Auspicious Signs

In the remote, frigid town of Zhenxiang, one side of the story explores the local customs and everyday lives seen through the eyes of teenagers in the 1980s, while the other looks back on the land reclamation efforts of the early Republic of China. Yao Qiw the Fifth is a wanderer of the wilderness and a dreamer grounded in reality. An unexpected long vacation set Yao Qiw the Fifth on a life of daily wandering. He played with his classmates and experienced the joys and pains of growing up. Out in the wilderness, he listened to Old Ding and the old soldiers tell their stories, uncovering how his ancestors came to reclaim land in Zhenxiang and slowly lifting the layers of mystery around the saying, “Second Uncle went off to become a bandit.” He glimpsed the lives of all kinds of people in that era of refugees, as well as the fate of three generations of the Yao family. From the early years of the Republic of China, through the feud between the Jiang and Huang landowning families and the rise of the Yao family shop, to its eventual disappearance, the story sketches the changing landscape of Zhenxiang over half a century. One by one, these ordinary people left their homes for the newly established town. Poor and humble, they did everything they could just to survive. Their descendants, however, did everything they could to leave.