and additional funding from:vñ and others. >> ♪ hey, hey, hey... >> tonight on frontline, they are a new generation breakingét from tradition and transforming china. these are their stories. a business woman pressured to choose between motherhood and her career. >> ♪ hey, what's up, baby? >> an internet entrepreneurúl thirsting for a more spiritual life. and a young woman searching for the mother she barely remembers. they are the stories about love sacrifice, and the conflict between the past and the future. stories of a rap artist hustling for his big break. an idealistic business man struggling against everyday corruption. and a factory worker who defies her family and marries for love. these are the intimate stories of hope and disappointment from inside a society changing faster than any in history, stories of what it's like to be young and restless in china. # ( music playing ) ojvdxgâo8:,t%y ( music playing ) >> narrator: china is a country of young people, and a new generation is coming of age. >> ( translated ): china is changing fast. everyone is restless. >> narrator: young people are driving china's blazing economy and grappling with huge challenges and change. >> ( translated ): my generation is confused. when i was a child, we needed ration tickets to buy things, like fabric and oil. since the 1990s, it is a totally different world. >> the spiritual side of china is changing from a very ideal world, from the maoism, you know, time-- serve the people and work for others-- to an extreme-- get rich as fast as you can and have a good life. >> narrator: in 2004, we began filming a group of young people from across the country. the surprising twists and turns of their lives and their stories of ambition, conflict, love and confusion took us inside the generation that is transforming china. >> i came back to china for only one reason, its opportunity. >> narrator: lu dong had just returned from a decade abroad.: 32 and single, he was working at a software start-up in the northern city of dalian. >> hisoft does software outsourcing. this is like the factory of engineers. what's amazing is we are doubling the size every half a year. i spent two months already. i'm going to spend another ten months here and invest my life here. you know, i love this place. this is our new building, 18th floor. it's going to be finished by november or december. i think this is like the symbol of the growing of china-- one floor every week. >> narrator: so many young people were coming back from abroad that the chinese nicknamed them "returning turtles." ben wu had also just come back to beijing, where he grew up. >> i have been away for over a decade in the u.s. and never worked in china before. so i want to learn how chinese conduct business, what's the best opportunity in what industry. from monday to friday i work for mckinsey consulting. and then starting from friday night to sunday afternoon i pretty much work the whole time for my internet cafe. >> narrator: ben was using what he learned at business school in new york to create a new franchise. >> this is our first internet café in beijing. it's named time square internet café. you know, we have a new york theme here, new york skyline. we are going to have about 300 computers in this 16,000 square feet. we are going to build a ufo-like structure. we are going to have a train coming out. and underneath there's going to be a lot of lights shooting up through the glass. internet café requires a lot of money. that's why me and my chinese partner have a set of american investors. this café is going to be our first of many. we want to build a starbucks, óñiófá >> narrator: china's booming economy offered so many possibilities that young people seemed to change jobs, cities and lifestyles barely skipping a beat. soon after we first filmed lu dong, he left the software company and moved home, also to beijing. qói >> ( translated ): i was born and raised in beijing.çó i feel like i'm finally home. i want to spend some time with my family. ( dog barking ) >> let's talk... >> ( together ) ...in english. >> oh, my tooth. what's wrong? >> what's wrong? >> ( translated ): i actually liked hisoft very much, but what i really wanted to do was start my own business. >> so this is my business. ( laughs ) so basically what i'm going to do is tailor-make those shirts in china and sell it to people in japan and u.s. and europe. it's going to be on the web. these are samples. you can change all the elements-- shirts, color, copies, right? there's no physical shop. and here you measure your size, which is going directly to the factory. and you pick and choose. and a week, boom, you get it. and it's just this one piece just for you. you cannot find anywhere else. very unique, very creative, very fun. can you imagine this turning into a shirt? very nice. >> ( translated ): i work every single day. i'm spending my savings. i'm dripping my blood. i can only say it feels like riding a roller coaster. >> ♪ go, go, go... ( jazz music playing ) >> narrator: after months of living on caffeine and cigarettes, ben wu opened his internet café. >> café is doing very well. it's pretty much like what i estimated. i'm delivering good news to my investors. >> on a normal friday night, is this normally how crowded it is? >> yeah, this is very normal. >> we are making money. we are generating a lot of cash flow. >> we don't actually sell any of the computer equipment, do we? >> no, maybe that's another business you should do. >> and those free cash flow can be used for building up another internet café. >> narrator: in tiananmen square, in the heart of beijing, the countdown to the 2008 olympic games was under way. preparations dominated the city. thousands of migrant workers from the countryside were pouring into the capital looking for work. >> ( translated ): i always thought i'd spend all my life in my village. i never thought there was such a big world outside. >> narrator: wei zhanyan is a migrant worker in an industrial park near beijing. >> ( translated ): i got out just to work, to make money. it was like i had the mission of saving my whole family. >> narrator: zhanyan left school at 13, to earn money so her older brother could continue his studies. by 2004, she was working for a company that makes cell phones. the owners declined our request to film inside. >> ( translated ): the factory where i work, we wire headsets. the regular wage is about 40 cents an hour. >> narrator: jobs like hers offer millions of young people a way out of rural poverty. >> ( translated ): a job brings in money and gives me self- confidence. i rented this little place by myself. i feel like this is my home, where i am the boss and can do whatever i like after work, like listening to the radio or reading a book. >> narrator: migrant life was often lonely, and she poured out her feelings in a diary. >> ( translated ): "my family's poverty depresses me, makes me ashamed, even desperate. i don't dare have any ideas or ideals." i have always wondered how come other families, other parents, could support their kids' education. but not mine. ( crying ) sorry. perhaps i shouldn't have said that. it sounds like i am blaming my parents for not living up to their responsibilities. but that's past. >> narrator: although hundreds of miles away from them, she was still not free of her family's demands. >> ( translated ): i got a phone call from my family saying that a matchmaker wanted me to meet this guy. back home they have this long feudal tradition. so i went back. i didn't have a choice. the guy and i, we met and got engaged, just like that. i was very confused. i mean, i like to be free and independent. but once we get married, i'm not sure what will happen. >> ♪ hey, hey, hey, hey. hey, hey, hey, hey. ♪ hey, hey, hey, hey... >> narrator: seen from the streets the new china is an unforgiving place. ♪ ...what's up, baby? >> narrator: rapper wang xiaolei uses his music to express a dark view of china's new boom times. >> ( translated ): there's actually a lot of discrimination in china. like, if you don't have money people will look down on you, and also because of your social status. when i was very young, my folks divorced, and then i was all by myself. i mean, i grew up with my grandpa until i was 14. he had no money. i was mostly living with my grandpa because i really didn't get along with my dad. my father, my mother, both useless. i started hanging out as a street performer. it's the only way of life i knew. life is bad. how come my life sucks? then i heard about hip-hop and watched some hip-hop movies and stuff. there was some really good stuff. hip-hop empowered me because i can identify with some of those black people in america. we don't have a good life, but we have to stay optimistic. ( singing along with rap music playing ) >> narrator: xiaolei identifies with african american culture, but his lyrics draw on what he knows best: the world he sees around him, his relationships, and ancient chinese myth. >> ( translated ): this is yingliu, an ancient goddess. she could sing and was very beautiful. everyone loved to hear her sing. it's a fairy tale. this is the word "reckless." i think this character is pretty cool because it's chinese. i've always felt that it's better than having an english word tattooed. >> narrator: xiaolei was starting to build a fan base. he was scraping by, working as a dj in one of beijing's few hip- hop clubs. >> ( translated ): i don't make enough money. just enough for me to eat. i need a big house, and then i can make music on my own. live in a big house and have enough to eat. my house is small. big house. small, small. this is what i live in every day. it makes me crazy. and the roof leaks. ( music playing ) >> narrator: when we returned to beijing in 2005, preparations for the olympics were accelerating. parks were being paved over, entire neighborhoods torn down. one and a half million residents were being forced to move. we met zhang jingjing, a public interest lawyer trying to make the upheaval more humane. in a case representing more than 1,000 families, she was suing two city agencies over a power line built for the games. >> ( translated ): the power line belongs to beijing electric. there was no environmental appraisal before it was built. that's required by law. and residents in the area really resented it. they were very worried about the effect of the electromagnetic radiation on their health. >> narrator: the residents are part of china's increasingly vocal, new middle class. >> ( translated ): we know the potential medical risks of electromagnetic radiation are still being studied. we didn't sue about the pollution itself. we targeted an illegitimate licensing procedure. we sued because we believe that people come first. we were trying to convey this concept through this case. the neglect of personal rights in china has been long and overwhelming. >> narrator: like many of her generation, jingjing's world view was shaped by events in tiananmen square almost 20 years ago. >> ( translated ): i graduated in 1991. those were the years that many chinese people still remember but don't dare talk about. that was the student movement in the late '80s. i was in college then. i experienced a movement i'll never forget. we had only one goal: for reforms that would make our nation a better place. but what happened later, the students didn't have the experience and couldn't see how it would end. ♪ i'm still influenced by that movement. it's why i'm working as a public interest lawyer. >> narrator: most other young people drew different lessons from the tragedy. >> ( translated ): right after the june 4 incident they started arresting people. i knew some of them personally. politically, it affected my generation tremendously. after the june 4 incident, i decided to move to shenzhen. there was only one reason: i decided that politics is quite a risky and scary business. it would be better for me to distance myself from it. >> narrator: in the years since, xu weimin tried different jobs here in the southern boomtown of shenzhen. he worked and studied in canada and the u.s. now in his late 30s, he was building a hotel. >> i need to have something tangible, something we can build year by year, a steady business. we feel if we can provide high- quality service with four-star facilities, we shouldn't have any problem getting business. i actually have no experience of running a hotel. from the start, when i knew nothing, to now, i've had to deal with every single detail. we've hired about ten people. and they're all crazy busy. it's very stressful. >> narrator: on top of his job, weimin had new responsibilities: taking care of his parents. >> ( translated ): a little over a month ago, my mom had a stroke. she was a manager at her old factory, but the factory was privatized. so she lost her insurance. that's very common in china these days. >> ( translated ): so it's the kids, in this case, my sister and i, who have to shoulder the cost. so far we have spent almost $6,000. but the thing is, there'll be a lot more to come. because the biggest problem is we have no idea when she'll get better, and this kind of illness is pretty expensive. >> narrator: in the country's new mixed economy, nearly 70% of chinese have no medical insurance. zhang yao was a medical resident at a prestigious beijing hospital. on his way to work, so many people were desperate for care that he could barely make his way inside. >> narrator: zhang yao's father is a traditional chinese doctor. yao has chosen a completely western training. >> ( translated ): i like working with people. so when i see my patients getting very ill, or when somebody dies, it hurts. it's hard for me, too. i tell myself the principals of medical science are: cure sometimes, relieve often, comfort always. so maybe you cannot cure a patient, but you can always make his life more comfortable. >> ( translated ): we see it all the time, patients who can't afford big medical expenses. seeing a patient with financial difficulties is a very, very sad experience. you have to make a very hard choice. if a patient really can't afford treatment and is in the mid- or late stages of their diseases, we need to think about palliative care. in cases like that, i think we should do our best to save the family's resources. ( music playing ) >> narrator: despite mass migration to the cities, more than half of china's population still live in the countryside. >> ( translated ): about this time every year, i come back to help father harvest the rice. >> narrator: the options for young people in rural guangxi province are so limited that few choose to stay. >> ( translated ): i like it here. if everyone goes to work outside and no one works in the fields, then what will people eat? people in the outside world have food because we farmers work hard to grow rice. but my husband doesn't like me coming back here. i get too tanned. he says it doesn't look pretty. >> narrator: like many women, yang haiyan had to leave school to support her brother's education. she went to work in the city of guilin, a two-hour drive away. there she met her husband. now she stays at home, looking after their son. >> ( translated ): my grandpa is getting so old now. my dad, too. there is no one at home who can do laundry. every holiday i take all the clothes, sheets, shoes, comforter, wash them really clean and store them away. and then i go back to guilin. >> narrator: yang haiyan's life has been defined by her mother's disappearance 18 years ago. >> ( translated ): when i was very little, about two, my mother was doing part-time work in guilin, and she was tricked. this human trafficker asked her to go to a cotton factory in the north, saying it had better pay. and she was kidnapped and sold. because of what happened to my mom there was a lot of gossip in the village. people don't want my mom back. to them, this is a huge disgrace. it's like the saying: "children without a mother have to grow up fast." áu >> ( translated ): i have a dream. it's to find mom and bring her back. j once i get her back, i'll never let her leave again. >> narrator: we returned to china in 2006, and found many of the group caught up in personal crises. after stalling for months, factory worker wei zhanyan was going home to face her family and her future husband. >> ( translated ): i don't want to go home. i'm afraid of marriage. i'm afraid of going back to those old traditions. ( music playing ) my dad is a farmer. my older brother is, too. and when there isn't a lot of farm work, he leaves and becomes a migrant worker like me. >> ( translated ): all the marriages in the village are arranged. after the marriage is arranged, you can't change your mind. it has a bad effect. here in the countryside, you can't go back on your word. >> ( translated ): they told me about zhanyan and then we met and we sat and talked. >> ( translated ): we chatted >> ( translated ): we chatted about our families and our jobs as migrant workers. after we talked, the matchmaker came and asked whether we could accept each other. and both of us said, "yes." >> how long was it, when you first saw her until the matchmaker came in? >> ( translated ): uh, maybe a couple of hours. >> ( translated ): it's not easy for us to communicate. i don't want to get married. >> ( translated ): how did you feel when you heard she was having second thoughts? >> ( translated ): i was a little angry. she'd agreed to it. if word got out, it would be bad, everyone would know. >> ( translated ): did you ever think that maybe she wouldn't be happy after you guys got married? >> ( translated ): i don't know how to answer that question. >> ( translated ): have you ever thought about whether you would be happy? >> ( translated ): nope. never thought about it. >> ( translated ): by country standards she's not young anymore. she should really think it over. if this isn't the right man, then who is? can you find the person of your dreams in real life? there is a huge difference between dreams and reality. >> ( translated ): it'll be hard for me to break off the engagement now. i don't want to hurt too many people. i'm kind of at a loss, don't know what to do. >> narrator: the tensions between traditional values and new expectations seemed to trouble everyone. miranda hong earned her mba just months ago from one of the country's top business schools in shanghai. >> ( translated ): a woman who studies for an mba has to excel. in interviews some companies ask you very directly, "how soon are you going to have a child?" this kind of question ought to be illegal, and it is. but that's reality. >> narrator: she was now working in beijing, in the advertising department of an investment company. >> ( translated ): when i graduated i had to decide whether to stay in shanghai or come back to beijing. my parents and my husband all live in beijing. there were better opportunities in shanghai, but i decided to come back to beijing. my parents are pretty old, and i feel responsible for them. my relationship with my mother is more one of duty. as a matter of fact, i have always been a bit afraid of her. but it's not because i admire her. it is because of her temper. i don't know when it will erupt. with my father, it's kind of special. the person i admire most in the world is my father. my parents are not very direct. so when it comes to children they would like me to have them sooner rather than later. but they won't nag about it day and night like other parents. in fact, they've never talked about it with me. they might, however, tell my relatives, and then my relatives will tell me what my mom thinks. >> ( translated ): many women put their family first. but for me, my work is number one. >> narrator: jingjing was planning to get married