During the famine years, Lin Wanghai kept his whole family hungry for the better part of a lifetime.
His grandmother was gravely ill with no medicine, his little sister was swollen from hunger, and his family lived in a poor fishing village, enduring the neighbors’ disdain and extortion by thugs. In the end, they froze and starved to death in the depths of winter.
When he opened his eyes again, he was back in late autumn of 1976, at the height of the famine.
In this life, he won’t go to the city or gamble on business. He’ll stay in the little fishing village behind him, with towering green mountains at his back and a vast ocean before him.
He shoulders a hunting rifle and climbs the mountain to hunt boars, snare pheasants, and gather wild ginseng, then stews roe deer to nourish his ailing grandmother.
He rolls up his trousers and wades into the sea to gather sea cucumbers, catch large yellow croakers, and collect abalone. The fresh seafood will give his frail little sister a delicious meal every day.
The deep mountains are his hunting grounds, and the sea is his granary.
He trades wild boar for a gun permit and sea cucumbers for a big-tiled house.
The village gossips, grasping distant relatives who show up to take advantage, and thugs coveting his family’s fishing grounds can all keep their distance.
While others chew tree bark and choke down bran cakes, the Lin family has meat at every meal and fresh seafood every day.
Spring breezes, evening sunlight, and kitchen smoke curling above the little village.
Up the mountains and out to sea, a life of simple pleasures stretches on.
In the famine years, the poor bow their heads. I’m rich, so I eat meat!
