Synopsis

Some twenty classmates look back over the past, tracing a 30-year history. One after another adapts to the random events that shaped their lives, to the four seasons of life and nature. These descendants of mine workers graduated in 1978 from Tongchuan Coal Mine Middle School in Sha’anxi. The years they were about to experience coincided with the reform and opening up of China. Floating in the changes of the New Era, some experience compromises and the loss of ideals, whilst some keep struggling ahead with great determination. Thirty years later, Lin Xin encounters his old classmates, and records their individual lives and histories; the ease of monotony, the loneliness of success, the weariness of a life of plenty, the helplessness of poverty… all are identifiable in the lives of this group of people, becoming an archetype of the lives of ordinary people in small to middle-sized cities in this era, and at the same time reflecting on a generation that advances forward undefeated.