In this story by Ha Jin, a Chinese kindergarten student (Shaona) comes up with an unusual response to her teacher’s lies about herbs their class has been collecting. Major themes are (for Shaona) loneliness, uncertainty, alienation, adaption (for Shen) poverty, hunger, deception, betrayal. Shen may be a symbol of the Chinese authorities, her ‘poverty’ being a metaphor for greed. With no respect for the rules, she accumulates wealth (purslanes) through corruption and the toil of her charges. Shaona identifies several of Shen’s character traits, and puts two of them (bribery and deceit) to use in dealing with the class bully.
Original Text / PDF (3,400 words)