Back to 1994

Zhang Ying is fifty. Now in middle age, she feels she no longer has the strength to keep up. Her father-in-law and her own father both died of cancer a few years ago, and her two sons have both graduated from university. She found a job that is neither here nor there, and now she worries about both a daughter-in-law and a house. Her husband and she are ordinary wage earners, with neither power nor money. She is getting older, while two sons are waiting for money. Her husband leaves all the finances and responsibilities to her and does nothing around the house. She is exhausted, both body and mind. It feels as though she has lived this life for nothing. She came of age during the decades when the country rapidly rose from poverty to prosperity, yet she neither made money nor bought a home. Sometimes, when she reads novels about transmigration and rebirth, she wonders what she would do if she had another chance. Would she study hard, work hard to make money, or…