"Thirty Years in the World" is a contemporary Chinese social epic that spans thirty years. With a cold and tender writing style, it outlines the struggle, loss and perseverance of Zhao Yong, Lin Jing's family and their surrounding characters in the torrent of the times.
The story begins with the collapse of a five-year-old girl, Zhao Ya, at a piano exam, revealing the anxiety and suffocation of urban middle-class families in the educational arms race. His father Zhao Yong is facing a middle-aged unemployment crisis in the workplace, while his mother Lin Jing is deeply trapped in the identity myth of a "chicken baby" mother. At the same time, Zhao Xiaojun, a nephew from the countryside, carried the family's hopes of being admitted to a prestigious school, but fell into the dilemma of "unemployment upon graduation" after graduation; while Zhang Hao, who came from a well-off family, seemed to have a smooth path, but he could not escape the emptiness and confusion of his arranged life.
The novel follows the three families of Zhao, Lin, and Zhang, from the struggle for the starting line of early childhood education, to the single-plank bridge of the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination, to the survival game after college graduation, to the twilight years of mid-life crisis and the heavy pressure of retirement. It not only profoundly depicts "education anxiety", "midlife crisis" and other social issues that sting a generation, but more importantly, it always captures those immortal "glimmers of humanity" in this endless cruel reality.
"Thirty Years in the World" is not only a mirror that reflects reality, but also a hymn dedicated to every ordinary person who paddles hard in ordinary life. It tells us that life may be a difficult struggle, but when we illuminate each other, we can gather into a boat and sail through the stormy waves of fate to our own, peaceful shore.
Purpose: In the era of "educational involution" and "class solidification", this book deeply asks "what is a meaningful life" through the intertwined fate of three families. It is not simply "selling anxiety", but depicts the struggle, loss and resilience of ordinary people under the pressure of the system with cold strokes, and attempts to find the "glimmer of humanity" derived from family affection, dignity and reflection on a single theory of success in the cruel reality, and ultimately reveals: Human beings The value of life may not lie in reaching a certain "success" defined by society, but in being able to protect your inner softness and retain the courage to struggle forward even if you are stuck in the quagmire, and in the process rediscover the most precious ordinary light that is obscured by anxiety.