Where City and Country Meet

Around Beijing, some one million labourers from the Chinese countryside live in appalling conditions. Taking one family as an example, director Zhang Zhanqing shows the hopes and problems of living on the fringes of prosperity. His film is not a social indictment; indeed, by following a friendly rickshaw driver and his family in a placid tempo and an observant style, the triviality of their problems stands out. Zhang follows the family at work, at the market and at school, and interviews them in their snug but dingy self-constructed house. The chief subject of conversation is money. Even the youngest daughter is aware of the fact that she is poor. And yet she dreams of visiting Tian’an Men Square once – for, in spite of the urban attraction that brought the family to Beijing, so far they have not visited the tourist centre.