Chapter 12 Fishing: The Big Fish Takes the Bait.
After a day of rest, Qin Xiangxiang started working the night shift, which runs from 4 pm to midnight. This shift is very tiring. Many female workers don't go home after their shift and stay in the factory's single dormitory to squeeze in. There are many shared beds available for the female workers to take turns resting. Of course, there are also quite a few people who are in a hurry to go home after midnight.
The situation in Shanghai is different from that in other cities. The workers' housing is uniformly planned in a strip along the river, and they have to ride bicycles to and from get off work, which is relatively far.
Qin Xiangxiang ate breakfast at home, played the piano for a while, and made some "fake collars". Around 11 a.m., she rode her bicycle to the factory. She wasn't going to her shift, but to the canteen to have lunch at the workers' canteen.
It's true that workers enjoyed the highest treatment during this era; many women preferred to marry workers rather than government officials. Workers' wages were relatively high, factory benefits were excellent, and workers' canteens were among the perks.
Qin Xiangxiang's state-owned 316 Textile Factory had about seven or eight thousand employees. Although it couldn't compare to some large factories with tens of thousands of employees, it was still a fairly large workforce. The factory had a workers' canteen, an auditorium, a bathhouse, a hospital, and so on.
For ordinary workers, one of the biggest advantages of the workers' canteen was that "you don't need meat coupons to buy meat and vegetables, but you do need oil coupons, and if you exceed the factory's quota, you also need meat coupons."
In the workers' canteen, the portion of meat dishes was extremely small. A serving of braised pork ribs cost one cent and consisted of only one rib. Once it was sold out, that was it. Not many people were willing to spend that much. Generally, single men and women who had just arrived at the factory were more willing to spend money on food and drink, especially single young men who would spend one yuan a day on food.
Although there was meat, the taste was just average. However, Qin Xiangxiang had seen today's menu. The factory canteen was serving borscht for lunch today. This was originally a foreign dish, but it has now been adapted to local customs and become a Chinese soup. It is very popular in the canteens of employees and kindergartens in Shanghai.
Borscht, also known as tomato soup, is made by cooking ingredients like beef, potatoes, and cabbage in tomato broth. This tomato soup is very appetizing and many people love to eat it. In factory canteens, a bowl of borscht can make you eat two bowls of rice.
Under the planned economy, workers' canteens couldn't afford beef to make borscht. Instead, they used Harbin red sausage, a type of sausage made from pork and starch, sliced into strips. This red sausage tasted very good and cost 95 cents a pound in the market.
The tomato sauce used to make borscht is made from the famous canned tomatoes from the Shanghai Meilin Canned Food Factory. These canned tomatoes cost 22 cents each. Foreigners use the tomato sauce to dip bread, while Shanghainese use it to make borscht or to cook fish in tomato sauce. The sweet and sour taste of the tomatoes can effectively suppress the fishy smell.
Using Merlin tomato sauce cans, paired with Harbin red sausage, and various seasonal side dishes such as potatoes and cabbage, even the worst cafeteria chef could make this soup taste pretty good.
The difference between borscht served in company canteens lies only in whether the company is wealthy enough to add canned tomatoes and red sausage, resulting in a bright red soup with a meaty aroma. This type of soup is more common in large company canteens.
In smaller establishments, a bowl of clear broth with a few tomatoes floating on top and a few strips of red sausage on top—and they dare call that borscht?
Qin Xiangxiang thought about the small local music group where Xu Ruwei was next door. Their canteen was very stingy with its food, unlike factories which had a dedicated production plan and quotas. The borscht they made was just clear broth with some shredded red sausage. However, even so, the borscht was extremely popular.
Even if you're stingy, you still have to cut some red sausage strips. These are pork sausages, and the soup made from them, no matter how bland, is still more fragrant than vegetable soup.
In her dream, Qin Xiangxiang transferred to the Cultural Palace as a temporary teacher. The food in the canteen there was even worse. The factory canteen was not as good as home, and the Cultural Palace canteen was far inferior to the factory canteen.
The more she considered these things, the more she felt that staying at the textile factory was the right choice, provided that she could change jobs to long-day shifts and that her mother, Zhou Aodong, could join the factory's leadership team.
When Qin Xiangxiang arrived at the workers' canteen, she bought rice, ordered a bowl of borscht, a meat dish for two cents, and a vegetable dish for five cents.
"I'd like a bowl of borscht, and please give me extra shredded sausage."
She arrived early, and there was plenty of red sausage in the soup. Qin Xiangxiang sat in the corner, contentedly enjoying her meal.
Zheng, a female worker in the same class as Qin Xiangxiang, was also in the canteen. She had the same idea as Qin Xiangxiang, but she only ordered a bowl of borscht and didn't ask for any other meat dishes.
Ms. Zheng glanced at Qin Xiangxiang's dining table and thought to herself, "What's so pitiful about this girl? If her husband really divorces her, let's see if she can afford to eat anymore."
Qin Xiangxiang finished her meal at a leisurely pace, around noon. Her shift ended at four o'clock, which was more than three hours away. She took a walk under the shade of the trees in the factory to digest her food, and then went to the single dormitory to borrow a bed to lie down and take a nap.
She stood under the tree, and a man and a woman walked towards her in the distance. The man was wearing a blue Zhongshan suit and an imported watch with a broken strap on his wrist. The woman was thin and pale, and kept clutching her stomach. The man pushed the woman as she walked, and she stumbled several steps.
The two were walking and talking, and it was unclear what they were saying when the man suddenly slapped the middle-aged woman across the face twice, causing her to fall to the ground.
"You lazy woman, you're not giving me any face. If you don't want to serve me, then go back to the countryside and carry a hoe."
"You're showing no respect to your brother like this..."
"If you don't get a hot meal by evening, I'll slap you to death!"
Qin Xiangxiang recognized the man who was cursing as Zhao Gensheng, an air conditioning worker at the textile factory. The woman was his wife, who was said to be a child bride from the countryside, eight years older than Zhao Gensheng. She was a good cook and often came to the factory to deliver meals to Zhao Gensheng.
Zhao Gensheng and other workers had a drinking party, and he asked his wife to cook some snacks at home and bring them over. This earned him the envy of the other male workers, and Zhao Gensheng felt very proud.
That day, a new employee joined the factory. Zhao Gensheng said that he would ask his wife to cook some snacks to go with the drinks in the evening. He had just told his coworkers when his wife turned pale and said that she was not feeling well that day and could not cook many dishes. She would not be bringing him dinner that night.
Zhao Gensheng pulled the woman away. When she kept making excuses about feeling unwell, he felt she was being disrespectful and slapped her twice.
"My stomach hurts today, I feel terrible." The woman's face was as pale as paper.
"You're pretending, you're still pretending! You're just lazy! I'm working myself to the bone at the factory every day, and you're just sitting at home complaining about being in pain. Do you think you're some old-fashioned capitalist's young mistress?" The man cursed as he kicked the woman twice.
The woman cried out in pain twice.
Qin Xiangxiang couldn't stand it anymore, so she ran forward and shouted, "How can you hit someone?"
"Get out of here, you little brat. I'm beating my wife, what business is it of yours to interfere?"
Several people had gathered on the road, with older male and female workers watching from a distance without saying a word.
"The city leaders just came to inspect the factory a few days ago. Our factory is going to be nominated for an advanced award, and you're here today beating a woman..."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Gensheng recalled that Qin Xiangxiang had been publicly praised by the entire factory a few days ago, and that her mother was Zhou Aodong from the Youth League Committee... His expression changed, and he spat at the woman on the ground, "I work myself to the bone in the factory, and this lazy woman is outrageous."
He glared at the woman a few times, then turned and left.
"What's the point of me living... My life is so miserable, I might as well be dead!" The man left, and the woman on the ground, Sun Guilan, covered her face and cried, "Sister, thank you for standing up for me."
“In the past, I would make whatever he wanted to eat. The monthly food ration was so limited. He ate well every day, while my children and I ate coarse food. There was really not enough to eat at home. My youngest daughter was so hungry that she had to pick up bones that people threw away…” Sun Guilan poured out her grievances to Qin Xiangxiang, saying that she had a hard life, that there was not enough to eat at home, and that her husband still had to show off his wealth outside. She also said that she was not feeling well and that her husband did not understand her at all.
"How am I supposed to live with a man like this in my life?"
Qin Xiangxiang stood aside without saying a word, too lazy to be indignant. In her dream, after she went to the island with the army, she had encountered the same thing. An officer beat his wife. Qin Xiangxiang couldn't stand it and said a few words. The woman's family member was very grateful to her and poured out her grievances to her.
Qin Xiangxiang was young and indignant. She condemned the husband in front of the woman's family and even said she would report him to the leaders... But after a while, the couple reconciled, and she accused Qin Xiangxiang of "deliberately sowing discord between husband and wife" and "being petty like a woman from the city."
—It's just a couple's quarrel in bed and they make up before they get out of bed. Why are you meddling in their business?
"You're unemployed, aren't you?"
The woman who was crying paused, looked up, and saw neither anger nor sympathy on Qin Xiangxiang's face.
“I come from the countryside, I’m different from city people…”
Qin Xiangxiang said, "It seems our factory canteen is short of temporary workers. They wash and peel vegetables, and the pay is twenty or thirty yuan a month. Since you are a family member of a worker in the factory, you have a chance to get a job. Since you're already here, why don't you go and ask?"
The woman was stunned.
After Qin Xiangxiang finished speaking, she turned around and went back to her single dormitory to borrow a bed for a nap.
While Qin Xiang was taking a nap, her uncle Zhou Wenbin was invited into the office of the Revolutionary Committee for investigation. Zhou Wenbin was a teacher at the textile school and lived in the school's staff quarters.
After being questioned, Zhou Wenbin's back was soaked with sweat.
He was reported!
Letters and unauthorized communications overseas will cause trouble!
Zhou Wenbin swallowed hard. As a state employee and cadre, having family connections overseas was a very ambiguous matter. Many people who had studied abroad or had close ties with overseas countries were sent down to farms for study in previous years. They could not have any ideological deviations and it took at least two or three years before they could return to their jobs, which made many people complain bitterly.
Zhou Wenbin and his parents have contact with his aunt overseas, and this aunt even sends some money to China every month.
The country was short of foreign exchange, so it did not stop relatives overseas from sending money back to China; in fact, it was encouraged. There were even special overseas Chinese supply stores in Shanghai, but in recent years, they have been criticized for being pro-foreign and have been forced to close down.
Overseas Chinese shops were closed, but foreign exchange could still be exchanged for domestic currency, though not in large amounts.
Nowadays, people in China and overseas cannot communicate and only receive remittances unilaterally. Some overseas people send tens of yuan to their relatives in China every month, and the same amount is sent for decades.
Having received remittances from overseas, one should be discreet and careful. If his private overseas communications were discovered... Zhou Wenbin broke out in a cold sweat. He stood on the school playground, paranoid, fearing that he would be dragged to a farm for "training" at any moment.
Today we just talked to him; tomorrow we'll talk to the school's students and the neighbors...
At midnight, after finishing her shift handover, Qin Xiangxiang came out of the workshop feeling dizzy and lightheaded, as if she couldn't even open her eyes. The night wind blew as soon as she stepped outside, and she shivered, which made her feel a little more awake.
"So, you're not going back, are you?"
"Master Li is going to ride his bike back to the public housing? Then let's go back together."
Some people stayed in the factory and didn't leave, while a large number of female workers from different workshops chose to ride their bicycles at night with flashlights back to the "20,000 households" workers' housing. There were many people at night, and the roads were smooth, so the large group went back together and nothing bad ever happened.
Along the way, there are also "24-hour food shops" with their lights on. These shops are open 24 hours a day and are specifically designed to serve night workers and drivers.
"I'll go back with you!" Qin Xiangxiang shook her head, remembering the important things she had done yesterday, and decided to go home every night for the next few days.
As luck would have it, she stopped at her own apartment building and just then heard a thumping sound on the stairs. Qin Xiangxiang picked up a stone, shone her flashlight on it, and it shone right on the flustered Zhou Wenbin.
"Who, who's there?" the middle-aged man asked in a panic, cold sweat pouring down his face.
When Qin Xiangxiang saw him, she was immediately delighted. She had just cast her line to fish and already caught a big fish so quickly.
So she pointed the flashlight at her chin, shining it upwards, grinning menacingly, looking like a ghost, her voice eerie:
"...Are you here to steal chickens and dogs?"
Zhou Wenbin was so scared that he wet his pants.
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