TIAN HE GUANG was always fighting with his cousins when he was a little boy. But his cousins were always stronger than him. Then his father told him to go out into the world and earn his own money.
    WU YING JIN just lost her house. The government withdrew the right of usage of the ground from her and gave it to some business people. But she found the right government institution and got a compensation.
    SHEN LEI returned last year to Yinchuan, he had just finished studying at the university. One night he returned to Beijing, a city with a terrible strong competition, which gives you just a few changes.
    REN ZHI was infected with AIDS when she got a blood transfusion in a hospital in Henan. She used to go to school every day in the morning. But since the diagnosis was made her life has changed completely.
    LI JIA is a young man from Yichuan. When he was really young he was confronted with a building that looked like an old factory. This building had no doors but it had many windows which all looked the same.
    ZHANG DONG PING is an engineer from Taiyuan. He looks back to the end of Mao’s reign when the government started to use entry exams; it was a competition that was no less fierce than at the Games.
    HAN SHEN WEI works in Beijing as a welder, he seldom visits his family. But once he went home and he saw that the door was open. But when he walked through the door, there was another road.
    ZHANG HUA MIN took the arm of her ex-boyfriend and walked with him into the church in Shijiazhuang. They had been together for six years, and their parents had been against their relation all that time.
    ZHANG GONG YOU was together with his girlfriend for seven years. After they had split up, she improved her economic situation a lot. He, on the other hand, thinks that he hasn’t reached that level yet.

BELOVED
ASPIRATION
TENSION
SUDDENLY
DISILLUSION
HARDSHIP
MOVEMENT
PERSISTENCE
ACHIEVEMENT
DESOLATION