Summary

“Persimmons” begins with the first-person plural, male narrator describing the plight of their village: there has been a drought and the village is running out of food. Despite this, the men of the village are enjoying the idleness the drought allows them, since they do not have to tend to their fields. The men remember Lao Da, a villager who had killed seventeen people in the county legislature a few months before and was subsequently executed. The villagers wonder if the drought is Heaven’s punishment for Lao Da’s actions, or if the drought began because Lao Da was wrongly punished. The villagers also ponder back and forth if Lao Da was reckless or righteous in committing the murders.

The men remember how Lao Da and his wife had ignored the laws of the “Birth Control Office” that mandated “one child per family...