[1] It was her first attempt at writing fiction in English and with it, she addresses political issues relevant to early 20th Century China in a far more direct approach than she was ever akin to.

The novel highlights the horrors and suffering it caused a southern agrarian village in early 1950s China[3] and hinges on the lives of a large family of peasant landowners in the countryside.

The novel portrays the various and severe implications that the larger political institutions surrounding them impose, primarily the famine that led to the subsequent suffering of the peasants.

The novel depicted the circumstances that a certain extreme communist policy had on the people in an intimate and vivid way by capturing the intricacies and rituals of family life as well as provide an accurate portrayal of the voices of countryside peasants.

In doing so, Chang undoubtedly insinuates anti-communist ideologies and sparks a discourse about the dangers of communism as well as a retrospection at the harsh decisions of the communist party.

The story took place sometime between 1950 and 1954 in a rural town near Shanghai after the central government of the People's Republic of China enacted the Land Reform Law on June 30, 1950.

Chang's rise to prominence can be partly explained by the exodus of "progressive" writers from the foreign concessions to the north, which led to a vacuum in the literary scene that was filled by the leisurely Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School of popular romance.

During that period, she wrote the two novels Naked Earth and The Rice-Sprout Song, in English, both of which were sponsored by the United States Information Service, and which she then later rewrote in Chinese.

When Chang wrote The Rice-Sprout Song in the mid-fifties, she had neither the intention nor the resources to predict the forthcoming horrors, but in an uncanny way, her novel foretold the cruel absurdities that Chinese would experience.

Her marriage to Hu Lancheng, a writer and intellectual who collaborated with the Chinese puppet government headed by Wang Jingwei during the war-damaged her career.

The label of collaborator placed on Hu by the KMT (Kuomintang) government after the war made Zhang guilty by association, a fact that still affects her reception in China today.

In the current study of Eileen Chang, most of the scholars believe both The Rice Sprout Song and Naked Earth are commissioned writing by United States Information Service.

[15] In addition, in the interview with Richard M. McCarthy, former head of United States Information Service in Hong Kong, also denied this novel was commissioned.

Before she fled to the United States, she joined a land reform team and helped implement rural revolution for two months, and such experience later inspired and informed her on this novel.

This over 30000 words piece of work was about the actual things she saw and heard over her journey from Shanghai to Wenzhou passing through Huanan countryside to meet Hu Lancheng.

[21] The Rice Sprout Song depicts the absurd nature of the land reform movement of the Communist regime, as well as highlight the horrors and suffering it caused a southern agrarian village in early 1950s China.

The characters of Chang's story face the perils of famine but also the suffering and frustration that ensues from the gradual deterioration of their civility, humanity and most of all their traditional family values.

At the end of the novel, the survivors are forced to parade and take part in New Year's celebrations.” [23] The story focuses on the life of a middle-aged couple the T'an's, who have a young daughter named Beckon.

His earnest nature becomes corrupted and undone as he watches what he valued most about his family become sullied by the inhumane circumstances of the war, which ultimately drives his downfall, as he discards his rationality and blatantly rebels disregarding the inevitable dire consequences.

Moon Scent is unable to prevent her husband's final rebellious act and is taken to the village barn by the local soldiers, and witnesses Gold Root being shot by the cadres and injured for instigating a riot, she also watches as her daughter Beckon is trampled amidst the chaos.

At the very end of the novel, it is insinuated that Moon Scent sets fire to the storehouse barn as a final act of vengeance, and is later found by Big Aunt to have been burned with it.

[24] C. T. Hsia, author of History of Modern Chinese Fiction, spends twelve pages praising Rice-sprout Song; he calls Rice-sprout Song “a tragic record of the trials of human body and spirit under a brutal system.”[25] The male protagonist of the story, head of T'an household, husband of Moon Scent (Yuexiang) and the father of their daughter, Beckon.The male protagonist of the story, head of T'an household, husband of Moon Scent (Yuexiang) and the father of their daughter, Beckon.

Yuexiang understands that, to survive hunger, she has to store and ration food strictly; to that effect, she manages to cheat cadres, turn down her sister-in-law's requests, and even denies her own daughter's hungry pleas.

Veteran cadre in charge of enforcing the land reform regime and overlooking the peasants of the agrarian village the story is set in, who was clinging to the pursuit of ideology of Communism.

[27] A director-writer who had been sent by the Literary and Artistic Workers' Association all the way from Shanghai to this village to experience and observe the life of the peasants in the countryside during the communist regime and collect material for his next film.