INTRODUCTION

The name ‘Little Sparrow Boat’ comes from a bird, which is very common in Ningbo. During the Great Leap Forward period, they were killed as one of the ‘Four Pests’. However, it was later discovered that the lack of sparrows would lead to the destruction of the natural ecosystem, and the government ordered the protection of sparrows. In the poor times before that, sparrows were also used as food, and it was still customary to eat sparrows in Ningbo. The little sparrow boat was like a private car, but it’s cheap. And it is also one of the most basic vehicles in the work Dreaming Under The Bridge. It is worth mentioning that there are two types of sparrow boats, cement boats and steel plate boats, which are of the same shape but are distinguished by the difference in surface texture. Cement boats were very common in China in the 1960s and 1970s, and even now in the twenty-first century there are still a small number of people using them, but most have been disposed of or have long since run aground unmanaged.