A Billion Chinese Dreams

In 2010, longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Peter Hessler, published the book "Country Driving". It became a classic known for its keen observations of China at a time of monumental change. 

It was also one of the few books by western observers focusing on the ordinary people. Hessler spent seven years in China, and he wrote lovingly of the lives of farmers, migrant workers, and entrepreneurs transformed by the massive changes. Inspired by the book, this series revisits some of the protaganists 10 years later. 

Retracing four unique routes - along the Great Wall, riding the railways running north-to-south, across the Hu Line, and following the flow of the Yangtze River - host Zhou Yijun traverses this massive country to probe the meaning of home and happiness; the result of economic growth; the rich-poor divide; and the issue of sustainable development as the people seek to define their Chinese dream.