Wang Mian Paints Lotus Flowers

A widow in a village by a lake sews for other people to earn her rice. Her husband is dead, grain is expensive, and the last of the household furniture has already gone to the pawnshop. She cannot pay for her son's schooling any longer, so she does what a poor family does with a clever child: she hires him out to the neighbour, Old Qin (Qín lǎo), to mind a water buffalo for a few coins a month.

The boy is Wang Mian (Wáng Miǎn), and he is ten. He is given two coins every morning to buy a snack; he saves them up and buys second-hand books instead, and reads under the willows while the buffalo grazes. One thing is worth knowing about his world: for a clever man there was exactly one road upward — study, pass the examinations, take a post in the government. A post meant money, safety and honour for your whole family, so a man who was offered one and said no was not being modest. He was saying something about the government that offered it, and everybody heard it that way.

But that is years off. For now there is a hot afternoon by the water, a storm coming, and ten or so lotus flowers standing in the lake.