Xinhua Headlines: Past and present: 40 years of change in the lives of the Chinese people

The upper part of this combo photo taken in September of 1996 shows Xu Miaoxiang holding her 11-month-old granddaughter Lan Qingxia at their adobe house. At that time, they lived in a two-storey adobe house with the first floor as living rooms and the second floor to place agricultural tools. The lower part of the combo photo taken by Huang Zongzhi on Nov. 27, 2018 shows Lan Qingxia (L) and her 75-year-old grandma posing for photo in front of their new house. The former old house was later rebuilt to be a guesthouse. (Xinhua)