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“A Girl Who Eats Sparrows” excerpt from a novella by Zhu Yiye (translated from the Chinese by Liuyu Ivy Chen) Photography by Yi Xin Tong
A Girl Who Eats Sparrows
Introduction by Liuyu Ivy Chen
In these first two chapters, a group of men are drinking, eating fried soybean worms, and recalling their youthful days during the Vietnam War with disturbing detail. While their wives are excluded from the room, their small children play around the table and quickly pick up the battleground language—they begin a killing game to mimic the war glory, craving the thrill. The adults offer no explanation or guidance to help the children understand the brutality of the war—they don’t seem to understand it either,