Recorded in this book are the personal stories of 13 ordinary Chinese who come from all walks of life, including a dedicated teacher, a retired photographer who, unwilling to stay idle, makes continued contributions to society, a public interest lawyer, a service person, a casual laborer, a stock trader, an intellectual and two journalists. Despite their different backgrounds and jobs, they all devote themselves to realizing their life values, achieving their ideals and pursuing their dreams.

An Dun (the pen name of Zhang Jieying) is a reporter for the Beijing Youth Daily. She began working on her case studies on the “emotional state of modern Chinese people” in 1995. Her book series Absolute Privacy—Personally Told Stories About the Emotions of Modern Chinese People include Absolute Privacy, Going Home, Love Letter, The Meeting of Strangers, Without Taboo, and Written on the Moon. Her essay collections Verb An Dun, Rain from Heaven, and her novels Fragments of Desire, Burning Love, Love You and Harm You were all bestsellers. The film Life and Death Plunder based on her novel of the same title was awarded the top prizes at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, 2005 Kerala State International Film Festival, the 5th Tiburun International Film Festival, and the 16th Asian and Latin American Film Festival. The film We, with An Dun as its scenarist, won the prize for “Best Television Film” at the 2005 China Film Golden Rooster Awards. She began her interviews for the book series of The Chinese Dreams in 2007. So far the first and the second books of the series based on these interviews have been published under the titles of Real-Life Stories of the Young in Contemporary China and Real-Life Stories of the Common People in Contemporary China.