Loewe also gives an idea of ​​what life on a farm might have been like in Han times. Not only did farmers have to measure everything, "down to the fraction of the last bushel of the crop," but if they did not do so, they would have been punished by district officials or county superiors. In one of Bing's earliest memories, our protagonist remembers his father inspecting their bountiful harvest on a late summer afternoon and setting off on a multi-day journey to sell their fruits and vegetables for money. extra money. Bing's memories illustrate the traditions and painstaking and tedious dedication of many ordinary people in Han society.