The Start of Spring

In 1978, in a small county town in Northeast China, twenty-year-old Lan Xinhua crouched outside the radio station window, pressing her ear to the glass to listen to the people inside. She thought: Why can’t I be the one speaking through that loudspeaker? She hadn’t finished middle school, made countless spelling mistakes, and spoke Mandarin with a strong corn-country twang. But she had a beautiful voice and a heart that refused to give up. From a village girl to a county radio announcer, from loudspeakers to radios, from radios to phone screens, from the radio station to the converged media center. Fifty years of wind blew past, carrying away her colleagues, changing the face of the industry, and turning the hair at her temples white. Only she stayed. Someone asked her, “This line of work is practically dead. What are you still doing it for?” She said, “In a lifetime, being able to find one thing that makes you willing to talk until your voice is hoarse and sit until the bench wears through is a blessing.” You can’t see or touch a voice, but it can cross mountains, flow over rivers, and find its way into people’s hearts. For fifty years, every word Lan Xinhua read was a seed. When the wind blew, they spread across the mountains and plains. This is the story of a woman who dedicated fifty years to the news industry, and of a lifetime spent holding on to one thing.