His book is a look at how the people in his old street in Shanghai live, and how their lives have been changed by the huge developments in Chinese politics over the past fifty or so years. The peasants in old China often lived a terrible life, if not because of wars, then from droughts, floods or pestilence. Chairman Mao changed China but in the process he also killed some thirty million people. This book gives some insights on modern China and how people have coped with their lives—is China now still really communist or have they moved to a capitalist society? At times the story of the people in the street is enlightening, at times it is sad, but it is also a look at their hopes for their future. Interesting reading.