Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Sister, I have noodles, do you want some? ...
Su Yan grabbed two White Rabbit candies and spent two and a half hours in the cornfield. Despite spraying mosquito repellent, her legs were still covered in bites from the vicious mosquitoes. By 4:30, the sky was already gray. Su Yan walked along the main road and soon encountered three or four men and women. The women had pigtails, the men were dressed in blue, and each carried a hoe, chatting and laughing as they walked.
Su Yan thought she was lucky, heading in the right direction, and hadn't taken the wrong route. After another hour of walking, she finally saw the city wall, with the words "Qingyuan" written on it. Once Su Yan entered the city, it was bustling, but even then, it wasn't half as lively as the county town where Su Yan had been teaching. Perhaps it was still early, so the streets were deserted, and there were no vendors. On the way, she heard two people saying they were going to a restaurant. Su Yan followed them quietly for a while, only to discover they were going to a state-owned restaurant. From outside, she saw they simply ordered a bowl of plain noodles and, in addition to paying, also gave food coupons.
Perhaps she had been standing outside the restaurant for too long, so the waiter called out to her, "What are you standing there looking at? Eating here is different from your brigade canteen or commune canteen. Do you need food coupons?"
Su Yan rolled her eyes in her heart. What's so pretentious? It's just a restaurant. But she still smiled and said, "Sister, I've run out of food coupons this month. Can you be flexible?"
The older woman was incredibly plump, perhaps weighing 150 pounds, nothing like the skinny, pale workers you see on the street. She waved her hands and said, "Hey, it's only halfway through the month, and you've already run out of food coupons?" She smiled at the customers and said, "Look, look, how can young girls these days manage to get by? The little daughter of my neighbor, Mrs. Wang, has been an apprentice for three months, and she still goes home every month to go hungry."
Then he completely ignored Su Yan, turned his head away and talked about family matters.
Su Yan turned around and took only two steps when she smelled the aroma of fried green onions. She had eaten a meal before arriving. There was rice and meat in the space, but she couldn't start a fire. She had eaten a few packets of snacks and now she wanted something salty.
Su Yan walked away and squatted on the ground, deciding to eat a bowl of noodles first. There were noodles in the space, but she didn't have pots and pans, and no firewood, so she couldn't cook. After a while, the big radio started to play, and more people were on the street. It must be time to go to work.
Su Yan sat by the roadside, carefully observing the pedestrians. Most of them wore gray or blue clothes, and men and women alike were alike. They were in a hurry, their faces pale and thin, and some women were even swollen. They walked with a light foot, a heavy foot, and a stumbling gait. Su Yan watched them, and she felt as if they would never reach their destination, and some of them would faint. Su Yan then remembered her history textbooks. It seemed that 1961 was a year of natural disasters, and that year, most people in the country did not have enough food.
Su Yan had an idea. She walked to a quiet spot and pulled out a bundle of noodles from her space. These were alkaline noodles she had bought at the market, loose, weighing thirty pounds, unpackaged. She had promised to make her university cafeteria's delicacy—hot dry noodles—for the students. After a moment's thought, she pulled out a bottle of sesame paste and tore off the paper covering the glass so the production date wouldn't be visible. She examined the glass lid and discovered the production date engraved around it. With a sigh, she put the sesame paste down. She pulled out a roll of noodles, which looked to weigh over two pounds, wrapped it in a blue cloth and cradled it in her arms.
Then she sat by the roadside and waited. It was June or July at that time, and even though there was shade from the trees above her head, Su Yan was sweating profusely while waiting. It was not until the afternoon when the work was over that she finally met the person she wanted to wait for.
Su Yan has been with her mother, who is a businesswoman, since she was a child. She may not be very good at reading people's expressions, but she can tell who is kinder and easier to talk to by looking at their faces. This older woman was walking alone, her legs were swollen, her face was pale, and she almost fell when she passed by Su Yan. She held on to the wall for a while. Seeing this, Su Yan walked forward and said, "Sister, what's wrong with you? I see you are not feeling well. Let me take you to the hospital."
She spoke weakly, "Going to the hospital can't cure this. It's okay, it's okay. I'm just too hungry. I only eat one corn bun a day. I can't stand it."
Su Yan was surprised: "How could it be? My father told me that people in the city are all on government payroll and have city hukou. Their monthly salary is more than ours in a year. How can they only eat a corn bun a day?"
The older woman was in her forties and looked so hungry that she didn't even want to say anything. "It's different, it's different! There are people starving to death in the city now."
Su Yan leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Sister, I have noodles. Do you want some?" The older sister grabbed Su Yan's hand, immediately became alert, glanced around, and whispered, "What kind of noodles? The dried noodles from the supply and marketing cooperative?"
Just as Su Yan was about to speak, she interrupted her: "Let's go and talk somewhere else."
When they reached a corner in the back street, the older woman asked, "Miss, how much do you have? How much do you want to sell it for?"
Su Yan said, "Sister, I'm not a speculator. These noodles are made by my family and are my staple food. I see that you are really hungry, so I'm sharing some with you without charging you any money. It's just that I haven't bought anything right now, so I can't go home and have no place to stay." As she spoke, she pulled open the blue cloth, revealing a roll of yellow noodles. It looked like they were indeed handmade, not the dried noodles sold in the supply and marketing cooperative.
The older sister was obviously relieved. In this day and age, anyone willing to give out food was always kindhearted. "Girl, it's not easy for you country folk either. I must give you the money. You can stay at my house today. I'll help you find out what you want to buy tomorrow."
Su Yan shook her head: "Forget it, this thing is not that easy to buy. The supply and marketing cooperative is gone. I will go home early tomorrow morning."
Su Yan helped her back to her home, a residential building. Everyone she met greeted her warmly, "Song's Wife!" She asked who Su Yan was, and Song's Wife smiled and said, "A relative from the countryside came to visit me." Su Yan was stunned. Of course, if other people knew about it, buying food on the black market would be a serious offense, at least punishable by criticism. The layout of this place was similar to the decades-old residential complexes Su Yan had seen, albeit with shorter buildings. The greenery in this courtyard was all planted with vegetables, but it looked like they had been mostly eaten.
Su Yan followed her home, a small, two-bedroom apartment with four children. The oldest was eight or nine, and the youngest, still unable to walk, was held by the older child. The remaining two children were hunched over their desks, doing their homework. When they heard the door open, they all turned their heads and asked, "Mom, I'm hungry! Do you have any steamed buns today?" Mrs. Song scolded them, "All you do is eat all day. Why don't you focus on studying? Your homeroom teacher called me again and said you weren't paying attention in class this afternoon."
The boy pouted and said, "I only ate half a corn bun in the morning, and by the afternoon I was so hungry that my eyes were blurry. I couldn't even see the blackboard clearly. How could I study?"
Mrs. Song scolded: "If others can learn, why can't you?"
He didn't dare to argue with his mother anymore, and only whispered, "Our Chinese teacher fainted from hunger this afternoon."
Mrs. Song twisted his ear and said, "How do you know he fainted from hunger and not from being mad at you?"
A little girl next to her replied, "Really, Mom, she fainted from hunger. The principal fed her half a bowl of sugar water, and she woke up."
Mrs. Song sighed and asked, "What's in the school cafeteria today?"
The girl said, "Same old thing, vegetable leaf soup and a corn bun as big as Lao Si's fist." Then she pointed at Su Yan and said, "Mom, who is she?"
Mrs. Song said, "My cousin from the countryside, please stay at our house tonight." Then she pulled Su Yan to the kitchen. It seemed that this family didn't often cook at home. There was only one stove, but in this era, having an independent kitchen and an independent bathroom was already very good.
Sister Song fished out a wad of money from her pants and, without even counting it, said, "Sister, noodles should be at least 20 cents a pound. You don't need food coupons, and there's no market for them. Even 50 or 80 cents a pound wouldn't be too much. Sister-in-law sees that your bag of noodles weighs about three pounds, so even three yuan wouldn't be too much. But you know how hard it is for every family at the end of the month these days. I have these two yuan and seventy cents on me, so take it, don't think it's too little."
Su Yan opened the blue cloth: "Sister-in-law, this is three pounds in total. I still need to eat a little today, so I won't ask you for more. Just two yuan, and the remaining seventy cents is for accommodation." Su Yan didn't know the prices in this place. She only knew that rice, oil and salt were very cheap in the 1960s. Although they were not available during the difficult period, the prices in the supply and marketing cooperatives did not increase much. Of course, it was different on the black market.
Mrs. Song nodded and poured Su Yan a glass of water. "Sit down and rest, sister. I'll make some noodles." Su Yan took the water and drank it slowly. She looked at the family's furnishings. Although it looked simple from a modern perspective, there were wardrobes, dining tables, desks, and even an old sofa. This was definitely not an ordinary home. Su Yan had heard her grandmother say that having a sofa in their time was a big deal.
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