40 years in the making: Five lives changed by China's reforms

BEIJING – China's policy of "reform and opening up" has brought monumental changes to the world's most populous country since its launch 40 years ago under leader Deng Xiaoping. Next week, China will mark the anniversary of the shift, agreed to at a Communist Party gathering on Dec. 18, 1978. Ou Banlan, 52, is a retired garment factory worker in Shenzhen, a former fishing village that was the testing ground for the reforms and morphed into a major manufacturing and high-tech hub. "My life is much better than that of my parents' generation," said the diminutive woman with short black hair, standing in front of the factory where she once toiled. She was born and raised in a village outside Shenzhen.