Ordinary Folk

At five thirty in the morning, the iron gates of the market roll open. Shoes click through the underground parking garage of an office building. White steam rises from a breakfast stall at the mouth of an alley. These little sounds trace the city’s true pulse.

The dust of the times may weigh as heavily as a mountain on an ordinary person, but there are always people quietly holding them up. Zhang, the hardware-store owner, has arranged his shelves at three in the morning for twenty years to put his daughter through medical school. Li works as a stock clerk by day and studies accounting at night, finding her own way forward despite her husband’s disability and the family’s hardship.

Under the same roof, affection takes root and grows. The elderly couple at the repair shop bicker over what to eat, yet they’re willing to sell a jade bracelet to help their son. Young couples under the crushing weight of daily life may argue, but still remember to make breakfast for each other afterward.

Parents worry about their children’s education, waiting outside tutoring centers, yet when their children face setbacks, they remember their own childhood. Life’s hardest blows often come without warning. One accident or serious illness can drain the savings of three generations. A round of layoffs can leave a polished executive fighting back tears on the subway. Yet you can always find someone setting up a makeshift stove amid the rubble, cooking a steaming pot of hope with their last handful of dried noodles; someone folding a layoff notice into a paper boat and setting sail again with dreams still unfulfilled. The resilience of ordinary people grows like weeds, tenaciously taking root in the cracks between concrete and steel.

This book has no legends or melodrama, only soy milk and fried dough sticks, the lights of countless homes, people rushing about, and hands reaching out to support one another. These everyday moments are vivid footnotes to our times. Turn the page, and perhaps you’ll see our story in them.