My name is Chen Xudong, born in Qinghe Town in 1969, an ordinary unemployed young man. I thought that my life would be to take my father's place in the town supply and marketing cooperative and earn a job till I grow old. Unexpectedly, with a transfer order, I was sent to the cotton spinning factory in Fengyunjihui, the county town, where I started as a security worker working three shifts.
I have experienced the glory of the late planned economy and the pain of restructuring state-owned enterprises; in the roar of machines in the workshop, I have learned skills and understood "human feelings"; in the trivialities of room assignment, merit evaluation, and promotion, I have experienced the spiciness and warmth of life.
From the top technician to the secretary of the factory office, from the "left-behind" of a bankrupt enterprise to seizing the opportunity to enter the system, from the county to the city, and then to the provincial capital... Along the way, there are the support of masters, the guidance of nobles, the rejection of opponents, the company of beauties, and countless late nights, the torture of conscience and desires.
Power is both wine and poison; money is both a necessity and an ecstasy. I am like a small boat in the river, carried by the east wind of the times, sometimes ups and downs, sometimes forging ahead. I just want to keep my heart, but the road to success is never left to others. This diary records my scenery and embarrassment, wisdom and helplessness over the past thirty years, as well as the fireworks in the world that never stop cutting things off and turning them into chaos.
