In the 70s of the 20th century, in the countryside of Hebei, there was a young man named Lu Gang, whose fate seemed to be tightly intertwined by the expectations of his family and the changes of society. Once a child of rural land, his family spent a lot of money to buy a non-agricultural hukou in order to get him out of the farm, which seemed to be an extremely precious pass at that time.
Lu Gang's memories of growing up are full of field work and his mother's affectionate encouragement. At home, he listened to his parents talk about how the family's land had been contracted out and that their livelihood depended on their own efforts. After working in the farmland, the mother always hugged Lu Gang, looking forward to her son's future, longing for him to jump out of the farm and pursue a better life.
However, the aura of non-agricultural hukou has gradually dimmed, and with the passage of time, the wave of urbanization has made the chances of returning to the countryside increasingly slim. The non-agricultural hukou, which was once considered a golden job, has now put Lu Gang in endless predicament. The pace of industrialization not only robbed him of a foothold in the city, but also made him unable to find a place to live in the countryside.
In Lu Gang's story, there are also intertwined trajectories of some classmates who easily find job opportunities due to family resources, while Lu Gang falls into endless unemployment after the bankruptcy of the city. He was once full of superiority, but now he has become a bitter member of the edge of the city. When he tried to return to the countryside, he found that the gates of the village were tightly closed to him as a foreigner, and the people in the village did not want to accept him, seeing him as an "outsider" who appropriated public resources.
Things get even more complicated, as Lu Gang struggled to pursue his dream of a non-agricultural hukou, however, he eventually found that it was perhaps one of the stupidest decisions of his life. Because of this choice, he lost his land and resources in the countryside, but he could not find a foothold in the city. At a crossroads in his life, he reluctantly realizes that those who are considered the best often end up being the greatest burden.
To sum up, Lu Gang's story is like an urbanization picture, outlining a life scene of how rural children once wandered between the city and the countryside. His experience reflects the marginalization between urban and rural areas, as well as the difficulties that individuals may encounter in the process of urbanization. In this journey, Lu Gang may represent many people who have been hit by urbanization, who are no longer the elite of the city and cannot return to the embrace of the countryside. This may be the helplessness of an era, and a once glorious non-agricultural household registration has now been eclipsed by the passage of time.