China is undergoing a dramatic social transformation, and peasants leaving the agriculture and leaving the rural areas has become a common phenomenon. However, since Chinese peasants are considered embedded in the small peasant economic system, this phenomenon is only one cross-section now. Therefore, based on the life stories of peasants from inland farming villages in China, this study attempts to decipher the stereotyped image of peasants from their own perspective. In addition, it examines the inner struggles and autonomous choices of peasants who have maintained farming as much as possible in response to social transformations. Consequently, current livelihoods exhibit synchronic diversity. In addition, diachronic fluidity is evident, in which peasants adapt to their family’s livelihood situation as they live through constant changes throughout their lives. However, they maintain the unchanging core of farming. This is a characteristic of a period of social transition. Farming is the way of life of the peasants and is inseparable from the lives of Chinese peasants themselves, which differs from agriculture.
