This is a super moving story of one boy's swim to freedom from mainland China to the British colony of Hong Kong during Mao's regime.
The story is told in alternating POVs, between field orphan and outcast Ming, who loses both his parents and lives with the stigma of his father, who betrayed Mao and tried to swim to freedom, and Li, the city-born-and-raised boy who comes to the fields as part of Mao's Down to the Countryside movement.
They strike up an unexpected friendship swimming in the nearby lagoon to escape the summer heat. Ming is impressed by Li's ability to read, if jealous of Li's gregarious, easy-nature with the girl who holds Ming's heart in her eyes. Li is later grateful for Ming's friendship when his parents are exposed as "capitalist conspirators" for mailing a letter and Li's beaten and left for dead.
When neither boy has anything left to live for, they swim.
I won't reveal what happens, just know, there's several twists I didn't see coming. The ending had me bawling.
Enjoy!
