Love's eternity is patience.

Author: Zhang Xin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-04-01
Features: This book is a new masterpiece by the renowned female writer Zhang Xin, attempting to depict the outline of an era through the fate of an ordinary girl. The protagonist Yu Kangmei (later renamed Yu Bing) experienced the Cultural Revolution, military life, and eventually immersed herself in the commercial sea of China during its transition period. Amidst political fluctuations and the twists of life, she sometimes found herself at the crest of the wave and other times cast down to the depths. Her personal relationships also became distorted and twisted in this rapid transformation: Kangmei's first love was a "one-sided crush" in a rural area of Shaanxi Province. After joining the army, she pushed men away with her extreme left-wing attitude, and later, due to historical circumstances, became labeled as a "henchman of the Gang of Four," left isolated and friendless. In the end, she chose Yang Zhixi, a sickly descendant of a declining family, and their marriage was inevitably doomed to end in their quiet separation. However, Kangmei's inner self was actually kind and warm-hearted. Every mark on her was a trace of the historical process, yet she was not a lucky one. Like countless ordinary people, it was her turbulent experiences that made her mature and taught her not to complain. In the early days of reform and opening up, Kangmei met Xiao Canghua, a married man, which ( means "destined" and should be translated as "destined") their relationship to be a bitter love. Throughout, Kangmei adhered to her classical views on love, so they never had moonlit nights or secret rendezvous—only a near yet distant gaze, an unattainable possession. The novel meticulously portrays the inner journey of the protagonist, Yu Kangmei, through storms and winds, while calmly depicting the path walked by a generation. The story spans a long yet not excessively long twenty-six years, a period that was among the most turbulent and ever-changing in contemporary China. Perhaps every reader will find a reflection of their own past in the vivid portrayal of the myriad characters in the work.