Introduction

The Great Wall and the Pyramids might be called Wonders of the World, but I've always thought of them with mixed feelings. Who can count the lives that were sacrificed to make them possible? Today's story must have been the story of countless families. Legend has it that during the Qing Dynasty, which was about 2,200 years ago, there was a family with a last name of Meng. An old man and his wife planted a bottle gourd seed and watered it carefully every day. The plant grew and grew, climbed over the fence and into the neighbor's yard. A gourd grew on the vines in the Zheng family's yard and it grew to an unusual size.