In 1992, the wave of reform and opening up hit Manzhouli, China's northernmost land port. This small border town located at the junction of China, Russia and Mongolia is known as the "Window to East Asia" and was approved by the country as one of the first batch of open cities along the border that year. Countless people with dreams poured into this vast land, and among them was an ordinary family from Changtu, Liaoning - Lao Li's family.
The story begins when the head of the family, Li Fu, takes his eldest son to travel north. The four children have different destinies: the eldest daughter stayed behind to study, the eldest son worked hard with his father, the older son was favored, and the youngest daughter, who was least valued, became self-taught by relying on a Russian book she picked up, accidentally opening the door to the family's trade with Russia. The sweat and wisdom of two generations have been intertwined with the torrent of the times to form a magnificent picture of border trade entrepreneurship.
Thirty years later, the third generation of the Li family, Li Guisha, became the youngest dean of the Russian Translation Institute in the country at the age of thirty. She is elegant and intellectual, holds a CATTI Russian Interpretation and Translation Level 1 certificate and the highest level Russian C2 certificate, and stands at the forefront of Sino-Russian exchanges. However, in every moment of translation, she could hear the wind in the grassland - the echo of her fathers who spent half their lives trudging to pave the road under her feet.
From the changes in fate of a family, we can see the rise of a city; from the intergenerational inheritance of a language, we can witness the excitement of an era. The struggles, choices and perseverance of the three generations of old, middle and young people have all grown their own legends in the wind and rising sun in Manzhouli.
Purpose: Use translation as a bridge to connect the struggles of three generations with the opening of a border town, and write about the dignity and glory of ordinary people growing up in the great era.