Xi's father was actually purged from the party, and the family was exiled to the countryside to live among the working class. He never finished high school until he was an adult.

Within that context, he went from living in a cave (This is not an exaggeration, he was in a village in Shaanxi, northern China where people live in rooms carved into the side of cliffs and mountains for housing that's cool in summer and easy to insulate in winter. He literally lived in a man made cave) doing manual labour to the president of a global superpower. He's had more experience among the working class than most previous Chinese leadership.