As a child born in the 1970s, I have felt the pangs of poverty. My family was poor as were many other families in the countryside.

Second-hand clothes and leaking roofs have become a part of my memory. But the worst memory of poverty is hunger. I used to feel hungry all the time. So severe was the hunger that dried sweet potato slices were more than delicious snacks for me. My greatest dream then was to get enough to fill my always empty stomach.

In the early 1980s, with the implementation of reform and opening-up, my childhood dream came true. And then another dream started haunting me. I had to try my best to escape my impoverished and backward hometown.

I studied harder than most of my classmates, and this dream became a reality. After graduating from college, I got a job in a city and became an urban resident.

As the first college graduate from my remote village, I set an example for others. They came to realize that education was a good way to change one's fate. In the following years, there were fewer dropouts and more college graduates in my village, of which I am proud.

Later, I got used to urban life and began to dream of the same things as my peers: a comfortable home and my own car. More than 10 years passed before I realized these dreams through my hard work.

Of course, I will have new dreams with the passage of time. But I believe that most of my dreams will come true sooner or later if the country keeps advancing at the current pace.

"The Chinese dream, after all, is the dream of the people," President Xi Jinping has said. If all Chinese people's dreams come true, the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will definitely be realized.

Wang Hongqiang, from China Daily's blog

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(China Daily 03/25/2013 page9)