short series

At Fifty, a Man Rises from Worm to Dragon

share time: 2025-10-10 04:47:40

Fifty-year-old Lin Jianguo just faced three shocks: laid off from a state-owned enterprise, his wife handed him a divorce agreement, and his son called him “worthless.” Rummaging through his late father’s relics in the old yard, he found a dusty *Classic of Woodworking*—a traditional craft he once scoffed at as “old-fashioned.” Desperate for money, he took on the “terrible job” of restoring the century-old ancestral hall in the old street. To his surprise, his hands, dulled by years in the office, still remembered how to carve fine mortise and tenon joints. From being mocked by young designers as “outdated” to turning the hall into a viral landmark; from hiding from neighbors to being revered as the community’s “master craftsman,” Lin Jianguo transformed his “worm-like middle age” into a “dragon-like legend” with his rough hands. Even his broken family slowly pieced back together amid the sound of saws…

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