Chapter 89: They're trying to get a piece of the pie (pointing out a bug): It's selling too well.
From November to March of the following year, Bucharest experiences winter.
Moisture from the Atlantic Ocean drifted over the city with the westerly winds, making the weather gloomy and humid, and the temperature quite low.
Of course, it was much better than the Soviet Union's; it was about two or three degrees below zero.
When they came out of the train station, the weather was quite nice. Not only was it not snowing, but the sun was shining brightly in the sky, making people feel warm and comfortable.
Ruan Xiaomei was already waiting outside, waving to them: "Over here, over here."
The Romanians around them smiled at them, showing no sign of displeasure.
Ovilette nodded to them: "Your friends have come to pick you up. Goodbye. We hope you will visit my home sometime. My whole family will welcome you anytime."
The Wang family father and daughter quickly expressed their gratitude, but Ivanov turned his head away.
He knew perfectly well that he wasn't among the guests invited.
Hmph! Romanians are the most hypocritical people.
In the 1970s, they pursued an independent foreign policy, feigning compliance with the Soviet Union while maintaining close ties with Western countries and the Third World. They also imported advanced machinery and equipment from the West for production and then exported it to generate foreign exchange.
As a result, the oil crisis hit, leading to economic recession in Western countries. In the 1980s, Romania reversed course and strengthened its ties with the Soviet Union, importing energy resources from the Soviet Union through a barter system.
If the Soviet Union had remained powerful, the Romanians would never have dared to give this opportunist a hard time.
He wouldn't bother visiting such a chameleon.
Ignoring his petty mood, Wang Xiao dragged her bags and ran to Ruan Xiaomei: "Hey, are you alone? Where's Dachun?"
"Looking at the pavilion."
Ruan Xiaomei was driving a modified long van, and she helped carry the bags and packages upstairs.
Wang Xiao laughed: "Is he capable?"
She remembered that Da Chun's English wasn't very good.
Ruan Xiaomei didn't take it seriously: "He's just using gestures and lines. He's already calculated it. It's much better than 'pia-ji pia-ji!'"
Wang Xiao couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Ruan Xiaomei was referring to the middlemen and women who did business on the train.
They barely speak Russian, but that doesn't stop them from running their businesses very well.
He held up five fingers, palm facing up and palm down, while chanting "bia-ji bia-ji".
Those who wanted to buy it understood that this winter coat was worth 5,500 rubles.
The first "bia-ji" is 5000, and the second "bia-ji" is 500.
The price applies to a wide variety of goods, so when the train stops at the platform, the sounds of vendors shouting "pia-ji pia-ji!" fill the air, creating a lively atmosphere.
As soon as they loaded their belongings into the van, passengers and their relatives coming out of the station surrounded them and asked, "Are you selling?"
Qiangqiang was stunned.
In Moscow, it's rare for individual travelers to go to the train station to buy goods.
The big-time resellers would only wholesale to their secondary distributors and would never sell to smaller, independent dealers.
Ruan Xiaomei doesn't plan to sell here either. The train station has a large flow of people, so she's not worried about not being able to sell her things.
The problem is that Chinese goods currently in Bucharest have no shortage of buyers. Romania is truly in need of everything right now, and everything sells well.
Selling things at a train station and disrupting the order is really not good.
A patrolling policeman near the station saw the crowd gathered there, came up and asked what was going on in slightly accented English, then pointed and said, "Go over there, it's empty over there."
Wang Xiao and the others quickly thanked them, moved the car to a different location, and then unpacked the luggage one by one to officially start selling.
The crowd immediately swarmed around them. Like the Russians, Romanians have an excellent habit of queuing and formed a long line on their own.
But when someone bought 10 leather jackets in one go, someone behind finally couldn't help but ask, "If you buy them all, what are we going to do?"
Ruan Xiaomei quickly reassured everyone, "It's alright, no rush. I have a kiosk on Colentina Street, I guarantee everyone can buy it, it's just that you'll have to walk a little further."
The complaining customers quieted down, craning their necks to look at the items being brought out for sale one by one, afraid that their favorite items would be sold out and they would have to make another trip.
There were so many people in line, and they were incredibly generous with their money.
The group of five people, carrying large and small bags, brought the goods from Kyiv Airport. The wholesale price was $5,000, and they sold out in less than an hour.
When only a few items were left, those at the front of the line abandoned all manners and started bidding on the spot.
One person offered 20,000 lei (equivalent to 100 US dollars), another offered 24,000, and finally someone simply asked for 27,000.
It was Ruan Xiaomei who stepped in to appease them: "No need for that, twenty thousand it is fine."
She handed out business cards to everyone one by one, apologizing repeatedly for troubling them to make another trip.
Fortunately, the Romanians were quite well-mannered. Although some people complained quietly, everyone eventually left obediently.
The police officer, who had been watching from the sidelines, greeted them with a smile: "Welcome to Romania. We hope you have a good time in Romania."
Everyone quickly expressed their gratitude.
Ruan Xiaomei also brought him a bag of lettuce: "Thank you, you've gone to so much trouble. This is what we grew ourselves, please try it, it tastes good."
The police officer seemed surprised, then accepted the gift with a smile.
Ivanov was stunned. After getting into the van, he awkwardly muttered in English, "The way the Romanian police collect money is really novel."
In Moscow, people often collect ballpoint pens and bubble gum; this was the first time he'd ever seen someone collect vegetables.
Wang Xiao was also puzzled: "The Bucharest police started so quickly?"
She had previously received feedback that the police here were quite nice.
Ruan Xiaomei laughed: "Oh, no, we're just delivering the vegetables to express our gratitude."
Since last autumn, when a group of Chinese businessmen who had moved from Budapest made a mess of Bucharest, everyone has been truly flattered.
The local people are very warm and kind to them.
When they sell things on the street, the police will come over to help maintain order, and they never solicit bribes.
This is a good thing.
But the middlemen and women in China are also very honest people. They feel that if others have helped them, it would be quite unreasonable for them not to show any appreciation.
But they dared not give things away to others casually.
It is said that the police in Budapest like to solicit bribes from Chinese businessmen because the businessmen always like to pay out of their own pockets, which has spoiled them and given them bad habits.
After the Chinese businessmen sat down to discuss the matter, they felt they should still make some gesture, otherwise it would be too impolite and give the impression that the Chinese only wanted to take advantage of others.
But what to give as a gift has become a big problem.
Romania truly lacks everything. Clothes and shoes aside, even razor blades and light bulbs are child's play. They can't even guarantee the supply of vinegar and salt.
Can you believe it? This is Romania, a country with abundant salt resources, known as the world's salt capital and the kingdom of rock salt.
It's unbelievable that there would come a day when even the supply of salt was difficult to guarantee.
This has led to Chinese businessmen being hesitant to give away anything casually, as the price of anything can increase several times over here.
In the end, it was a middle-aged trader in his thirties who had been sent down to the countryside as an educated youth when he was young. He suggested, "Let's deliver vegetables."
The reason is that when he was in the countryside, the most common way for locals to express their gratitude for helping each other was to take some fresh vegetables from their own plots of land and deliver them to each other.
This way, you can express your feelings without spending any extra money.
Moreover, the fact that Chinese people grow vegetables in Romania and then give them to Romanians carries extraordinary significance.
Besides, they really do have a need to grow vegetables.
Back in Budapest, everyone already felt that the variety of vegetables available in the market was too limited.
When they arrived in Bucharest, they realized that each place was worse off than the last, and there was even less to buy in the Bucharest markets.
Why is this happening?
Romania has excellent geographical conditions and a suitable climate, and is one of the famous breadbaskets of Europe.
Furthermore, in February 1991, the state enacted the Land Law, stipulating that land should be returned to those who surrendered their land during the collectivization era.
Because Romania has a large area of arable land, each person will receive at least 0.5 hectares of land, which is equivalent to seven and a half acres.
With so much arable land, even if we don't grow grain, just half an acre of land could be used to grow vegetables, which would be more than enough to feed farmers. If we set aside another acre or two for vegetables, supplying the city wouldn't be a problem either.
Wang Tiejun remembers clearly that the abundance of vegetables in the city began in the early 1980s after the land was distributed to individual households, when farmers grew more vegetables and began to sell them in the city.
Later, with the government's "vegetable basket project," the market supply became increasingly abundant.
These Romanians must be quite hardworking, with so much land, how come they can't even afford vegetables?
Ruan Xiaomei also had a lot to say: "The problem lies in their returning the item to its rightful owner."
Unlike China, where land was distributed to individual households, those who received land were all farmers.
Moreover, when the land was distributed, the level of mechanization in Chinese agriculture was already low, and small-scale farming did not affect the agricultural industry.
On the contrary, due to intensive farming and the use of pesticides and fertilizers, the output of agricultural products has increased significantly.
Even during the bumper harvest of 1984, some local grain departments refused to accept, limited, or suppressed grain purchases and prices.
However, not all those who received land in Romania were farmers; a significant number of them had long since moved to cities and left agricultural production.
Even if the land is in their hands, they cannot abandon their existing lives in the fourth grade and go to the countryside to farm.
The farmers who originally lived on this land suffered a major blow to their enthusiasm for production because they were allocated less land.
Many people feel abandoned by the country's reforms and are unwilling to continue engaging in agricultural production.
The most critical point is that, presumably to prevent land consolidation, the Romanian government's land privatization policy requires that a household own no more than 10 kilograms of arable land, or 150 mu (approximately 10 hectares).
This is a very disheartening thing for large-scale mechanized agricultural production.
Therefore, after the privatization of agriculture in Romania, agricultural output not only failed to meet the government's expectations of a bumper harvest, but actually declined.
Last autumn, the chaos in agriculture reached its peak.
There is a severe shortage of sugar in the market, but sugar beets are lying in the fields because they cannot be sent to sugar mills for processing due to a lack of fuel.
Ten thousand hectares of wheat lay unharvested in the fields, and some people even set fire to the land.
At the same time, Romanian authorities requested aid from the European Community worth $600 million, equivalent to 1.5 million tons of wheat.
This caused an uproar internationally.
It's worth noting that Romania was previously one of Europe's leading grain exporters. This was also a crucial means for it to generate foreign exchange.
Things are very different now than they used to be.
Vegetables are really scarce; whether in stores or farmers' markets, the variety available is pitifully small.
Now that the decision had been made to grow vegetables, everyone immediately got to work.
They were lucky; one of the middlemen's landlords was a landlord living in the city with 150 acres of land, which he didn't touch after being allocated the land.
Now that the tenant has offered to farm, he rents it out without hesitation, for five years at a time, with an annual rent of no more than 300,000 lei.
In the landlord's words, he just felt it was a pity that the fields were in such a state of panic.
The middlemen and women who traded vegetables naturally didn't have time to farm themselves. They simply used their expertise and resourcefulness to bring in various vegetable seeds from China via containers, and then obtained plastic film from Ukraine, thus beginning their serious career of growing vegetables in the fields.
At first, they grew leafy green vegetables, such as lettuce, spinach, bok choy, and garlic.
Because these vegetables grow quickly and are also quite cold-resistant.
On December 1st last year, Romania's National Day, they harvested their first batch of vegetables.
Just then, everyone had received their grey cards and felt they were no longer undocumented. They mustered up their courage and contacted the Chinese Embassy, asking them to help arrange for the first batch of harvested vegetables to be sent to the Bucharest City Government.
The city government was both touched and bewildered, because Romania was now undergoing privatization, and they didn't know what to do with the gifts from these international friends.
Finally, the vegetables were delivered to state-owned stores that had not yet been privatized, where they were sold at low prices under the name of "Friendship Vegetables".
That day, the whole of Bucharest was abuzz with excitement, and many people lined up specifically to buy the Friendship Vegetables.
The Wang family father and daughter were both amazed by what they heard.
How creative! It's amazing that they came up with this idea, and it's amazing that they're not afraid of going through the trouble.
After listening to Wang Xiao's translation, Ivanov felt a pang of sadness, realizing that the friendship between the Chinese people had not been shared equally.
Why don't we see Chinese businessmen in Moscow renting farms to grow vegetables?
Even a single bok choy is good.
The bodyguard gave him a more plausible guess: "Is it because Moscow is too cold? Vegetables can't grow in winter."
It can't compare to Bucharest, where even at the tail end of winter, you can still see vast expanses of greenery when driving down the street.
To be honest, Bucharest has done a very good job with its greenery, which is quite friendly to the eyes.
Even in the chilly February weather, the city's flowerbeds are still vibrant with color, and roses and other flowering plants can be seen blooming profusely everywhere.
Ivanov started to speak sourly again, saying sarcastically, "It seems that you Chinese people in Romania also live in fear and trembling, really being very careful."
Wang Xiao retorted, "When you're living on someone else's turf, you definitely have to build good relationships with them."
Ruan Xiaomei also agreed with this.
Or rather, this is the current consensus among all Chinese traders in Bucharest.
Everyone felt they had to tone it down; since others were being polite to them, they had to reciprocate.
To paraphrase my mother, after living in Bucharest for a few months, her temper has improved considerably, and she yells at people at least half as often as before.
When they have free time, they like to stroll around the village and shout a few lines in the fields.
Wang Xiao was overjoyed to hear this and asked curiously, "So what are you doing with the vegetables now? Are you still sending them to state-run stores to sell?"
Oh dear, that's really losing money while gaining publicity.
Ruan Xiaomei laughed and said, "No, it's mainly because we divide it among ourselves."
For example, when they open for business, if a customer buys a lot, they will give them a bag of chili peppers or garlic as a gift.
When someone helps us, like the police who volunteered to maintain order today, the gift to express our gratitude is vegetables.
Or when visiting guests, their gifts are also vegetables.
Emphasizing practicality, it directly replaced the fresh flowers that are commonly used by people here.
Although it was a little troublesome, Ms. Ruan felt that the effect was quite good.
They raised another sum of money before New Year's Day to build greenhouses for planting. They estimate that cucumbers and eggplants will be ready for market in the spring.
Wang Xiao listened with great interest and immediately decided that she must go and see the vegetable greenhouses run by the middlemen.
Ivanov was also eager to try.
However, he is currently in an awkward and sensitive period, and he will absolutely not speak up unless someone invites him.
Wang Xiao was truly exasperated with him and had to find a way to save face for him: "Let's go take a look together. Aren't we also planning to grow greenhouse vegetables in Russia?"
She was particularly curious whether greenhouses could survive the harsh Russian winter.
That was tens of degrees below zero, completely different from the southern regions of China she was familiar with.
Sigh, she'll have to ask the middlemen who came from Northeast China about this.
That should be more useful for reference.
Before they could finish speaking, the van had already driven onto the main street in the city center.
To be fair, although Bucharest is currently in a severe economic crisis, the main streets of the capital are still clean, tidy, and quite spacious.
The only drawback is the poor road condition, riddled with potholes, suggesting that the government is likely strapped for cash and unable or unwilling to maintain the roads.
The most eye-catching feature on both sides of the road is that every two or three hundred meters there is a brightly colored kiosk.
Well, to be more specific, this should be considered a small house, much larger than a newsstand-style kiosk.
Ruan Xiaomei smiled and said, "This is the return gift from the Bucharest Municipal Government to us Chinese."
What do you mean by that?
Unlike Moscow, Bucharest does not have a free market that is open year-round.
Only on weekends do residents bring their unwanted items to the flea market to exchange.
When the Chinese businessmen first arrived, it happened to be the weekend, and they went to the flea market to do business for two days.
When Monday came, they found that no one was open for business, and they were dumbfounded. They could only drag their goods to the street and sell them haphazardly.
As time went on, everyone realized it wasn't a big deal.
Firstly, when the weather is bad, their business is also difficult.
Secondly, this kind of guerrilla warfare seems irregular and makes it seem like we could be driven away at any time.
They did consider buying the business, but privatization in Romania was only just beginning.
According to Decree No. 703 issued by the Romanian government in June 1990 regarding the privatization or contracting/leasing of commercial units, not just anyone can take over a shop.
First, the store's management has the priority right to contract the lease. If a manager doesn't want to do this job, a current employee with more than two years of service in the company can take their place.
Unless everyone in the organization is uninterested, there is no way to find a public auction process.
If this is how Romanian people are, imagine how much more so these foreigners are.
In desperation, they remembered the kiosks on Jaboro Road and copied their business model to Bucharest.
After learning that they simply wanted a fixed business location to meet the needs of citizens at any time, the municipal government approved their plan after only one meeting.
To everyone's surprise, the kiosks provided by the Bucharest government were much larger than they had imagined, measuring a full thirty square meters.
Each kiosk costs 200,000 lei, equivalent to 1,000 US dollars.
Without saying a word, the middlemen immediately took out their money to pay the bill.
That's how the two kiosks that were given to Qiangqiang came about.
Qiangqiang stared unblinkingly outside, his heart burning with desire.
People, all of them are people.
There was a queue in front of the side door of each kiosk.
There were dozens of people in some groups, and at least a dozen, and more and more kept joining the end of the line.
What does this mean? It means that Mr. Wang wasn't lying to him.
Business is indeed good in Bucharest.
Ruan Xiaomei saw his gaze in the rearview mirror and explained with a smile, "This place really lacks everything. Look at that six-story shopping mall over there. Once I've finished the first floor, it means I've finished the whole mall. Because the other floors sell the same things."
Qiangqiang was in a hurry to resolve his identity issue, so Ruan Xiaomei didn't waste his time and drove directly to a law firm to ask a lawyer she knew to help with the paperwork.
She naturally wouldn't do good deeds for free. Instead, she charged Qiangqiang $150, the market price, to make him a co-shareholder of her company, which she had only run for less than two months, so that she could process the gray card application.
Of course, Qiangqiang can also choose to register his own company; he can afford the $500.
However, if he registers his own company, it means he will have to wait at least a month to complete the procedures and apply for a grey card.
Having experienced being expelled by the Russian Federation government, Qiangqiang didn't dare wait any longer. Without saying a word, he took out 150 US dollars to resolve the issue.
The lawyer was already familiar with the process and began processing the paperwork after verifying his passport.
While they were busy, the lawyer curiously asked in accented English, "Are you alone? Aren't you all going through the procedures together?"
Ivanov instinctively refused: "No! I don't need it."
What a joke! He's proud to be a member of the great Russian nation and has no intention of immigrating.
Wang Xiao chuckled and said, "Oh my, who was it that was so eager to immigrate to the United States last November?"
That's a real slap in the face.
As for herself, should she obtain foreign citizenship?
Frankly speaking, from a personal emotional perspective, Wang Xiao wasn't interested in this at all; everyone has a sense of national pride.
However, if we consider this rationally, someone like her who flies around doing international trade does indeed need multiple identities.
There's nothing special about it except that it makes obtaining a visa easier.
She turned to Wang Tiejun and asked, "Dad, do you want to get the Romanian grey card?"
Wang Tiejun, a veteran comrade with impeccable revolutionary credentials, was frightened.
Are you kidding me?
He was doing well at the factory, so why did he want to immigrate?
“It’s not immigration,” Wang Xiao explained. “It’s just getting a residence permit, so it will be easier for you to come to Romania again in the future without having to wait for procedures. It will also make it much easier to travel to other countries.”
Wang Tiejun was relieved and immediately nodded, "Yes!"
His idea was very simple: since getting a grey card would make it easier to go abroad, it would also make it much easier for him to deal in steel or import machinery and equipment in the future.
To be honest, even today, he is still very uneasy about his position as deputy factory director.
He felt that he was not capable of making any contribution to the factory from his position.
We'll do what we can now.
Wang Xiao smiled and nodded, expressing her intention to the lawyer: "We'll both handle it."
Ruan Xiaomei immediately replied, "Welcome, welcome! Our company's scale will skyrocket!"
Just then, a familiar middleman, Brother Ren, brought his fellow villagers over to get their documents processed. When he saw Wang Xiao, he was initially surprised, but then smiled and echoed Ruan Xiaomei's words: "Of course! The richest man in Romania is standing right in front of us."
Wang Xiao was both amused and exasperated: "You're the senior, I'm just following behind to make a living. I'd be laughing my head off if I could even get a meal on someone else's turf."
Brother Ren immediately used her to educate his fellow villager: "See? This is the demeanor of a big boss. He never bosses people around."
Wang Xiao refused to admit it: "I'm just not confident. If I were, I'd be acting all high and mighty."
The Chinese people in the room all laughed.
Although the lawyer didn't understand, he smiled along with the others.
Ivanov, standing nearby, was completely bewildered, feeling a sense of isolation and exclusion.
Sigh, he knew Romania and he were incompatible.
Fortunately, the procedures were completed very quickly, and all that was left was for the lawyer to go to the relevant agencies to help them get the grey card.
"Don't worry," the lawyer assured them, "I'll go and process the paperwork right away, and I guarantee you'll have your residence permits within three days."
As everyone was leaving, Ren Ge's fellow villager, Xiao Tian, suddenly remarked, "These old Romanian folks are really poor; getting a permit is cheaper than changing from a rural to an urban household registration."
Seriously, in their local area, changing a rural household registration to an urban household registration costs at least 5,000 yuan, not to mention you have to find a bunch of connections to pull strings.
But once they arrived in Romania, they could resolve the conflict for less than two hundred US dollars, or a thousand dollars, and instantly become overseas Chinese.
Where else can you find such a good thing?
Wang Xiao was both amused and exasperated, and explained to him, "This is not the same as being an overseas Chinese. A gray card does not mean you have obtained its citizenship."
"It doesn't matter." Xiaotian didn't care at all. "As long as they don't chase after me."
He even had a wild idea and asked his fellow countryman, "Brother Ren, do we practice family planning here in Romania?"
Everyone was puzzled, and Ruan Xiaomei even joked, "What, are you planning to get married and find a wife here?"
Oh dear, she was too embarrassed to say it in front of others; it really was like a toad trying to eat swan meat.
She knew from watching Romanian movies when she was a child that there were many beautiful women in the country.
Even after arriving in Romania, she still believed that there were many beautiful girls there.
But the beauties are all tall, with over 1.7 meters being the norm.
Compared to other people's long legs, Xiao Tian, who is at most 1.6 meters tall, is really not good enough.
"No, no, no." Xiao Tian waved his hand. "I have a wife and children. I was thinking, if Romania didn't have the one-child policy, Brother Ren, our company could arrange for people from China to come and have their babies. They'd be born as overseas Chinese, wouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars in fines, and wouldn't have to worry about being fired from their jobs. It would be a win-win-win situation."
At first, Brother Ren didn't take it seriously, but his eyes lit up when he heard the rest.
Wow, this is a really good business, with huge market demand.
Before he went abroad, a leader in his workplace sent his wife back to his hometown in order to have a second child, hoping to deceive everyone.
It's likely that this calamity was destined for his family, coinciding with a strict enforcement of family planning policies in his hometown. Every pregnant woman, regardless of whether it was her first or second pregnancy, was forced to have an abortion.
After the leader's wife had an abortion, she became mentally unstable. The leader was also reported for wrongdoing, and despite his previous ambitions, he was demoted to a lower position.
Given the current situation in China, there aren't many people who want to have more children abroad than allowed.
If they were to actually do this business, they would never have to worry about customers.
Seeing the two getting more and more excited as they discussed, Ruan Xiaomei was speechless: "You're a step too late. If you had come a few years earlier, Romania would have welcomed you to no end."
Ren laughed heartily and winked at her and Wang Xiao: "If that were really the case, you wouldn't dare come to Romania."
Why?
Because the former Romanian leader who was executed signed the infamous Decree No. 770 in the 1960s in an effort to increase Romania's population.
According to this decree, the legal childbearing age for women was lowered to 15. Furthermore, Romanian women were required to have four children before the age of 45 (this number was increased to five in 1985).
Not getting married, getting divorced, using contraception, and having an abortion are all illegal in this country.
Countless women, in an attempt to escape being reduced to mere birthing machines, even jumped into the Danube River, hoping to swim to Hungary.
Of course, such acts of smuggling across the border are met with the menacing gun barrels of border police.
Wang Xiao strongly suspects that the famous "The Handmaid" was inspired by this.
Xiao Tian had never heard of this before, and he was so frightened that he waved his hands repeatedly: "That won't do. There are so many children. Unless they are from a cadre family, who can raise them?"
He and his wife have one child now, and at most they'll have a second.
If you have too much, what other children have that your family doesn't? Wouldn't that child be incredibly unlucky to be born into your family?
Four or five? What era are we living in? Are we supposed to raise them like kittens or puppies when they were kids?
That won't do; we must nurture them properly.
Wang Xiao teased him, "So, are you still going to do the business of bringing people here to give birth?"
"Go ahead and do it," Xiao Tian said frankly. "Let's keep things separate. Money's easy to make here. If we can raise them, why not have more children?"
Well, men can never truly empathize with women. Let him have four or five kids himself and see what happens.
Ruan Xiaomei rolled her eyes: "With the time it takes to have so many children, you can earn even more money. The nightmare only begins after the children are born. Raising children is incredibly troublesome."
Her van had plenty of space, so since Brother Ren didn't drive over, he simply brought Xiao Tian along to hitch a ride in the van.
Qiangqiang had been listening in silence the whole time, and the car had already driven quite a distance when he suddenly blurted out, "Wait a minute, don't they give money for having a baby in foreign countries?"
He had read in a magazine that Europeans not only give money to mothers who have children, but also various subsidies in the form of coupons.
Families with many children often have excess milk coupons, which parents may sell to earn money.
"That requires the country to be rich," Brother Ren said dismissively. "Does it look like it's rich?"
Qiangqiang was still puzzled: "Wasn't Romania doing quite well before? Where did all the money go?"
He found these countries very strange; they clearly had everything before, so how come they suddenly had nothing left?
"Look, the money's all over here, at the People's Palace." Ruan Xiaomei gestured with her lips, slowed down the car, and indicated the building on the street.
Wang Xiao and the others looked over and saw a very large building.
The concept of "big" is not only because it is more than ten stories high, but also because it occupies a large area and is a huge building complex.
It is said that its building area is 340,000 square meters, no wonder you can race cars inside.
Under the sun, the marble-clad buildings gleamed, their splendor reflected in the forty-one fountains on the opposite Union Avenue, symbolizing Romania's forty-one administrative districts.
“It cost two billion US dollars, and it’s still not finished,” Ruan Xiaomei sighed. “If he hadn’t insisted on building this, he might not have been shot.”
When the People's Palace was opened in 1984, Romania's economic situation was already quite bad, and it has only gotten worse since then.
As a result, that guy desperately reduced the material needs of the domestic people, tightened his belt, and exported petroleum products, consumer goods, and food in order to earn foreign exchange to pay off foreign debt.
On the other hand, he spent so much money building this building; no wonder the common people can't stand it.
No sooner had he been executed than the Romanians wanted to set fire to the damned People's Palace. Legend has it that many people died building it.
Fortunately, the interim government at the time couldn't bear to part with it, saying it was a testament to the wisdom of the Romanian people, and thus the building was preserved.
However, due to a lack of government funds, the building is not yet fully completed.
To prevent Ivanov from feeling excluded, Wang Xiao dutifully acted as his translator.
Unexpectedly, after listening silently for a while, he suddenly blurted out, "How much does this building cost now?"
Hmph! Isn't Romania short of money? Let's buy their People's Palace and see if they'll continue with their sarcastic remarks.
However, Ruan Xiaomei directly hit him hard: "Two years ago, a media tycoon wanted to buy it for a billion US dollars, but Romania didn't sell."
Okay, Ivanov backed down; he couldn't afford the $1 billion.
He used to worry about having too much money to spend, but now it seems he was overthinking it.
No, he wants to make even more money. He'll bury the Romanians in money then, let's see if they're still acting so strangely.
Wang Xiao was speechless, seeing him acting like a child who hadn't bought a toy.
That's wishful thinking. This is their People's Palace, the parliament is inside. It represents extraordinary significance. No wonder they're unwilling to sell it.
Halfway there, Brother Ren took Xiao Tian to the shop to do business.
Ruan Xiaomei then took Qiangqiang directly to his rented apartment.
She rented a two-story house, and the room she rented to him was about fifteen or sixteen square meters, which was just right for one person.
Qiangqiang, full of ambition, asked, "Are those houses for sale to foreigners?"
Today's business deal, with a principal of five thousand US dollars, has almost tripled the money received.
If he had a house now, he would like to buy one himself, as he would feel more at ease.
Moreover, if he has his own house, he can store the goods he brings in and sell them for more money.
“Let’s wait and see,” Ruan Xiaomei laughed. “The government has returned some houses that were confiscated from private individuals, and some people are selling them, but it’s a matter of luck. Anyway, so far, we’ve been renting, which is quite convenient.”
Qiangqiang understood; it was just like the government returning old houses in the 1980s. Only these kinds of private houses could be sold.
But if you happen to be in a large courtyard with a bunch of tenants, and you want to ask them to leave, they'll just occupy the place and refuse to move, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Ruan Xiaomei laughed: "Luckily, I didn't see any tenement courtyards here."
After settling Qiangqiang in, it was almost time for dinner.
The hospitable landlords invited them to lunch, which was considered the most sumptuous meal a Romanian could ever have.
The landlord's family consists of eleven people, but so far, only the husband and wife, plus their youngest daughter who is about to graduate from university, have separated.
When she came over to invite everyone to dinner, Qiangqiang's eyes widened in surprise.
I have to say, this girl is really beautiful.
Compared to Muscovites, Bucharestans are clearly more outgoing.
Upon seeing them, the landlady, who had begun to gain weight, smiled and invited them to sit down.
During the meal, his beautiful youngest daughter, Elena, who was still in college, would occasionally ask curiously about the current situation in China.
Because Ruan Xiaomei said she hadn't been back to China for a long time and was unclear about the specific changes in the country.
Elena listened with great interest and finally made up her mind: "I must go to China someday."
Wang Xiao laughed: "Sure, just tell Miss Ruan whenever you want to go, and I'll make the arrangements."
Elena was flattered and smiled happily, "Really?"
Her mother frowned slightly, seemingly very dissatisfied with her daughter's performance.
Wang Xiao smiled and nodded in agreement: "Of course, you are our friends, and we welcome you to visit China anytime."
The hostess urged everyone to eat quickly, saying that the food would taste even better when it was hot in winter.
On the table were beef stew with potatoes, mashed potato salad, cold spinach salad, and scrambled eggs with butter, along with rice and chicken soup dumplings.
Considering the soaring prices and food shortages in Romania, this meal was quite a generous offering.
Ivanov was only served rice, not bread, which clearly showed they didn't take him seriously.
Wang Xiao thought he was being pretentious: "Let's eat dumplings, they taste good."
Besides, there's also beef stew with potatoes and mashed potato salad.
She genuinely thought Romanian food was quite delicious, because she has a strong palate and especially loved mixing rice with potato and beef stew.
After lunch, the host, Toslowan, drove everyone to the steel plant.
It was obvious that the five of them, plus Toslozan, couldn't possibly fit into a Dacia sedan now worth 150,000 lei.
Fortunately, part-time taxis (similar to Didi) are very common on the streets of Bucharest, and you can easily hail a car.
So at 2:30 p.m., they finally arrived at the steel plant in Lagats without incident.
Fortunately, Tosloan usually works at the steel mill office in Bucharest; otherwise, with the current surge in oil prices, his daily commuting expenses would be unbearable.
The steel mill attaches great importance to this business deal from China. Besides emphasizing the traditional friendship between the two peoples, Wang Xiao estimates that it is also related to the current sluggish international steel market.
Take the Lagats Steel Plant where they work as an example. In addition to exporting their products to earn foreign exchange, their most important buyer is the Lagats Shipyard.
Tragically, or rather, to make matters worse, with external demand declining year by year, the Lagats shipyard is also facing a worsening situation due to the loss of orders from COMECON countries, and naturally, it can no longer afford to use so much steel.
Therefore, in the eyes of the steel mill, China, which was undergoing vigorous construction, was a very important customer.
To show their respect for the guests, the factory manager personally led the factory leadership team to line up at the factory gate to welcome them.
Wang Tiejun was taken aback by the scale of the event. It was almost like a grand spectacle, complete with gongs, drums, and firecrackers.
Ivanov was quite awkward. When they bought steel in Ukraine in January, only the factory manager and his assistant, a total of two people, came out to greet them.
Look at the formation now, there must be at least twenty people.
A large, imposing group led people to inspect the rebar.
Because the only person the steel plant sent this time was Wang Tiejun, he observed very carefully and asked questions from time to time.
The director of the Lagats steel plant even gave him a thumbs up and praised him: "You look like an expert, you know your stuff."
After a thorough inspection, Wang Tiejun nodded and indicated that he would report to his superiors.
In his hands, this batch of tens of thousands of tons of rebar has passed the initial test.
Wang Xiao then drafted the details with others, such as the steel plant being responsible for chartering ships for transportation.
Once the ship arrives at the Chinese port, after 12,000 tons of rebar are hoisted over the ship's side and placed on the ground, the captain signs to confirm the arrival. The port will then notify the bank to process the subsequent transactions and cash out the US dollars.
This is also standard practice.
The people at the Lagats steel plant shook their heads and kept saying "No, no, no."
Wang Xiao asked curiously, "Do you want to pay in cash?"
When she was doing intermediary business in the Russian Federation, many of her Russian clients didn't like bank transfers; they preferred cash.
Even the current president of the Russian Federation, when he goes out to inspect work, uses a special plane to transport large amounts of banknotes with him to avoid being humiliated by the people, so that he can distribute money at any time.
She could negotiate with the local traders to see if they wanted to bring US dollars to her to exchange for goods.
But the leaders of the Lagats steel plant still shook their heads. They didn't want cash; they wanted goods—Chinese goods, light industrial products from China.
They want everything, whether it's a pencil case, a schoolbag, sneakers, or cotton fabric.
They hoped to complete the transaction through barter.
Wang Xiao was dumbfounded.
Hey, don't you want foreign exchange? Your country is trying every possible way to export and generate foreign exchange. Is what you're doing appropriate?
Wang Xiao felt something was off and persisted in asking, "But that's not what you said before. Everyone agreed to settle in US dollars."
Anything that is abnormal is considered a sign of trouble.
It wasn't that she didn't want to make money from it, but that she was afraid of burning money on herself.
She had every reason to suspect that this was a trap set for her.
For an ordinary person, would you expect a steel mill to send light industrial goods in exchange for their steel? That's clearly asking the impossible.
The factory manager hesitated for a moment before explaining, "We had no choice."
Last November, due to insufficient foreign exchange for importing energy to sustain the winter, the authorities canceled foreign exchange accounts held by businesses and forcibly converted them into lei to absorb foreign exchange.
The problem is that the official exchange rate for the Ley is 180 to 1 US dollar, but the actual market price is now 200, and it is still trending upwards.
If steel mills actually exchanged lei at the official exchange rate, they would suffer significant losses. Moreover, who would provide them with dollars when the factories wanted to import fuel later?
After discussing it, the factory decided to abandon the letter of credit and dollar settlement route and instead opt for barter.
As for why it wasn't made clear before? Because the factory was afraid of being shut down by the government.
Although in December 1989, the Romanians had already overthrown the rule of the original government through a violent revolution.
However, the repressive rule of the previous government over the years still leaves people with a sense of fear.
Moreover, many of the current high-ranking government officials are former government officials.
They were afraid of being monitored and then arrested on the grounds of disrupting financial order.
Wang Xiao was truly at a loss for words when she heard this; she imagined her face must be a big ╯□╰.
Okay, okay, there are plenty of strange things in the world, and it's not like this kind of thing is impossible.
However, after thinking for a moment, she tentatively offered another suggestion: "How about we just give it to you, Lei, at the market price?"
For local Chinese traders, figuring out how to quickly convert a day's earnings into US dollars when the leu depreciates is a troublesome matter.
It would be better to help them use some of it now.
It's convenient for her to source goods directly from the International Trade City, which is also a way for the middlemen and their associates to do so.
However, the Romanian factory manager still shook his head, and instead enthusiastically offered their suggestion: "Our steel mill is planning to open a shop, and they will sell Chinese goods. Mr. Wang, let's have our two steel mills cooperate. You ship the goods from China, and we'll be responsible for selling them. We'll split the profits equally."
Wang Xiao and Ivanov were both dumbfounded.
So after all that fuss, they realized they didn't make money selling steel, but they did make money reselling Chinese goods, and they wanted to get a piece of the pie in this business.
————————
Good morning! Are you cold? O(∩_∩)O Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants between 2023-12-17 22:54:33 and 2023-12-19 06:48:12!
Thank you to the little angels who watered the nutrient solution: Mu Huo Tong Ming (20 bottles); Ban Tang Duo Dian Tian (6 bottles); Affirmation (5 bottles); Xing Fu Yong Yuan (1 bottle); Qiu Shui Fei Shui (1 bottle); Pang Pang Xiong (1 bottle); and 372964581.
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
