping Chinese literature and creative writing in the first semester, focusing instead on how Chinese people lived from the 1950s to the 1990s — how they made ends meet, how they survived. Back then, a vocational school graduate assigned to a factory earned 18 yuan a month, and it took three years to reach 24 yuan. What were their living conditions when they got married? What did happiness mean in those days?
As a child, I couldn’t wait to grow up. My idea of happiness seems laughable now. Our family lived in a dilapidated Soviet-style house in a Harbin alleyway — sagging windows, a sunken roof. Yet a young couple got married in that very courtyard. They built a tiny, sloped-roof shack — just over ten square meters — against our wall, using handmade mud bricks and yellow clay (cement was a scarce national resource back then). The man saved up wood to build a small double bed and a table. They had no TV, not even a radio — until the husband, like many men of that era, hand-assembled one, crafting the wooden casing himself.
My family didn’t own a radio, so I’d sit on their doorstep, listening to songs and comedy skits from that homemade device. The husband smoked hand-rolled cigarettes; the wife knitted in his arms (yarn was hard to come by then). To me, that was happiness — I dreamed of growing up to have a little home like theirs.
I share this not to romanticize the past, but so today’s youth understand where this nation began. They should know what their parents and grandparents endured. A seats in University doesn’t come easily — parents sacrificed greatly for what this generation have today. Many young people now obsess over "how to live happier", but how many ask, "What gives my parents’ lives meaning?" Had that generation prioritized personal fulfillment, many students wouldn’t be sitting in universities today. This historical awareness matters, it would be such a shame if the kids today don't possess any knowledge of it.
For middle-aged readers, I recommend poetry and essays. We must recognize how hard children struggle today — competition is brutal. We urge them to read beyond textbooks, yet excessive extracurricular reading may jeopardize college admission. Their minds are narrowed to memorization and exams. Understand them—they read pragmatically because they must. But at forty ("when confusion ends"*) or fifty ("knowing heaven’s will"*), read for soul-nourishment. Skip those scheming "imperial intrigue" novels — life isn’t all Machiavellian plots. Take myself as an example, I never read such novels. Women don't read them, therefore, I suggest us men noit to read these works too. By sixty, even politicians can quit such books. Read what moves you, especially works transcending fame and wealth. How much time do you have left?
For seniors, read children’s books. Understand what youths are reading — use their books to bridge generations. Read some children's books, watch some cartoons, and revisit what you read back in the past. There must be some works of Grimm and Andersen that worth rementioning. I feel the younger generation is growing up in profound loneliness, immersed in deep solitude. Parents can seldom serve as playmates during their children's formative years due to demanding work schedules. In kindergartens, how do teachers and caregivers manage the children? First priority: obedience. Second: docility. Beyond that? At most, they teach basic manners, hygiene habits, and lead some nursery rhymes - nothing more. Consequently, during this crucial preschool period, children become restrained; even when playing together, they remain tense and guarded. In a child's developmental journey, the ideal environment would include both older and younger siblings at home, combined with the freedom to play uninhibitedly with neighborhood children - this best aligns with a child's natural instincts. Today's children exist in remarkable isolation and loneliness, collectively developing tendencies toward reclusiveness and introversion. When grandparents read books and establish cross-generational communication, becoming intergenerational friends to these children, the reading experience gains meaning. Without such dialogue during reading, the books remain unfulfilled in their purpose. The true content of books - their wisdom - invariably emerges through this process of exchange and interaction.

*Both are sayings of Confucious.