The Iron-Colored Ladder

In 1984, vocational school students Feng Xuhui, Han Xiaobo, Cao Xiangrong, Su Yunshang, and their classmates had their job placements changed because of vision problems. Instead of being assigned to the train driver program, they were sent to the railway maintenance section to repair tracks. As Dinggang underwent reform, differences in personality, ambition, and outlook on life sent each of them along a different path, with their fortunes rising and falling before they reached very different destinations. When many people felt uneasy about working on the railway, Feng Xuhui threw himself into his work out of spite toward his family, pushing himself almost to the point of self-abuse to make them feel guilty. In doing so, he won the respect of his supervisors and veteran workers. His beautiful handwriting earned him recognition when he copied the team’s work log, revealing a talent he had not known he possessed. He was put in charge of printing the youth league publication, The Ladder. As the publication helped steady the ranks of young workers and made a positive impact across the factory’s youth league System, Feng Xuhui stood out from the crowd. The novel portrays the struggles, friendships, and romances of Feng Xuhui and the other young people, reflecting the growing pains and conflicts experienced by state-owned enterprises as they shifted from a planned economy to a market economy. People of different temperaments follow different paths of struggle and face different prospects and destinies. The Iron Ladder symbolizes the railway beneath railway workers’ feet. It is also the title of The Ladder, a youth league publication produced by young workers in the railway maintenance section, and represents the steps people climb in pursuit of a better life.