Chapter 211 Inviting the Theater Troupe
Zhou Yimin smiled and said, "Grandma Xu, I asked someone to take a look at it. Your heirloom is indeed a treasure. Are you sure you want to exchange it?"
Finally, he asked again.
Old man Xu was very clear-headed. He said without question, "Change."
Nowadays, aren’t there many people who exchange heirlooms for food?
That is to say, Yimin was able to exchange so much food for their family. If he took it to an antique shop to sell it, he would probably get at most twenty or thirty yuan.
The cultural relics store in the capital was only established this year.
State-owned cultural relics stores are a unique product of the planned economy era.
At that time, all the shops selling cultural relics were state-owned. They were screened by experts and those cultural relics that were deemed salable were put on sale in the shops to generate foreign exchange. Most of the customers entering the shops were foreigners.
Foreigners are required to have exit wax as proof when they take antiques with them when leaving the country, so items with exit wax are mostly bought and sold by antique shops.
Of course, there are also forged wax seals.
But that is an illegal act. Generally, antique dealers who forge seals dare not imitate them according to the regulations set by the Cultural Relics Bureau, and the patterns will be changed.
If you have cultural relics at home and want to sell them, normally you can only sell them to a cultural relic store.
Selling it to other units or individuals is illegal.
Therefore, the current transaction between Zhou Yimin and the Xu family is illegal and cannot be made public. That is why Zhou Yimin chose to come here late at night.
Zhou Yimin thought he had done enough, and he reminded the other party again and again, and even added a "price".
Should we say we have done the best we can?
No matter what happens in the future, you really can't blame him.
After putting down the food and other items, Zhou Yimin and his companions left with the Xu family expressing their gratitude profusely.
Widow Ma looked at the large bags of grain and opened them. They were all high-quality corn kernels, which had been dried very well. There was no wet goods to fool them.
She also felt that Zhou Yimin was truly kind and righteous.
With these grains and the barrel of rapeseed oil, their family will be much more relaxed in the future and they won’t have to worry about food for at least a year or two.
"Danniu, bring back half a bag of corn tomorrow," she said.
Mrs. Xu was puzzled and asked, "Half a bag is not enough, right?"
"Mom! Asking Daniu to carry so much food back is not a good thing, but a bad thing. The whole village is short of food, and only my mother's family has it. Can you imagine what will happen?"
I have to say that Widow Ma is a smart person.
Old Man Xu nodded and said, "Ah Fen is right. Don't bring too much back at once."
Don't use food to test human nature.
Especially in times like this, when people are hungry and your family is the only one that is well fed, it is easy for you to become someone's target and a thorn in their eyes.
After hearing this, Daniu also broke out in a cold sweat.
He knew the situation in the village best. If the news that his family had a large amount of grain spread, everyone would come to borrow grain. What would he do then?
"Second sister, then I'll come over every month and take some back?"
Widow Ma nodded and said, "That's the best. Tell my parents that although we have food, they should not eat too much. Just eat more than others and don't starve to death."
Although the journey is a bit far and takes about three days to walk, and it is a bit troublesome to get food every month, she would rather take the trouble than want her parents' home to become the target of public criticism.
"good!"
It was impossible to give all the hundreds of kilograms of food to her parents' family. Not to mention that others would criticize her, Widow Ma herself was reluctant to do so. Since she was married, she must think more about her husband's family.
With so much food, except for the children, the adults couldn't sleep and discussed how to hide it.
Soon, the next morning arrived.
Widow Ma cooked a good meal for her brother Daniu so that he could eat his fill, and also made some bread for him to eat on the way back.
"Be careful and don't believe what strangers say..." Widow Ma gave a series of instructions to the bull, who was much bigger than her, like a mother.
Old Man Xu and Old Lady Xu were also very satisfied with their daughter-in-law's actions.
There is nothing wrong with taking care of your parents, but it should not be excessive. Old man Xu thinks that it is good for his daughter-in-law to do so, and she has a good sense of proportion.
Zhou Yimin always spent 4 yuan to buy the items with a daily discount of 1 yuan first.
Today we harvested 100 kilograms of rice noodles, 100 kilograms of soy sauce, 100 liters of diesel, and 100 braised ducks.
Diesel is not useful for the time being, but it will be useful sooner or later.
I haven't eaten rice noodles for a long time, but Zhou Yimin doesn't particularly like it. Soy sauce in this era is not expensive, but it is basically sold in bulk.
Braised duck is available in many places, and Zhou Yimin had eaten it a lot in his previous life. Especially duck products, such as duck necks, duck heads, duck intestines, etc., which are sold at a very high price.
The color of braised duck is ruddy and bright, the marinade is thick and mellow, and the meat is tender and sweet. The fatty acids in duck meat have a low melting point and are easy to digest.
Zhou Yimin put those things in the "supermarket locker" and ignored them for the time being.
I got up, brushed my teeth and washed my face, said hello to the aunties and grandmas in the yard, answered questions from a few little kids, and then prepared to go out to do some errands.
As soon as he went out, he met Zhao Zhenguo who came to visit him.
"It's really not easy to find you. I can't see you this time. I can only go to Zhoujiazhuang." Zhao Zhenguo said half-jokingly.
"Brother Zhao, what do you want from me?"
If it was the instant noodle factory's business, he didn't want to get involved for the time being. The instant noodles they were producing were enough to beat Xiao Ri Zi's products, so there was no need to develop new models for the time being.
It won’t be too late to launch products like bucket noodles and cup noodles later.
"Your reward."
As he spoke, Zhao Zhenguo took out ten US dollar bills from his bag.
That’s right! It’s US dollars.
This is a reward from the higher authorities for their factory. As a developer, Zhou Yimin received 100 US dollars, which is not a small amount according to the current exchange rate.
Most importantly, this is foreign exchange.
Foreign exchange cannot be said to be omnipotent, but it is indeed more useful than the RMB and can buy more things.
Although Zhou Yimin looked down on the $100, he still pretended to be excited and accepted it.
Zhao Zhenguo chatted with Zhou Yimin for a few more sentences, mainly about the instant noodle factory. He said that the new factory building had been built and asked Zhou Yimin to send someone to report at any time.
"Okay, thank you, Brother Zhao."
The ten people in the village who had drawn lots before had long been looking forward to working in the factory.
After watching Zhao Zhenguo leave, Zhou Yimin hurried to do his work.
After several days of hard work, Zhoujiazhuang finally harvested all the wheat. The next step was to dry the wheat. After drying, it would be taken away to pay the tax revenue.
But tonight, there is good news. Zhou Yimin invited the famous Xin Fengxia's Sijiucheng Experimental Pingju Troupe to perform in Sijiucheng.
When the news came out, it immediately caused a huge sensation. The people in Zhoujiazhuang were all smiling from ear to ear, and they were so happy in their hearts. Even the nearby villages, after hearing the news, wanted to come and see Xin Fengxia.
Xin Fengxia, whose original name was Yang Shumin, was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu.
When she was young, Xin Fengxia was abducted by human traffickers from Suzhou to Tianjin. At the age of 6, Xin Fengxia saw that her cousin could make a lot of money singing Peking opera to support her family, so she insisted on following this path.
Not only could she endure the hardships of training in the coldest and hottest days of winter, she even got up earlier and trained more than others.
When she was 13, she heard that she could perform on stage after learning Pingju opera for only one year, so she turned to Pingju opera without hesitation. Although her master did not teach her opera seriously and only let her play the roles of maids and palace maids, she treated it meticulously and took every opportunity to learn from her predecessors and peers.
Although I have heard before that some artists came from the city to the countryside to perform for the villagers.
However, Zhoujiazhuang had never received him before, so the old branch secretary was not very clear about the specific situation. Now it seems that Zhoujiazhuang is blessed to have Zhou Yimin. You can tell from the envious eyes of the village heads in the surrounding villages.
In order to get a seat closer to the front, some people finish their meal early and come here to reserve a seat.
Zhou Xucai was one of them, and he turned around and asked, "Uncle, I heard that those artists insisted on eating, living and working with the farmers during the performance, helping the masses harvest, thresh, weed, deliver manure, and even carry water and sweep the floor. Is that true?"
"How would I know? If you want to know, you can ask him in person, or you can ask Yimin?" the uncle replied.
Of course Zhou Xucai wanted to ask, but when he thought about the fact that he and Zhou Yimin had no friendship, he gave up the idea and just watched the show!
Before it even got dark, the stage was already packed with people. It was even more lively than the markets on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, with endless discussions.
After seeing this scene, Zhou Yimin realized that he had underestimated the appeal of opera, and it seemed that his efforts were not in vain.
I can only say it was a coincidence. I didn't expect that even the Experimental Pingju Troupe would have the idea of sending performances to the countryside. Otherwise, even if I wanted to invite them, there would be no way.
There are three reasons for sending operas to the countryside:
First of all, sending operas to the countryside is an organized and purposeful act of communication.
The government had made clear provisions in documents on the cycle, form, and scope of its dissemination activities, which not only guaranteed the legality of the troupe's dissemination behavior, but also attempted to restrict dissemination practices so that they would not deviate from their original intentions and meanings.
Secondly, sending operas to the countryside is a form of cultural production and dissemination jointly accomplished by artists and farmers. The main reason for sending operas to the countryside is that artists select materials from the production and life in the countryside, improvise them, and then perform them for the villagers, rather than being completely pre-arranged.
This not only increases the interactivity, closeness and liveliness of performing arts in rural areas, but also snatches away the stage space and mass base of stale old operas.
Finally, as for the exchange of professional skills, most of the actors who perform in rural areas have undergone professional training. In the countryside, they interact and live with local art lovers and actors from grass-roots troupes, and are taught movements, routines, singing styles, stage presentation, etc.
Through this type of training and by giving away performance scripts representing the new culture, their thinking is transformed while their performance skills are improved.
A few days ago, Zhou Yimin learned that his grandparents were fans of Xin Fengxia, and he felt a little amused. He happened to hear that the Experimental Pingju Troupe had started to perform in the countryside, so he thought of asking whether Zhoujiazhuang was within the original scope, and if not, whether it could be included.
Xin Fengxia refused at first because Zhoujiazhuang was not within the original scope.
Zhou Yimin knew this but was not discouraged. He got straight to the point and said, "New troupe leader, I am a section chief in the purchasing department of the steel plant. My grandparents like you very much. When I learned that you started to send operas to the countryside, I wondered if you could also perform in our Zhoujiazhuang?"
"Thank you very much for your grandparents' love for me, but this is the rule, so there's nothing we can do about it." Xin Fengxia refused.
Although he wanted to take the Experimental Pingju Troupe to perform all over the country, he couldn't do that because the food supply across the country was very tight and his members had trouble getting enough food, let alone meat. He decided to supply food and meat to those villages to improve the troupe's meals.
Zhou Yimin said directly: "If I can provide some pork, I wonder if the new leader can consider it?"
When he just came in, he found that many members of the Experimental Pingju Troupe were hungry and listless. Not only were their faces yellow and their bodies thin, but they also had difficulty concentrating.
Xin Fengxia refused: "I'm sorry. What did you just say?"
"I said, I can provide some pork, I wonder if the new team leader can consider our Zhoujiazhuang?" Zhou Yimin said.
“How much pork?”
Obviously, Xin Fengxia was moved.
If not for yourself, you have to consider the team members!
"50 kilograms?" Zhou Yimin asked tentatively.
50 kilograms is not a small amount. Most families only eat a few kilograms of pork a year.
Zhou Yimin has one trick up his sleeve. He knows that as long as he provides the meat, many things can be done.
It was just a few dozen kilograms of meat, which was nothing to him. It could only make Grandpa happy, which was nothing.
As expected.
Xin Fengxia immediately said, "Section Chief Zhou, are you serious? If you can really provide 50 kilograms of pork, I will agree to your request."
Did I underestimate the man in front of me? You know, 50 kilograms of pork is not a small amount. Nowadays, a pig is only more than 200 kilograms, which is equivalent to half a pig. Although many people in the group have good family conditions, they need tickets to buy everything now. A month's meat ticket is only two taels, so even if you are rich, it is difficult to buy it.
You have to know that in the villages where we went with the group members, there were only a few kilograms or more than ten kilograms of meat, and not all of it was pork. It might be rabbit meat, or even fish.
Zhou Yimin said: "Of course it's true, and I can pull it over in a moment?"
"How much is one pound?"
After Xin Fengxia calmed down, she still had to ask clearly. She was initially overwhelmed by the 50 kilograms of pork. If the price was too expensive, she could buy it on the black market, so there was no need to agree to Zhou Yimin's request.
Zhou Yimin said, "One yuan per pound, and no tickets are required. I believe the new team leader will not refuse this price, right?"
You have to know that pork in the black market will be sold out at two yuan per pound. After all, if you want to buy it at a butcher's shop, not only do you have to queue up early, but you may not be able to buy it. The most important thing is to go to the butcher's shop.
"Okay, it's a deal."
Their troupe is not poor, they just lack supplies.
From ancient times to the present, opera singers never seem to be too poor, unless they are amateurs and their singing is so bad that ordinary people don't buy it. If they can be appreciated by important people, they will become rich.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com