The novel tells the story of Xiangzi, a young rickshaw driver in Beiping, China, and describes the tragic fate of rickshaw drivers during the warlord scuffle in the 1920s.
Xiangzi was the representative of the working people in the old society. He changed from a "decent, strong, dreamy, self-interested, personal, powerful and great" worker at the bottom to a "degenerate, selfish, unfortunate and socially ill child, the last ghost of individualism".
Creation background of Camel Xiangzi 1936, a friend of Lao She's from Shandong University told his experience and knowledge of hiring a rickshaw driver: a rickshaw driver bought a rickshaw, sold it soon, went up and down like this, and finally became poor. At that time, Lao She thought that this theme could be written as a novel.
Since the birth of new literature, many famous writers have written about rickshaws, but they all expressed their sympathy for rickshaws from the perspective of intellectuals, without going deep into their hearts and souls to appreciate their lives. Lao She was born in poverty and was in contact with the lower classes since he was a child. He has a profound understanding of the living conditions and psychology of the working people, which provides a source of material for Lao She to create Camel Xiangzi.