The Ordinary Majority

The Ordinary Majority tells the story of Wu Di, a rural left-behind child born in the 1990s, and his journey to adulthood. Raised by his grandparents, he goes from the village primary school to the town middle school, repeats a year, and eventually gets into an ordinary first-tier university. He is unremarkable in college, and after graduation, his employer withholds his wages. After several twists and turns, he finally finds a job he likes. Over the next few years, he saves a little over 100,000 yuan, secretly takes out a mortgage to buy a home without telling his family, and spends half his salary on the monthly payments. Content with the way things are, he is happy to be an ordinary person who clocks in and out on time. Through Wu Di’s life, the novel portrays the reality faced by the ordinary majority today: struggling to make ends meet, burdened by mortgage payments, powerless to change their circumstances, and ultimately choosing to make peace with life.