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

The upper part of this combo photo taken on Nov. 22, 1990 shows 56-year-old Qiu Ping, who was then a teacher with Nanjing University, posing for a photo at home in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. She lived on the 5th floor in a building without elevator. At a time when changing LPG cylinders for cooking was an important thing, Qiu always needed to ask young people to help her carry the cylinders up to her apartment. The lower part of the combo photo taken by Ji Chunpeng on Nov. 27, 2018 shows 84-year-old Qiu Ping painting at her 110-square-meter apartment in a residential building equipped with elevators. Qiu no longer needs to change LPG cylinders. (Xinhua)