A Lifelong Journey

The Zhou family lives in a provincial capital in Northeast China. Three adult siblings anchor the story. Zhou Bingyi (周秉义), the eldest son, becomes a Party official. Zhou Rong (周蓉), the middle child, becomes an academic and studies at Peking University. Zhou Bingkun (周秉昆), the youngest, stays close to home and works as an ordinary laborer; he is the viewer's main point of identification.

The drama opens in 1969, in the late Cultural Revolution years, when the siblings are young, and runs through the next five decades: the return of university entrance exams, the first years of Reform and Opening Up (改革开放, "reform and opening-up"), the restructuring of state industry, and the slower, quieter decades after.

Many urban youths were sent to the countryside as zhiqing (知青, "educated youth") from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, so a child could be away for years. Urban life was organized around the danwei (单位, "work unit"), which supplied housing, medical care and a social circle as well as a wage. In the 1990s many state-owned enterprises were restructured and workers were laid off, a process called xiagang (下岗, "stepping off the post"). Northeast China, a long-standing industrial base, was hit hard, and this thread lands heavily in the second half.

The drama adapts the novel of the same name by Liang Xiaosheng (梁晓声), published in December 2017 and awarded the 10th Mao Dun Literature Prize (茅盾文学奖) in 2019. Wang Hailing (王海鸰) wrote the television version and said she added brightness and warmth to the novel's tone. The Chinese title, rén shì jiān (人世间, "in the world of people"), suits a story about people living inside history rather than shaping it.

In China it was the top-rated series in its time slot. It later won the top series prize at the Golden Eagle Awards (金鹰奖), the White Magnolia Awards (白玉兰奖) and the Flying Apsaras Awards (飞天奖), and its Douban score stood at 8.1 in 2022.