Letters

My Chinese Dream

As a child born in the 1970s, I have felt the pangs of poverty. My family was poor as were many other families in the countryside.

Second-hand clothes and leaking roofs have become a part of my memory. But the worst memory of poverty is hunger. I used to feel hungry all the time. So severe was the hunger that dried sweet potato slices were more than delicious snacks for me. My greatest dream then was to get enough to fill my always empty stomach.