The shared journey of the Chinese Dream

One cold evening in April 2015, I was stuck in Shanghai Pudong Airport when my connecting flight was rescheduled for the next day. Dragging two heavy suitcases onto a bus past midnight, I was exhausted and frustrated. When the bus, which the airline had arranged, finally dropped us off at a basic hotel in the suburbs of Shanghai, I felt scared.

In that moment of doubt, a female voice called out to me offering to share a room. I turned around, standing in front of me was a small woman with long straight hair and slightly tanned skin. Her dark eyes radiated kindness.

As I grew up in China, my mother always told me to not trust strangers, but that evening I trusted Yecheng.

On the surface, Yecheng and I couldn’t be more different. She was born in 1989 in a small city in Anhui province, and grew up in a family where finances were tight. She had never traveled abroad, but dreamed of one day becoming a producer in the ranks of Hollywood titans.

Born a year after her, I have always considered myself a global citizen. Having pursued studies abroad since the age of 12, I now travel frequently across Europe for work and holidays. Ironically, the wide streets and busy traffic in China’s big cities now seem unfamiliar to me.

But lying on adjacent beds of the cramped and dark hotel room that evening, Yecheng and I chatted into the early hours about our dreams and deepest fears.

Yecheng, who had just finished her university degree, was nervous about her upcoming interviews at two production companies. She worried about how she would be able to support a family on the production industry norm of 4,000 yuan ($634) per month for fresh graduates. I, on the other hand, was trying hard to develop a unique journalistic voice in an industry fast transformed by technology.

We laughed together, urged each other to try harder, and finally drifted into sleep.

For the next few years, we cracked on with our respective busy lives. Meanwhile, China transformed itself beyond imagination, gaining momentum that pushed forward the careers of millions of young Chinese like Yecheng and me.

A year after joining a big television production company, Yecheng left to set up her own company. Soon after that, her team landed a big corporate sponsorship to produce a television serial.

My career in London is perhaps less dramatic, although still full of pleasant surprises. Ever closer Sino-UK business relations have made China’s presence felt in the average daily lives of the British people, and that has instilled in me a responsibility to tell the China story well, and in that process develop a unique voice. I never saw Yecheng again. She is not a friend I can call up for coffee or go see a show, but our shared dream has given me comfort and encouragement during the good and bad times.

The Chinese Dream is about having a dream and having faith in that dream. More important, at least for me, it is the feeling of being emotionally encouraged by millions of other young Chinese around the world who all work assiduously to achieve their own respective dreams.