 He served as Mo Yan's longtime English translator.In Mandarin Chinese the word for frog, 蛙 ("wā"), sounds similar to the sound made by a baby (娃 "wā"), and the narrator's name means "tadpole".Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that the conflicts between the government abortion planners, who believe that they are doing the right thing, and the prospective parents makes "Frog" a "startlingly dramatic book".