Born in the Eighties: I Lead My Family Out of the Shantytown

At the start of 1983, a serious illness shattered the quiet stability of a small courtyard in Wadi. Aunt Chun urgently needed 800 yuan for surgery, leaving six siblings with no blood ties, who depended on one another, at a loss. The eldest was weighed down by family burdens, the second had gone astray, the fourth was naive and ignorant, and the fifth and sixth were still very young. That left the third, Liu Qing, as the family's pillar.

Ever since she was little, people around her had told her that girls should act like girls. Liu Qing didn't understand: what was a girl supposed to be like? She refused to be constrained by conventional prejudice or take crooked paths. Amid the bustle of everyday life, she sought a way to survive, and in the tides of the times, she fought to get ahead. With her resilience and clear mind, she led her family through bitter hardship toward a secure future, rising from the shantytown.