The voice of the people has immeasurable weight. Even in China, where censorship reigns and only official government information is to be believed, the tiny voice of the ordinary people can carry significant meaning because it is not colored with propaganda. The author, who writes under a pseudonym, began his quest in the 1980s to raise the profile of ordinary Chinese people as that vast country with 1.3 billion people is making great strides into the world economy and politics. He spent years interviewing, questioning and trying to understand the lives of 100 people throughout China. Maybe 100 is a tiny number compared with the total population. But they do represent a major voice for foreign readers trying to understand what is going on in China: how some people become rich and others remain poor, how they cope with the fast-paced economic development that has totally changed their lives and do they have a future while people around them get rich doing business. China Candid is free from censorship, published outside of China. Sang Ye co-authored with well-known writer Zhang Xinxin a previous book, called Chinese Lives, which was published in the mainland only after Chinese censors had gone through it. Both emigrated after the June 4, 1989 massacre of pro-independence students at Tiananmen Square. Sang Ye returned to his native country to continue his pursuit of the oral history of China, spending four years to interview the 100 people. He says in the introduction of this book that it represents the contemporary history of China, and that the majority of the people he talked to have no public voice in this history.

"Their lives are unremarkable but compellingly real," Sang Ye says.

One fascinating development in China's economic reform has been the way some people become millionaires so quickly after decades of living under socialism and a communist regime that still exerts a large amount of control over the lives of the people, no matter who they are. One such millionaire talked to Sang Ye, saying that rich Chinese now equal those in the West and they are not a rarity anymore.

"But now millionaires (in China) are as common as dirt, you can buy them second-hand on the street by the pound," the new millionaire tells Sang Ye. For the convenience of those interviewed, most of them are not referred to by their real names.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has started doing business with civilians wherever and whenever they can in order to survive, from the simple soldier to generals. Sang Ye met with an army captain who manages a hotel and restaurant at the naval port on the island province of Hainan in the South China Sea. The captain has over 1,000 employees, is dressed in civilian clothes most of the time and during the interview he wore a T-shirt that reads "I've climbed the Great Wall." The captain explains that it is illegal to use facilities and land that belong to the PLA to do business. But there are ways to circumvent the regulations. In his case, he took part of the land in the vast army camp and rented it out to civilians who want to open businesses. The land is still the property of the army. The businessmen will build commercial facilities and pay rent that goes to army officers and soldiers, with the captain taking a large cut. Everybody is pleased with the deal and no rules are broken. Commanding officers receive air conditioners to survive the summer heat, happy that their subordinates do good business for the army. The PLA's large scale business involves major industries in the national economy.

In order to preserve socialism while economic reform is underway, the government encourages pro-socialist "red capitalists" among model managers who give support to the new economic order in China. Those red capitalists would prevent the country from sliding into a bourgeois democracy most often seen in the West. Sang Ye met such a model manager, who owns a big house for just three people and two cars, the type of sedans reserved for party officials only. The manager explains that he is working to maintain the communist ideal while contributing to the public good. He says he borrowed 30 yuan to start his business and became rich after seven years. The interviews reveal the diversity of ordinary lives that will remain hidden forever until someone like Sang Ye plucks them out of the crowd and shows them to the world. Chinese authorities were uncomfortable with their stories and did not allow the book to be published in the mainland.