This paper focuses on comparison of two memoirs from different periods of Chinese history: Shěn Fù's Six Chapters of a Floating Life (turn of 18th and 19th century) and Yáng Jiàng's Six Chapters from a Cadre School (first published in 1981). Both memoirs are joined in intertextual relationship; Yáng Jiàng refers to Shěn Fù's text by both title and structure of her work, while Qián Zhōngshū, her well-known husband, presents in his preface Six Chapters of a Floating Life as a book he never liked. This paper examines message of these two memoirs by formal and thematic analysis of topics, genre characteristics and attitude toward life of both authors.