The Monkey Kid focuses on the details of a nine year-old girl's daily life during the Cultural Revolution. In 1970 China's intellectuals had been dispersed to the countryside to learn from the peasants. Their children remained in the cities to learn life on their own. Shi-Wei, the Monkey Kid, is one of these children, and she survives her family's fracture by instinctively clinging to happiness; she is a bright light against a dark background. With her parents away she gathers with friends wherever she wants, she shows up late for school, she tumbles down mountains of gravel, she balances on balconies five stories high. Shi-Wei has dizzying choices. And she slides away from the dull embrace of the Cultural Revolution