China is an enormous country, rife with cultural complexity and differing social experiences. Literature offers a way to understand this great nation's social, cultural, and human concerns. This collection presents Chinese short fiction that evokes the varying ways of life in this diverse nation -- from the idyllic mountains and streams of West Hunan to the picturesque water town of Zhejiang; from the high plateau of western Sichuan to the harsh landscape of the northeast. Readers can travel through these many places and discover that among the rural and metropolitan regions of China there lies a stirring cultural force, resulting in a truly compelling anthology.