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 August of 1978 shows 24-year-old Yang Caizhen (R) knitting a sweater with her colleague in front of a mud brick home in Xundian, southwest China's Yunnan Province. In 1978, Yang Caizhen and her husband lived in a small brick house, where they had to suffer heavy smoke when cooking on a coal furnace. Chicken coops were seen around their house, but many living goods had to be bought with coupons. The lower part of the combo photo taken by Yang Zongyou on Nov. 23, 2018 shows 64-year-old Yang Caizhen (R) and her husband posing for a photo in front of her 200-square-meter villa. Yang and her husband moved six times for new houses over the past 40 years. (Xinhua)