The story takes place during the 1920s in Chungking (now spelled Chongqing), a large city in southwest China's Szechuen (now spelled Sichuan) Province. Young Fu is a farmboy from a rural village in the hills; the novel opens with his move to Chungking at age thirteen and follows him as he discovers the wonders of this great, walled city with its narrow, winding streets and alleys. The busy life of the streets—the coolies, or load-bearing laborers, with carrying-poles balanced on their shoulders; the children playing games; the beggars; the shops of the craftsmen; the tea houses; the "foreign devils" creating a stir as they pass by— fills Young Fu's heart and mind with excitement. Just below the city walls flows the Yangtze River (or, as the Chinese call it, the Chang Jiang), and when it floods, the reader gets a powerful sense of its awesome...