1960: From the Start, My Dad Chased Me Down Three Streets

One day, Ma Qiandu, an overworked office worker in his thirties, wakes up as Ma Qianjin, a fourteen-year-old boy in the capital in 1960. From the start, his father catches him sneaking a smoke and chases him out of the courtyard at No. 90 Nanluoguxiang with a stick. Feeling his baby face and then his sunken belly, Ma Qianjin nearly cries. This is the worst stretch of the three-year period of hardship, and everyone is starving. Hoping to coast through life on the strength of his past experience writing proposals? Forget it. These days, even a proper, filling meal is hard to come by. In this era of scarcity and ration coupons, he may have a head full of internet-age ideas, but first he has to learn how not to starve to death. His most pressing challenge is figuring out how to get his family a bowl of cornmeal porridge that isn't all thin broth, even as hunger makes his vision swim. This is the story of an overworked young man struggling to keep his whole family alive amid the upheavals of life in a courtyard compound.