A Wanderer's Hesitation

The tides of the times surged onward, and factories sprang up across the south.

Countless people said goodbye to their hometowns, boarded green trains bound for the south, and joined the vast tide of migrant workers. They built the cities' prosperity, yet remained travelers with nowhere to call home.

This book has no extraordinary encounters and no feel-good comeback.

Through the life of Liu Qingfeng, it chronicles the real ups and downs of a generation of migrant workers. It follows a young man who enters a factory with little understanding of the world as he moves from city to city, works in traditional industries, explores emerging ones, and grows into a middle-aged man carrying the weight of his family. He witnesses industries rise and fall, and struggles to make choices in the narrow space between earning a living, supporting his family, and pursuing his ideals.

A life spent wandering is that of a wayfarer; caught between countless impossible choices, one can only feel lost.

This is a portrait of the compromises, stubbornness, and perseverance of ordinary people, and a tribute to everyone who left home and fought to make a life in a changing age.