Currently, all property rights are held by the state, and only partially privately owned properties can be sold to the public. Guangzhou has a large number of business people and is a coastal city, resulting in high demand for housing; therefore, secondhand homes can fetch good prices.
Bucktooth Hu had already negotiated a good price for the house, but the house was being sold vacant, and there was no such thing as buying a house and getting furniture and appliances for free. The selling price of the house was already low, and if he were to give away a whole house full of appliances and furniture, he would lose a lot of money.
Bucktooth Hu was a shrewd businessman who couldn't do business at a loss. He didn't agree to give away the home appliances and furniture, thinking he would leave them as a keepsake for his relatives' children abroad.
Having not returned for over a decade, one must miss home and parents, right? The country was not peaceful in the past few years, but that doesn't mean it won't be peaceful in the future. With the country's doors open, those who have wandered abroad should always return to find their roots.
The buck-toothed man has traditional ideas and believes that the elderly's things must be kept, even if it means selling large pieces of furniture and appliances. He thinks that the elderly's private diaries and such should be kept.
If he were to actually sell it to a scrap collector, Bucktooth Hu wouldn't have the heart to do so.
Listening to the buck-toothed man's swearing and cursing, Chu Yu and Shu Lan finally understood what had happened. Second-hand furniture and appliances were worthless, at most worth a hundred or so yuan.
This is what happened back in the 1980s. In Chu Yu's previous life, when she sold an old, imported brand-name refrigerator, the scrap collector wouldn't give her a single penny and even demanded 50 yuan for handling. It was truly outrageous.
The man with buck teeth was kicking around a few cardboard boxes. Inside were some rubbings of stone inscriptions, woodblock prints, and a few calligraphy and painting samples. On top of them was an unfinished painting. The two elderly people were cultured and spent their later years painting and writing.
The old man who collects recyclables arrived on his bicycle, speaking in a Fujian dialect that was hard to understand. He swung his scale and piled up the paintings, calligraphy, books, and other items, complaining all the while.
"All the paper will be sold at the waste recycling price, one cent per pound. There are 40 pounds in total, so that's 4 yuan. As for the other odds and ends, I'll pack them up and give you 10 yuan. That's 14 yuan in total. Sell it or don't." The old man was quite assertive.
This huge box of books and calligraphy practice books only sold for 4 yuan?
Four yuan is fine. Used books aren't expensive to begin with, and there are quite a few letters and diaries. It's good enough if we can sell them at all.
But other items only cost 10 yuan, which is really too low.
There was also a rubbing of a stele. This kind of thing could definitely not be an antique, but the old man put a lot of effort into making this rubbing. The old radio, table, chair and such were probably worth some money.
Chu Yu felt soft-hearted and thought it was a real waste to sell it like this, as if the old man's life had been thrown into the trash. The old man didn't even get to see his child before he passed away, and now his things were being thrown away like this; even Chu Yu, an outsider, couldn't bear it.
Too lazy to say anything else, Bucktooth Hu waved his hand, intending to sell it. He would send the 14 yuan and the money from the house sale to his relatives abroad. It wouldn't be worth much in US dollars, but he still had to sell it. Otherwise, how could Bucktooth Hu have the mind to come here every day?
"What's the use of raising this son? He won't even come back to see me when I'm dead."
Chu Yu was silent for a moment. She thought the calligraphy copybook was quite good, so she might as well take it back to practice calligraphy. Some old calligraphy copybooks were no longer available on the market. After all, many cultural relics were destroyed during the last decade. Chu Yu wanted to keep this calligraphy copybook and such.
"Mr. Hu, I'll give you 14 yuan. You can give the old furniture to the scrap collector for free. Just pack up these calligraphy books and documents for me."
Mr. Hu was taken aback. "What do you need these things for?"
"I was just about to practice calligraphy, and I couldn't bear to see the elderly people's things being treated as garbage."
Of course, buck-toothed Hu wouldn't refuse. The scrap collector was overjoyed to get old furniture for free, and Chu Yu carried the cardboard boxes into Hu's car.
Mr. Hu was quite emotional. Many people have taboos about relics, but Chu Yu doesn't care about such things. He doesn't understand calligraphy or rubbings. This girl seems like a cultured person. If she can be used, it's better than selling her to a scrap collector to be disposed of as garbage.
Shulan didn't understand why Chu Yu bought a bunch of junk, but she could tell that Chu Yu couldn't bear it, so she helped him load the things onto the car.
After driving for twenty minutes, Bucktooth Hu stopped the car in front of Zhatianhu Garment Factory. The factory had an old-fashioned gate, and someone had to pull the gate aside so that the car could drive in.
A worker came up to him about the fabric. The man with the buck teeth explained a few things, and Chu Yu got the gist of it. The fabric that the man with the buck teeth was smuggled in from Hong Kong. The fabric for the plaid skirt came from the Pengzai Fabric Market in Sham Shui Po.
"No wonder Mr. Hu's clothes are of such good quality; it turns out the fabrics are all from Hong Kong."
"Of course! I use domestic fabric, like Dacron and stuff, which you picky types wouldn't even consider." The buck-toothed man turned and yelled at the young man who opened the door, "You idiot, are you out of your mind? There's so much fabric in the factory, and you're smoking here!"
The young man ran away with his head in his hands after being cursed at. Shulan was dumbfounded and thought that Cantonese cursing was really effective.
Zhatianhu Garment Factory has a habit of keeping samples of all the styles it has produced. The factory has set aside a special warehouse to store the old styles.
The buck-toothed man ordered everyone to bring out all the models and arrange them. "The left row is the new model, all of which haven't been released yet. Some of them are even next year's models. You can order them in advance. The right side is the older model from a few years ago."
Some styles that Mandarin still sells are already outdated and old styles in the buck-toothed Hu factory. Clothing manufacturers have to be ahead of the curve; they have to prepare the styles for the following summer in winter so that customers can choose in advance.
Some of the older models aren't out of style, after all, they were all scavenged by Bucktooth Hu from Hong Kong, and some are even the same models worn by movie stars.
In the 1980s, Bucktooth Hu started taking clothes from the female leads in movies and TV series, making them into replicas or altered versions for sale. Chu Yu felt that these clothes still had a life of their own.
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