In the Famine Years, I Feast on Seafood and Game

In 1976, in a small fishing village called Huaishutun on the Liaonan Peninsula, the sea wind was salty and the mountain snow sealed the doors.

When Chen Mantun opened his eyes, he found himself back at the age of twenty. Grandma was sick in bed, his little sister was crying with hunger, the rice jar was almost empty, and the family owed the production team a mountain of grain.

In his previous life, he went to the city and out to sea, stumbling through half a lifetime, only to end up with nothing. In this life, he would go nowhere. He would stay in this little village nestled between the mountains and the sea.

With a hunting rifle on his shoulder, he knew every animal track in the forest and every hollow where a snare could be set. Roll up his trouser legs, and he could read the tides and map the hidden reefs. Clams, crabs, sea cucumbers, and large yellow croakers seemed to grow from the sea and swim straight into his arms.

A wild boar earned him a gun permit; sea cucumbers bought him a big-tiled house.

He wouldn't go to the city or go into business. All he wanted was the leisurely life of hunting in the mountains and gathering from the sea, and the warm, everyday bustle of family life.

In the famine years, the poor had to bow their heads. But now that I'm rich, I'm eating meat!