Edited by Professor Zhang Yiwu of Peking Universitys Chinese Language and Literature Department, Jade Streetlights is a collection of eight stories about love and longing in urban settings, including Shades of Autumn on All the Trees by Fang Fang, Theres No Waiting for Some People by Zhang Xin, Plain Soup with Greens by Pan Xiangli, A Contract Marriage by Pan Jun and Jade Streetlights by Xu Yigua. This book is a volume of the 21st Century Chinese Literature series, revealing the inner secrets of Chinas new middle-income families. These stories are no longer grand narratives focusing on national destiny, but rather, they mirror daily life involving secret love affairs and trivial pursuit characterized by exchange schemes. Urban sentiments are almost dominated by the values of this middle class. Between the pursuit of indulgences and freedoms, as well as the often elaborate plots and arrangements, between a release from ethical restrictions or pressures and resolute respect for reality and clear limits, affairs outside marriage become merely the secrets of middle-class families as in the stories of Gustave Flaubert and Honoré de Balzac, but no longer symbols of anti-feudalism and freedom. Compared with the grand narratives, these stories can appear rather trivial and mundane.