(FORTUNE Magazine) – The Chinese market has been an elusive one, particularly for Westerners. Much of the frustration stems from the lack of information: Reliable facts about China and about how its people live have been hard to come by.

That has begun to change. In 1994 and 1997 the Gallup Organization conducted wide-ranging surveys of Chinese citizens. Last June, 60 Gallup interviewers repeated the exercise, fanning out to far-flung corners of the country to delve into the lives of nearly 4,000 randomly selected respondents. These findings offer a revealing snapshot of a country in the vortex of change. Such pictures will be more difficult to take in the future, however. Government regulations published in August sharply restrict foreign market research firms--both in what they can ask and what they can release.

The Gallup Organization's Third Survey of Consumer Attitudes and Lifestyles in the People's Republic of China evokes the people behind the numbers by asking a broad range of questions, from the mundane (what do you own?), to the personal (what are your dreams?), to the downright impertinent (how much money do you make?). Taken as a whole, the survey shows how China's rapid economic growth has affected individual families--they have stuffed their homes with appliances, for a start--and how it continues to reshape the fabric of Chinese life. Although the largest number of people would like to work in a secure government job, for example, more than a quarter of those surveyed said they would like to start their own business--an astonishingly robust response in a country governed by the Communist Party.

The survey also offers a vivid reminder that there are many Chinas. Urban China, for example, is profoundly different from rural China. A small but telling example: While almost everyone in the ten big cities surveyed has seen a foreigner, more than half of the rural Chinese have not.

City folks are also much richer. Urban Chinese make up considerably less than half of the population but take in 70% of the wealth--a large and rising disparity that is a domestic political sore. In the cities, mean annual household income has climbed slightly since 1997, to more than $2,500; rural income actually dropped over the same period, from $966 to $870. The average rural citizen will spend only about $4 a month on goods other than food and less than a dollar on entertainment, vs. about $10 spent on each by those in the ten major cities surveyed. For businesspeople seduced by pictures of Shanghai children who wear Nikes and eat at McDonald's, the implications of these statistics are worth pondering.

The differences between older and younger Chinese are also striking. A third of Beijingers between the ages of 18 and 29 say they've used the Internet, four times the rate of those oldies over 40. In 1997 nearly three-quarters of urban women under the age of 30 said they wore lipstick or lip gloss; of those over 60, almost none did.

Such data point out how complex a society China is, but the extent to which Chinese share certain perceptions is also striking. For example, Chinese of all ages and in all parts of the country say that things have improved for them in the past five years. And they are similarly confident that their lives will be better five years from now. That's not exactly raging optimism, but it is a sign that Chinese have faith in the future.

Given the modest incomes of Chinese families, their resilience and thrift is impressive. The savings rate in China puts America to shame--at roughly 16% of mean household expenditure, it's the second-biggest monthly expense, after food and before rent. China's history is filled with rainy days, so putting something away is second nature. Cradle-to-grave job security is a thing of the past for urban Chinese, and there isn't much in the way of a welfare or pension system. Moreover, because the use of credit is still limited, families who want to buy expensive goods like appliances or cars--and as the survey shows, that means most of them--need cash in hand to go shopping.

Although the not-so-invisible hand of government still plays a huge role in the economy, the survey's glimpse of China's grassroots is telling evidence that the nation's consumer revolution is being driven by its people--household by household.