Following their destiny

With that in mind, producers try to show ordinary Chinese people whose stories "depict their struggle with destiny", and reflect hot-button issues in modern society, according to Fan.

For example, there is the story of Ding Daqin, a girl who learns to cook crayfish at a vocational school in Qianjiang city, Hubei province. As a village child who was brought up by her grandparents, Ding misses her parents who are working in Shanghai, and tries to prepare herself for a job in the city so that she can reunite with them.

Since cooking crayfish requires a lot of physical strength, which usually gives boys an advantage, Ding believes that employers prefer to hire male cooks, and, as such, she has to exceed the performance of her male counterparts to make herself stand out among potential employees. Therefore, she works extremely hard and tries to achieve the highest marks in every class she takes.

"We see Ding's eagerness and effort to change her destiny. The pursuit of her dream shows the energy of modern Chinese people. Moreover, we can understand some social issues from her story, like the plight of children left behind by their parents and China's promotion of vocational education," says Fan.

After filming about 30 stories, crew members chose 12 of them to feature in the four episodes, respectively themed "hometown", "coordinates", "answer sheet" and "chasing a dream".

In the second episode, the show highlights people who are trying to find their place in modern society.

"In a fast-changing society on the move, you need to find coordinates in your heart, so that you will not get lost mentally," says Fan.

It tells the story of Xu Xiaochao, a deliveryman in Shanghai, who often works hard trying to learn English at a Starbucks in his spare time, attempting to use it in his daily work. "There are several hundred thousand delivery people in the city, and you can hardly distinguish one from another. Similarly, many people's daily routine becomes dull and repetitive. Gradually they begin to feel that their life and work are meaningless. The delivery man, by learning English in his spare time, is trying to establish a place in his heart where he can make his life meaningful for himself," says Fan.

"Everyone is created to be unique, and that is an important awareness each of us should have. But in our daily, busy lives, many people fall into a routine and forget it. That is the reason we need to find our inner bearings. No matter how the environment changes, we need to stay true to those bearings so that we can always find our true selves," he adds.