Prologue
“Kill a Sparrow Campaign” it was called - though official Mao Zedong announced it as the “Four Pests Campaign.” It was 1958, and Mao was reverently listened to in the land - which was at the middle of the world. He announced that several vermin would be brought under control – but the sparrow was not truly an evil, and everyone knew that. Rumor has it that the sparrow was simply a persona non grata in Mao’s eyes – who is to say. But millions of peasants slew the sparrows, because what Mao wanted – at that time – Mao got. It only took two years, and the sparrow population nosedived – and the reverse is that every bug they ate skyrocketed – the sparrows ate them in summertime, and feeding their young. At that time, Mao realized his mistake, but the damage was done.
One day in the after the Accident, a sparrow’s nest was placed in Tiananmen Square. For a long time it sat there, until removed by an officer of the guard - but the next day the sparrow’s nest was put back up again. Until finally the response was to let it fall to pieces, and decay into memory. But though the sparrows’ nest did disintegrate, the story - and others like it – did not decay. Until finally there were many books with sparrow in the title. As if, magically, everyone knew what they were really talking about. And began using the sparrow as a code word for Mao’s indiscretions when he was old, and the Accident and its aftermath.
It was not truly the sparrow, or anything like the sparrow, before the program. Because after all, it was only a sparrow.
