Ten Years on the Ground: The Rise and Fall of a Builder's Family

The Earth in Ten Years: The Rise and Fall of a Construction Family follows the fortunes of Zhang Jianguo, a construction foreman, and his family, portraying the rise and decline of China’s civil engineering and construction industry from 2014 to 2024. In 2014, Zhang Jianguo’s career was thriving, his wife Li Xiulan enjoyed a comfortable life, and their son Zhang Rui attended a private school. But as the industry’s golden age faded, Zhang Jianguo took on high-risk projects in a reckless expansion and went deeply into debt to build a villa in the countryside. After a period of silence, Zhang Jianguo searched for hope with his longtime coworkers, founding the Master Craftsmen Cooperative and adapting to the new era by changing what they had to offer. Li Xiulan went from a wealthy housewife to a waitress and then a supervisor, her outlook changing along the way. While working part-time to ease the family’s financial burden, Zhang Rui studied the people behind the skyscrapers, not just the steel and concrete. He hopes to draw more attention to construction workers as a group and earn them the respect they deserve.