An old woman is amazed to see a train for the first time in Ganzhou,Jiangxi province,in 1996.The country's rapidly expanding rail system revolutionized transportation. [Photo by Liu Weibing / Xinhua]

Liu tells of these changes through his photographs and stories. He also relates the changes in his own life, mostly for the better. "If the reform hadn't been introduced, I might have worked the land all my life," he says.

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Liu grew up in a poverty-stricken part of suburban Beijing. As an adult he pursued a career in photojournalism, traveling to more than 60 countries.

"Of all the countries I've been to, I like China best and have witnessed most changes here," he says.

Liu has also written about his pocket money of 2 cents he received in the 1970s. It brought him tremendous happiness, but today younger people have more money but seem no more happy.

He confesses to have once bought a "magic" mineral bottle - it claimed to turn purified water into mineral water. The product was a desired item in the 1990s. "I bought it to show filial piety, not really understanding the technology. But in retrospect, it was just a hoax."

These honest details won him the most praise.

"We are used to focusing on the more grandiose topics, but history is about the small, real-life details," says Bao Kun, an art critic and curator. "Liu's book has done just that. He recorded the changes of everyday life."

"You don't just see a Xinhua photographer here," the book's English translator (and professor with Beijing Foreign Studies University) Li Zhurun says. "It's more of a personal history of a common Chinese. That is the trustworthy stuff of history."

The book's English version was rewritten and fully annotated so that foreigners can better understand the remarkable changes that have taken place over the past 30 years.

"Yes, there are unhappy moments from the last 30 years, but life has definitely become better," Liu says. "And we should always be hopeful."