Falling Snowflakes

Introduction to Snowflakes Falling Set in rural China in the early 1990s, this book follows He Tianrui, Zhang Yinghua, and other village children as they grow up and pursue their studies. Their story traces the course of youth and changing emotions, from the tentative stirrings of young love in middle school, through the separations after the high school entrance exams and the distinctive life of technical college, to the major choices they face upon graduation. Several subplots run alongside the main story. The tragic love between Chen Shejiao and Dang Xuemei is heartrending, while the relationships between Tang Zhanying and Dang Xuemei, and between He Jianghong and He Xiaohui, add rich color to the novel’s portrait of rural life. Rural customs, family planning, and the Social Education Movement are among the social issues explored, together painting a full picture of rural society in that era. The story begins on a snowy day after the Lantern Festival, gradually unfolding the quiet life of a small northern village and the everyday circumstances of its people. The lives of He Tianrui, Zhang Yinghua, Gong Yaling, Wu Xiaoxia, Zhu Xiaolin, and the others form a delicate picture, showing the course of their youthful struggles and changing relationships in full. The stories of Chen Shejiao, Dang Xuemei, Tang Zhanying, and many others are central to the novel’s tangled relationships. Their resilience and kindness, their fervent love of life amid hardship, and their unwavering hope for the future are all deeply moving. At the same time, the novel offers a profound portrayal of the stark differences between rural and urban life during a period of social transformation, and of how people survive in different social environments.