During my trip in China in August 2011, I came to know a TV drama series named "Chunnuan huakai" (Warm Spring, Flowers Bloom?). It is a life history of a woman, who begins her career at a state-owned factory as a quality inspector around 1990. She gets married with a young engineer who also works at the factory. Both of them start dreaming of living in America to open up new lives. Her husband manages to go to America, but the woman, who gets pregnant just after her husband has succeeded in getting the visa, is left in China with their son. She awaits her husband's invitation from America, but he cannot afford to invite her because he is having trouble making his own living. Then her factory cuts workforce as part of state-owned enterprise reform. She is dimissed from the factory in return for a lumpsum pension. She searches for a new job for some years and ends up becoming a bus conductor. Her mother gets angry because she thinks that a bus conductor is not a respectable job.
That is what happens until the 8th episode. I don't know what happens in the following 25 episodes, but it seems that she will become an entrepreneurs, divorces her husband and gets married with another guy.
Anyway, this drama series shows what has happened in the urban sector of China during the past twenty years through the eyes of an ordinary working-class woman. It shows what I have witnessed and reported as an observer of China.
I am looking forward to watching the rest of the series.
