Cai Shuxia 
Memories of My Father [EPUB ebook] 

At that time, my family rented more than 20 mu of land. In rainy days, everything in the land would slide down the slope because it was a mountainous land. Therefore, the grain in the land was two spans long, so short that we just pulled it by hand without using sickles. As a result of low yield, we did not have enough food to eat for one year after paying rent. Before spring equinox, my mother led us to carry the dung to the ground and planted wheats, hemps, corns, millets, potatoes and radishes. When the lands were planted, there was no food at home and I was dizzy with hunger. That there was nothing we could do at that lean season.