Handshake Building

In 2000, the bell of the millennium had just sounded. Tens of millions of young people carried their luggage and headed south. They left mountain villages, small towns and county towns and gathered in rapidly expanding cities. They also lived in the places within reach between the buildings - handshake buildings. Eighteen-year-old Chen Xiaobei came to the Pearl River Delta from western Hunan to work in an electronics factory. During the day, he repeated monotonous and long work on the assembly line; at night, he returned to the narrow rental house, walked through the brightly lit alleys, and joined young people from all over the country to find their own future in the crowded urban villages. Here there is the sweat on the assembly line, the nostalgia in the IC phone booth, the youth in the video hall, the excitement of the first opening of the Internet cafe, the fireworks rising from the night market stalls, as well as love, friendship, parting and dreams. Some people save their first pot of gold and become bosses; some stay in the city and settle down; some return home with regrets; and some disappear forever among the crowd. The handshake buildings contain the youth of a generation; the narrow alleys bear witness to the rise of a city. This is not the history of one person's struggle, but the fate of a generation of workers who went south to fight.