The aspirations and dreams of those in between

If you are talking about a middle class, you need to be sure about exactly which one you are talking about. Definitions of the term differ not only from expert to expert but from country to country.

Zhang Haidong, a professor in the School of Sociology and Political Science at Shanghai University, says that in the West the term middle class usually refers to people such as executives, professionals, salespeople and office workers, while in China many of the emerging middle class are the self-employed, such as traders and owners of businesses.

Ultimately, too, such people are from all kinds of backgrounds, and the paths that have taken them to the middle class and the lives they lead are many and varied. Here are the stories of three members of China's middle class.