Through the perspective of an all-knowing, all-powerful spirit dog, this book depicts the sweeping social life and surging changes of twentieth-century rural and pastoral communities in northern China. It tells the moving story of the dog's owner, a privately employed teacher who, despite living in poverty, devotes himself to rural education and strives to realize his great ideal: using education to overcome the countryside's poverty and ignorance and advance society. The book celebrates his unwavering loyalty and selfless dedication to education, his noble willingness to sacrifice the individual for the greater good, and his resolute, tenacious, and forward-looking character...
