As an anthropologist and native of Gao Village, the author combines ethnographic analysis, personal vignettes, and a number of fascinating stories to present a convincing yet complex picture of how Gao villagers interact with the outside world twenty years after the publication of his original ethnography of Gao Village. With his sympathetic and insider’s approach, the author argues that rural Chinese display great entrepreneurship and inner strength of self-improvement; they are active contributors to China’s economic boom.