Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz narrates the stories of Chinese men and women who live their colorful lives along the Changle Road in Shanghai, the country’s biggest city.
Schmitz's book titled "Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road" highlights the remarkable diversity of people in 21st-century China as they go by their daily lives having various backgrounds and coming from different generations.
Schmitz details it out to David Brancaccio, a Marketplace host: "We in the media tend to focus our China coverage on the country's communist government or on its massive, dynamic economy, but what's often missing from those narratives are real Chinese people.
"I wanted to understand their motivations and their dreams for the future. Because if you can appreciate the people of China as individuals, you can have a better understanding of what is now the second-largest economy in the world, and arguably the most important country for Americans to understand in this day and age."
The book features young CK, a lad in his early 30s who grew up with an abusive parent and a miserable life in one of China's many industrial places. After graduating from a school, CK got a job but later resigned as he embarked on a spiritual journey, according to Marketplace.
Meanwhile, one of the oldest people included in the book also has an interesting life story to tell. Letters found by Schmitz in his parents' belongings read that a man convicted for being a capitalist was placed in a labor camp. His wife reared their seven children in a house located on Changle Road. Their only son now lives in New York, U.S.A., and is aiming to graduate from high school at age 58.
"He never got to know his father. His dad spent most of his life in prison, and when I asked the son if he blamed China's government for what happened, he told me he was angry with his father for not understanding the rules of the day," narrated Schmitz.