Becoming a somebody

With his desire to be an actor coinciding with the unprecedented expansion of China's film industry, one lucky break enabled Wan Guopeng to forge a path to the silver screen, Xu Fan reports.

Editor's Note: China Daily profiles ordinary people doing incredible things in the cultural sphere as the country has advanced over the past decade.

In the summer of 2012, Wan Guopeng was a college student in his final year at Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine. Although he majored in acupuncture and massage, the young man, who found an internship at a local hospital, was still unsure of how he wanted his future to unfold.

After reading more than 40 books about various careers and the meaning of life, he was taken with one particular sentence, which read that a person should follow their heart to passionately pursue their dreams while they are young. It stirred in him the desire to become an actor.