Xinhua Headlines: Past and present: 40 years of change in the lives of the Chinese people

The upper part of this combo photo taken in 1982 shows 13-year-old Sun Guangzhi (2nd L) posing for a group photo with his siblings in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. At that time Sun Guangzhi's family lived in a 40-square-meter apartment. Sun had no room of his own. The lower part of the combo photo taken by Wang Kai on Nov. 29, 2018 shows 49-year-old Sun Guangzhi in his own study in Harbin. Sun Guangzhi is now a foreign language teacher at Heilongjiang University and lives in his 120-square-meter apartment with a spacious study. (Xinhua)