China Daily has compiled an album of photographs that show how ordinary people's lives have changed in the past 40 years

This album celebrates the 40th anniversary of economic reform and opening-up, and is China Daily's salute to the ordinary Chinese people without whose painstaking efforts China would not be the country that it is today.

It was the contract responsibility system first tried out in a village in East China's Anhui province that blazed the trail of reform in rural China. The rural reform not only helped China produce more food but also triggered the overall reform of Chinese society.