The story is simple and ingenious. It revolves around several staff members and their family members of the Beijing Finance Office. Describing the daily life of bureaucrats and citizens during the Republic of China, mildly satirizes their perfunctory use of life. The vulgarity of the citizens, the stubbornness of traditional ideas, the superficiality of modern youth, and the resistance of the noble to the evil of mediocrity are all drawn vividly by Lao She in a few strokes. But Lao She is not mean. His humor is honest, gentle, and calm. He sympathizes and understands everyone. But what is even more rare is that this kind of sympathy and understanding is transparent and clear, does not confuse good and evil, does not cynicism and nihility, and does not play with the world''s sophistication. This is the real Chinese literature, the real spiritual aristocracy.
