Explore "China's Son" by Da Chen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The western tip of Yellow Stone was all river and ancient lychee trees that dipped low in the water. In summer, strawhatted boatmen poled along slowly between the green branches that were in their way. The lychees, ripe and juicy, burned red like the cheeks of a gaudily painted woman and made the branches droop even lower. Only cicadas disturbed the tranquillity.
In the crook of the river, where the houses thinned and the trees thickened, nestled a three-story white house with a red-tiled roof. A tall wall fenced it off. It was a small world within itself. The entrance stayed closed at all times. Only the tops of papaya trees could be seen from the outside. The little white house belonged to twin sisters, the Weis, who were Baptists and had never married. In the town where Buddha called the shots, the little white house by the river was a symbol of something alien yet sacred.