218 Retirement
Guan Yuehe hadn't been back to her hometown for several years. Lin Ting and the other younger girls, on the other hand, went to the Fengshou Brigade every winter and summer vacation.
Because Juanjuan and her brother were studying in the city for junior and senior high school, her aunt's family often went to the city.
The empty guest rooms in Guan Yuehe's courtyard and the empty master bedroom in Courtyard No. 1 are basically only occupied by her aunt's family when they come to the city to stay overnight.
"Second sister, are you done yet? Big brother's car has arrived." Guan Aiguo came over and knocked on the door.
"We're here." Guan Yuehe and Lin Yiku were relaxed, but Lin Ting was carrying a schoolbag and several bags.
They went back to their hometown for lunch and returned in the afternoon, not wanting to be late for work the next day. Lin Ting, however, was going to stay in her hometown for a few days.
"Your uncle will help you get it."
"I can do it myself!" Lin Ting dodged Guan Aiguo's hand and huffed and puffed as she ran towards Ginkgo Alley.
"Hey! Isn't it good that your uncle is helping you carry it?" Guan Aiguo scratched his head. "Second sister, what mischievous idea is she plotting now?"
"How is that plotting something bad? Do your own thing, eat more and exercise more to have strength..." Guan Yuehe was too lazy to explain any further, and slapped the back of his head, "Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and go."
Guan Aiguo was angry for a few seconds, then deflated. He wanted to say that the man was over thirty years old, so why did he still hit him so easily? But as soon as he said it, his second sister and brother-in-law were staring at him... Oh well, they're family.
They weren't the only ones who came; there was also Grandpa Lin, Grandma Fang, and Lin Sitian's family of three. Guan Jianguo's minibus was packed with people.
Guan Jianguo used to drive trucks in the factory's transport team. Later, he took a leave of absence without pay and started driving a taxi. He was doing well as a taxi driver, but the machinery factory started to decline last year, and its poor performance forced it to lay off some workers. Weiwei, who wasn't a child of a factory worker, was among the first batch of laid-off workers.
At twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, he couldn't just stay at home idle after being laid off. So, Guan Jianguo had Weiwei learn to drive and take over his job as a taxi driver, while he bought a second-hand minivan and drove to the countryside in the suburbs every day to transport people and goods.
After Weiwei was laid off and unemployed, the originally planned wedding date was postponed again and again.
When his older brother and sister-in-law were thinking about finding him another job, they realized they needed to ask for advice from their family. The idea of having Weiwei buy a minibus to drive passengers was suggested by Gu Mannian, and his older brother and sister-in-law took it to heart; it was just that the father and son switched jobs.
Just then, Weiwei drove up in his taxi and invited his grandparents, Uncle Lin, and Aunt Fang to ride in his car.
“Let’s splurge and take a taxi today,” Jiang Guiying said cheerfully, pulling her old friend into the car.
It was the right decision for the older folks not to take the minibus.
Guan Yuehe, sitting in the last row, felt her ears ringing. Lin Sitian, sitting next to her, wished she could cover her ears with both hands.
"We weren't this rowdy before, were we?"
“We are, but your brother isn’t,” Guan Yuehe whispered to her best friend.
“...That makes sense, daughters resemble their fathers and nephews resemble their uncles. No wonder.” Lin Sitian suddenly felt that it was only natural that Lin Ting and Chen Yu were so noisy, and as for Yao Yao...being with these two troublemakers every day, it was reasonable that she would be influenced by them.
"Hehe." The two of them laughed at the same time.
Sitting in the middle, Lin Yiku seemed to sense something and turned around to look. He saw the two of them covering their mouths with their hands as they spoke. After saying a few words, they would look up at him and Chen Lizhong and then laugh so hard that their shoulders would shake.
Based on his understanding of the two of them, they were most likely talking badly about him and Chen Lizhong.
Soon, Guan Yuehe and Lin Sitian had no time to talk badly about anyone else. After a bumpy hour-long ride, the Harvest Brigade finally arrived.
The road back to my hometown is much easier now. Before, it would take two hours to get there by bus and bicycle. Now, it only takes an hour to get from the alley entrance to my uncle and aunt's house by minibus.
No wonder my dad always talks about how much better things are back home now, saying that the new apartment building is much more comfortable than the old bungalows in Ginkgo Alley.
Guan Yuehe stood at the gate of her uncle and aunt's courtyard and looked inside. A two-story building stood out in particular.
Who wouldn't love a detached house?
Guan Yuehe liked it very much. If it weren't for the fact that her own courtyard couldn't accommodate a two-story building, she would have built a small building as well.
The house was clean and bright, and all the major appliances were there: a color TV, a refrigerator, and a telephone—the three essential items of the modern era—were displayed in the living room.
But my second brother said that his family wasn't the best off in Fengshou Brigade. Some people were bold and daring, and they contracted more land, making a fortune over the years.
The courtyard was bustling with people coming and going. My uncle and aunt's family were well-liked in the Fengshou Brigade. Many people came to celebrate Juanjuan's admission to university.
"Weiguo, you and Qiuyue are just waiting to enjoy life from now on. Juanjuan has been admitted to university, and after graduation she can become a cadre and have a city household registration."
"Old Guan, do you have some kind of Wenquxing (a deity associated with literature) worshipped in your family? Count how many college students have come out of there?"
The eldest uncle, aunt, second brother, and second sister-in-law couldn't stop smiling as they went from table to table greeting the guests, saying modestly, "We don't expect Juanjuan to become a high-ranking official; it would be enough if she could get a good job in a good unit in the future."
However, before Juanjuan could graduate from university, in 1996, the country officially abolished the system of assigning university graduates to jobs.
Juanjuan had just finished her junior year of college and was about to have her last summer vacation during her university years.
Jiang Guiying was so angry at home that she waved the feather duster loudly, shouting, "Why was it canceled so quickly?! Couldn't it have been canceled a year later?"
A major national policy isn't issued on a whim. There were signs of it over the past two or three years, and it was gradually implemented until it was officially issued this year.
In the face of national policies and the tides of the times, an individual is but a speck of dust. There are no policies that remain unchanged for long. As the saying goes, whoever can keep up with the times will rise to the top.
Guan Yuehua slowly cut open the watermelon on the table and said, "I think Juanjuan has her own ideas, so you don't need to worry about it."
Jiang Guiying couldn't help but worry. She couldn't help but worry about the younger generation in her family as they went to school and got married, fearing that they wouldn't have good jobs.
Now that the policy has been announced that no jobs will be provided, Jiang Guiying is completely dumbfounded.
"It's perfectly normal. There are more and more college graduates; where are companies going to conjure up so many positions?"
Look at the state-owned enterprises outside; since the reform and opening up, they have undergone a great shakeout, and few remain. Meanwhile, the number of private and foreign-owned enterprises is increasing.
Besides, given the current situation, college graduates may not necessarily want to accept job assignments.
"Then Jingjing obeyed the assignment and went to the Zhuoyue Garment Factory?" Jiang Guiying retorted.
“How can that be the same?” Guan Yuehe, who had been busy eating watermelon, said, “Zhuoyue is now a joint-stock company, not a state-owned enterprise, and the government no longer holds shares.”
Zhuoyue Garment Factory submitted its property rights reform plan as early as 1993. The plan was delayed for two years until last year when the state affirmed the Zhucheng shareholding reform model, and various places followed suit. Zhuoyue Garment Factory's reform plan was finally officially approved at the beginning of this year.
All 4,233 employees of the factory jointly invested in purchasing all the assets of Zhuoyue Garment Factory. From then on, Zhuoyue Garment Factory was no longer a state-owned factory.
Less than six months after the property rights reform, the profits of Zhuoyue Garment Factory doubled. In Gu Mannian's words, he is now working even harder than when he first joined the factory, after all, he now has a share in the factory.
After the property rights reform, the factory's personnel department directly approached schools to recruit people. Jingjing studied fashion design at the fashion college, a relevant major, and signed a contract with Zhuoyue Garment Factory before graduation. This was different from the old days when college graduates had to accept job assignments; now it was called "two-way selection."
Jiang Guiying grew more stubborn with age, insisting that the Zhuoyue Garment Factory was no different from the old state-owned factories; the only difference was the ownership structure. Everything else remained the same.
Even the factory director is still Director Zheng.
Guan Yuehe felt a little disappointed when she thought of Director Zheng.
Gu Mannian said that Director Zheng is retiring this year.
Now it was Guan Yuehe's turn to sigh. Why was their factory director, Zheng, about to retire?
—
"Zhuoyue Garment Factory has been officially established for exactly thirty years. During those thirty years, I served as the factory manager for twenty-eight years, witnessing our factory grow from a small bungalow to its current scale of three branch factories. From eight permanent employees and twelve temporary workers, we've grown to over four thousand permanent employees today..."
Zheng Xingmin scanned the sea of heads below one by one. There were old colleagues who had been with her for thirty years, new faces who had just entered the factory, some retired workers, and colleagues who had left Zhuoyue Garment Factory for a wider world.
The factory successfully completed the ownership reform, and she did her last bit of effort for the factory that she had founded.
The burden I've carried for thirty years can finally be put down.
She felt that she had done a fairly good job as the factory manager.
—
"Our factory director is too modest. If the city were to select the top ten best factory directors, our director would definitely get a vote!"
When Director Zheng is mentioned, Guan Yuehe still gives him a thumbs up and praises him highly.
"No doubt about it!" Gu Mannian agreed, then couldn't help but sigh, "I really can't bear to part with our factory director."
Guan Yuehe laughed and said, "Even the donkeys in the production team have rest periods. Our factory director has been busy for so many years, shouldn't he take a break too?"
"That's true. Our factory manager is over fifty this year, and her daughter is already married and has children."
The development of Zhuoyue Garment Factory is evident to all. Director Zheng originally had a better future, but in the end he chose to stay and wholeheartedly wanted to make Zhuoyue Garment Factory bigger and stronger.
But they didn't expect that Director Zheng, who had only been retired for a little over half a year, couldn't stay idle and went to study for a master's degree, returning to school for further studies.
In 1998, Guan Yuehe was shocked when she heard news about Director Zheng again. After graduating with a master's degree, Director Zheng started his own decoration company.
Guan Yuehe was utterly shocked by the extent of this industry shift.
That's why they say opportunity favors the prepared mind.
With Director Zheng's drive, he could work for another thirty years.
That same year, the government stopped allocating housing and began commercializing housing.
Guan Yuehe used all of her savings from the past few years to buy an affordable housing unit in the suburbs, which cost about 2,000 yuan per square meter.
When she said she wanted to buy an apartment, Jiang Guiying and Aunt Lin gasped at the price, and were even more shocked when they heard that she had taken out a bank loan.
"How about we save up and buy it later?"
“No way,” Guan Yuehe insisted. “I think what Director Zheng said makes a lot of sense. If we stop allocating housing in the future, then everyone will have to buy their own houses. There are only so many houses available, and they will definitely become more and more expensive in the future.”
Anyway, the interest rate on money in the bank is not as good as it was a few years ago. A few years ago, the deposit interest rate was as high as 10% or more, but now it's much lower.
Even with a loan, her and Lin Yiku's housing provident fund can cover the monthly repayments. Lin Ting is also just starting high school, and the family hasn't spent a lot of money on anything.
Jiang Guiying and the others knew they couldn't persuade this stubborn mule, so they could only cover their ears and pretend they couldn't hear her.
When Lin Ting went home for the weekend, she usually went to Ginkgo Alley first, and she happened to hear her maternal and paternal grandmothers talking about her mother.
"I used to think she was stingy and more frugal than her sister. But look at her, buying house after house. There are only three of them, and they still can't fit everyone in all those houses. Sigh..."
Lin immediately knew that her mother had gone to the suburbs to buy an apartment.
She also contributed money to buy this house; all the New Year's money she had received over the years became part of the down payment. But her parents said that this house was only for her, and even if she didn't get into university and had to run a small shop at home, she wouldn't have to worry. They had already bought her a house as a guarantee, and she could run the small shop for the rest of her life.
Soon, Grandma and Grandpa stopped saying that buying a house was a bad thing.
As the hutongs in the city begin to be vacated, the elderly folks in Ginkgo Hutong talk about whether or not Ginkgo Hutong will be vacated whenever they meet.
The relocation hasn't even started yet, but the elderly folks have already agreed to use the money to buy apartments in the suburbs so they can still be neighbors.
Author's Note: [Heart emoji]
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