Explore "Snow Falling in Spring" by Ming Li on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
IT WAS A HOT SUMMER, AND THE WORDS ON EVERY GROWNUP'S LIPS WERE GREAT LEAP FORWARD. IN FIFTEEN YEARS, SOMEONE SAID, BUBbling with excitement, China will overtake Britain! Then, Baba (Father) spun the wooden globe next to his desk and pointed out to me where Britain was. Touching the spot with my fingertip, I murmured, But it's so small. I could not understand why Baba and his friends were eager for China, a large splash of green on Baba's globe, to surpass another country that was only a gray speck-smaller than some Chinese provinces. But the glow of hope on their faces and the confidence in their voices told me that this Great Leap Forward would be a big accomplishment-something to be truly proud of. I trusted grownups in those days with all my heart. This was the summer of 1958, and I was four years old.
My family lived in Beijing with my maternal grandmother, Lao Lao, and maternal grandfather, Lao Ye, in a traditional siheyuan-a large square yard surrounded by one-story houses with sloping roofs on each side. Sharing our siheyuan were my aunts and uncles and a few tenants: the families of a tailor, an electrician, and a clerk.