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​Li Wenjie, a Beijing-based researcher of comparative literature, discovered her interest in Denmark’s literature giant Hans Christian Andersen back in the 2010s. Since then, she has been dedicating herself to the research and promotion of children’s literature in China while tracing how Andersen’s works were introduced to the country.

Footprints presents “The Wrong Train”, a radio drama which tells a story of how a young man, who coincidentally got stranded in Wuhan when the city was hit by a COVID outbreak in early 2020, ended up becoming a volunteer worker at a local hospital. The drama was composed based on a real story.

​Bronze holds a special meaning in Chinese culture. The Bronze Age, starting around 1,700 BC, has had profound impact on the development of the Chinese civilization. Even today, artistic bronzeware still impresses many people, and one particular craftsman of bronze art named Zhu Bingren has been exploring innovative ways to bring new vitality to this ancient craft.

Qin Yi, a legendary actress known in nearly every household in China, passed away on May 9th, 2022 at the age of 100. As a performing artist adored by many, she shaped and brought many roles to life on stage and in films that ingrained a lasting impression on viewers. Her personal life, however, was never free of pain and suffering along with many twists and turns over the decades.

​Chen Jinyuan and Chi Zhaojiu both are veteran mold-making technicians working at the Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Group, a major manufacturing company in China. In the early 2000s, with an unyielding faith in their own ingenuity, they and their fellow workers made a key breakthrough in developing a cost-effective mold for diesel engines. In this episode of Footprints, let's follow these two master technicians to see what their work is like and how they overcame one challenge after another to help their company and the country to gain manufacturing prowess.

Twenty seven year-old Ding Xiaomei works in the urban construction sector in southwest China's Yunnan Province. On the eve of this year's National Youth Day on May 4th, we talked with Ding to find more about her role in her local community's urban development program and her thoughts about the responsibility and power of the youth.

​Reading can form and transform one's life. This is the message conveyed by two Chinese authors of children's literature Tong Xixi and Li Xixi on the eve of this year's World Book Day, which falls on April 23. They also shared with us how they created their best-selling books "Peng!Peng!Peng!" and "Wang Kaka" and recounted their endeavors to cultivate a habit of reading in a creative way among children across China.

He Jingtang is a renowned Chinese architect whose architectural designs include the iconic China Pavilion built for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. With his career spanning more than half a century, he has developed and maintained a masterful feature in all the buildings he has designed—a combination of traditional Chinese architectural culture with modernity.

Jiang Can is a visually impaired musician of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe. The 29-year-old was honored on April 8th by the central government for his outstanding contributions to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games and the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. Committed to creating music for the welfare of people with disabilities, Jiang boasts a wide range of music productions, including "The Beautiful Flower of the Winter Olympics", a theme song played at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Paralympic Winter Games on March 4th, 2022.

Wang Qi, who lost his sight when he was 13 years old, has beat great odds to become a professional saxophone player in the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe in 2007. As one of the highlights of his life and career, he participated in the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.

​Twenty-seven year old Chinese independent musician Xu Peiru is the singer of the song “You Can See the World” played at the closing ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to pay tribute to all the volunteers working for the games. Besides being a musician, the millennial, like many of her peers, has been leading a “slash life”, which means she pursues vastly different careers, lifestyles and hobbies all at the same time.

Xu Yanni, a leading technician from a machinery company in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has served as a deputy to the National People's Congress since 2018. Over the years, she has been calling for government support to promote the spirit of craftsmanship in China's manufacturing sector. One of the methods she has proposed is to establish a system for training young workers within companies.

​Chinese pharmacologist Tu Youyou, now 92 years old, won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of artemisinin, a group of drugs used to combat malaria in the 1970s. Tu once said that artemisinin, having saved millions of lives across the globe, was a gift from China to the world.

​“They’re happening right in front of us: planes flying over, tanks driving by…,” says Niu Zi’An, a Chinese student studying piano in Kyiv, who shares with us his first-hand experience of life in the Ukrainian capital.

Over the past three decades, 50-year-old Lu Yun spent every single Spring Festival providing passenger services in a transportation hub in east China’s Anhui Province. She enjoyed her job so much that a few days after her retirement, she returned to the Hefei South Railway Station and started working as a volunteer to help out with the 2022 Spring Festival travel rush. ​

​Zhao Yingxin, a sport photojournalist, has captured many spectacular shots at the ongoing Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, including Gu Ailing’s historic gold in the women's freeski big air on February 8th. Zhao says she hopes her photographs can, in a way, represent the Beijing Winter Olympics and the new breakthroughs made by the athletes.

​The Dream Land, a winter sports center in Beijing, is the only ice sports complex in the city that houses two Olympic-sized ice rinks in an air-film stadium. Its investor Wang Da proposed its construction because his teenage son is an ice hockey fanatic. In this edition of Footprints, let’s visit the Dream Land and find out how an ambitious working father has been helping his son and many other young athletes realize their winter sports dreams.

​In 2018, stomatologists Yao Na and Zhao Shuangyun signed up for and became members of China’s first ski doctor team, which is a significant component of the medical and rescue system for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. After receiving intensive alpine skiing training for three snow seasons, the doctors can now ski to any corner of the tracks and provide quick responses for athletes requiring medical attention.

​Ye Tao, a 45-year-old Chinese businessman working in the south Pacific country of Tonga, has a first-hand experience of the large undersea eruption on January 15th, 2022 of the country’s Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai Volcano, so powerful that it was recorded around the world.

​Eighty-four year old Fan Jinshi is one of China's most renowned archeologists and researchers of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, a UNESCO world heritage site. Ever since the 1960s, she has devoted her wisdom and efforts to the preservation, research and promotion of the vast numbers of murals, artifacts and other cultural objects at the heritage site.