Chapter 4: I didn't save a single penny from eating, drinking, and having fun.
The workers' housing built in Shanghai in the 1950s was designed and constructed according to the opinions of Soviet experts, and it was equipped with water, electricity, gas and toilets from the very beginning.
Tap water was connected to the kitchen, which had two gas stoves. While most people were still burning firewood or honeycomb briquettes, these workers' housing units already had gas stoves, making cooking, boiling water, and other tasks very convenient.
Compared to the people in the shantytown, these living conditions were actually quite good. However, more than a decade has passed, and the houses have aged. The river outside has started to smell due to excessive wastewater discharge.
What's most unbearable is the toilet in the restroom. Chinese people are not used to using it, and since people on the same floor share it, some people with poor hygiene will deliberately dirty the toilet seat, which is disgusting.
Now that we've entered the 1970s, the newly built workers' housing is different. Each household has its own independent water, electricity, and gas. But how long do you have to wait in line to move into such a house?
After Qin Xiang finished processing the minced meat, she started cleaning the intestines and pig liver. She washed them with salt and poured some Shaoxing wine to remove the fishy smell. The pig liver, in particular, had to be sliced after washing and then soaked in water with Shaoxing wine for more than an hour to reduce its fishy odor.
Many people dislike buying pig offal because they find it troublesome to process; others don't care whether it smells fishy or not, and simply use chili peppers, pickled vegetables, and garlic to suppress the fishy smell. However, discerning people can still taste the fishy odor.
There are very few people who handle things as meticulously as Qin Xiangxiang, so the Xu family, her neighbors, all say that she is particularly difficult, either refusing to cook or insisting on occupying her own territory, and causing a lot of trouble.
On the first floor, four households share one kitchen with only two stoves. They have to take turns cooking, and there's only one water tap. If one household takes up too much time, the other household takes up less, which often leads to verbal conflicts.
Because water and electricity are shared, water bills are calculated per person, while electricity bills are calculated based on the wattage of household appliances, such as how many watts a light bulb has, how many tubes a radio has, and gas bills are also calculated per person.
But Qin Xiangxiang was being difficult. The Xu family said that Qin Xiangxiang should be counted as two people because she needed to boil water for bathing in both winter and summer, and she washed everything in her room even when she had nothing to do. She used a lot of water and coal, so she had to be counted as two people! No, three people!
After a lot of arguing, Qin Xiangxiang remained incorrigible and insisted on washing her clothes. After the two families discussed it, Qin Xiangxiang agreed to pay for two people's worth of clothes, and that finally calmed things down.
"I'm paying for the water bill for two people, so what's wrong with using a little more water?" Qin Xiangxiang was soaking pig liver in water and planned to change the water once in the middle. If others saw her doing this, they would definitely say she was wasting water.
They say she's pretentious and affected, so what? She'd rather die than change!
If she were to work, she would need money; utilities like water, electricity, and gas all cost money. If she divorced Li Jianzhi, she would lose that money. The factory worker job her mother arranged for her was a good job, with a high monthly income. At that time, workers received the best treatment, and many people preferred to be factory workers rather than work in government agencies. Skilled workers could earn up to 120 or 130 yuan a month because many factories were located in the suburbs, and there was also a suburban subsidy, which was a few yuan more than jobs in the city.
The textile factory now offers pretty good benefits. Every year, the union distributes things like fruit, rice dumplings, and pastries. Of course, the cotton cloth and gauze produced are also given as benefits to the female workers.
Qin Xiang thought about calculating her monthly expenses. If she wanted to eat well, she would need to spend 70 cents to 1 yuan a day, which would amount to about 21 to 30 yuan a month. Occasionally, she would also want to eat at a small restaurant, which would normally cost more than 30 yuan.
Therefore, setting the apprentice's wage at 29.5 yuan is a good decision. This amount is just enough for an adult to eat good food in the canteen for a month. If they are a little frugal, they can save 10 yuan. If they are very frugal, they can eat rice with pickled vegetables from home and save even more. Even with a wage of 29 yuan, they can save 20 yuan.
If you could earn 70 or 80 yuan a month, you would have much more money in your pocket. Even if you ate better, you could spend 30-odd yuan on food and drinks and still have more than 30 yuan left. You could use that money to help your family or buy other industrial products at the supply and marketing cooperative or department store.
Shanghai has the most complete range of industrial products in the country, so you can buy all kinds of daily necessities every day without having to wait for local market days.
Not to mention big items like sewing machines and watches, there are also small, miscellaneous things that cost money, such as face cream, pearl powder, and clam oil. An alarm clock costs ten or twenty yuan, a thermos costs five or six yuan, an enamel basin costs ten or twenty yuan, and there are mosquito nets... Although these are not necessities, if you want to live a good life, there is always something missing at home.
A nice winter coat costs ten or twenty yuan, and even a pair of children's leather shoes costs eight or nine yuan. Qin Xiangxiang's leather shoes cost more than ten yuan. She has more than ten pairs of shoes and buys new ones every year.
When Qin Xiangxiang gave birth, she bought a large item: a "baby stroller," also called a children's stroller, for 58 yuan. She could put the baby in it and push it around without needing to be carried, which was very convenient. This wooden stroller cost 58 yuan.
At the time, everyone around her advised her not to buy it, saying it wasn't worth it and that she could just buy a baby carrier for a few dollars. Qin Xiangxiang thought the carrier was too ugly, with bright red floral fabric, and she didn't want to use it since she already had one at home.
...
Anyway, she spent all the money Li Jianzhi sent her and didn't save a single penny.
After her divorce from Li Jianzhi, she had to support herself. She couldn't take the job of a temporary piano teacher, no matter how respectable it was. The salary of twenty-odd yuan was too meager. Even if she could live off her parents, she couldn't save much money and live a good life.
Rather than changing jobs with other organizations, it's better to stay in the textile factory, such as the cotton inspection room or the fabric room. These are relatively easy jobs that only require day shifts, and it doesn't matter if the salary is a little lower, 40 or 50 is enough.
Moreover, if her mother had the opportunity to join the factory's leadership team, her life would be much better, and she wouldn't need to go to someone else's territory.
In her dream, she was a piano teacher, but as a temporary worker, she was always bullied and looked down upon, and she didn't get any benefits... Although she really wanted to be a piano teacher, she felt that she couldn't endure any hardship, so she decided to stay under her mother's protection and be a good-for-nothing daughter.
Clinging to your mother's coattails is the top priority.
If she decides to stay at the textile factory for the time being, she should make more shumai tomorrow instead, to build relationships and make it easier for her to transfer to another position, and also to make it easier for her mother to get into the factory's leadership team.
That way she could live a comfortable and easy life... But if she didn't divorce him, not only could she live a comfortable and easy life, but she could also get Li Jianzhi's money for free! Ahhhhh, Qin Xiangxiang, you idiot, how could you waver!
Divorce is a must!
Her primary goal now is to stay obediently in the textile factory, not to hold her mother back, and to get Zhou Aodong into the factory's leadership team; secondly, to transfer to a less demanding day shift job; and thirdly, to divorce Li Jianzhi.
After setting her goal, Qin Xiangxiang breathed a sigh of relief. This little brain of hers was always unwilling to focus on things other than eating, drinking, and having fun.
—Let's leave it at that for now, eating is the priority.
Qin Xiang thought about heating the iron pot and turning the gas stove to a low flame. The only advantage of using a gas stove for cooking is that you can change the flame size at any time, but some people say that it doesn't smell as good as firewood.
She put the minced meat into the pot and slowly stir-fried it over low heat, breaking up each piece of minced meat to render out the oil and moisture. Ideally, it should be dry and slightly crispy for the best taste.
After stir-frying, use a steel spatula to scoop it out, being careful not to burn your hands. After the minced meat is stir-fried and broken up, it looks like there is more than when it was raw. It filled a small half bowl and smelled very fragrant.
"This cloth should be replaced too." You don't know the value of money until you're in charge of the household. Qin Xiangxiang, who never used to worry about money, suddenly realized after calculating her finances today that living a comfortable life is quite difficult.
The shovel I'm using costs six yuan. When using it, you have to wrap a piece of white cloth around the handle many times so you don't get burned.
These white cloth strips are prone to wear and tear and need to be replaced every now and then.
"It smells so good! Who's cooking meat? Is it Xiangxiang?" The kitchen curtain was lifted, and standing outside was Xu Ruwei from the Xu family next door. She was about the same age as Qin Xiangxiang, married, and had a three-year-old child. She worked as a pianist in a regional music troupe.
The two learned piano together when they were young and practiced together, but they drifted apart after getting married. Xu Ruwei has two siblings, and she is the youngest. She has an older brother who works in a machinery factory, and her second sister had a bad life and was sent to the countryside in the southwest. She was left behind and was admitted to the regional music troupe based on her talent.
At that time, Qin Xiangxiang and Xu Ruwei auditioned for the music group together and both made it to the second round of auditions. In the end, Qin Xiangxiang failed, but Xu Ruwei did. Xu Ruwei often showed off in front of Qin Xiangxiang, which made Qin Xiangxiang unwilling to accept it. That's why she insisted on becoming a piano teacher at the cultural center. She wanted to touch the valuable piano worth tens of thousands of yuan in the concert hall with her own hands.
Xu Ruwei brought her to the music group, but only to show off; she wouldn't let her touch her at all.
Qin Xiangxiang also learned that Xu Ruwei was selected because she gave a gift to the examiner, even though she played worse than Qin Xiangxiang!
Qin Xiangxiang had wanted Zhou Aodong to help her pull some strings, but Zhou Aodong refused and even ridiculed her. After failing to be selected, she also hated her own mother, feeling that Zhou Aodong was deliberately torturing her and making her suffer without any real hardship.
Later, Qin Xiangxiang learned that her mother had found out that the music troupe director was quite lecherous and had often groped young girls. Qin Xiangxiang was exceptionally beautiful, and Zhou Aodong himself had experienced similar things when he was young. He preferred to place his daughter in a textile factory where female workers made up the majority of the workforce, under his own nose, so that no one would dare to bully her.
In addition, the music troupe is full of young, artistic men and women. Qin Xiangxiang is beautiful, and her husband is a military officer. The couple lives apart. What if she gets involved with some young man and causes a scandal? That would be terrible.
In his dream, Qin wanted to know if Xu Ruwei really had something going on with another man. It happened in the second year after the resumption of the college entrance examination. Xu Ruwei was admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music, but her husband discovered the scandal and went to the school to fight with the man. It caused a big commotion, which led to both Xu Ruwei and the man being expelled from the school. After dropping out, the two sold cassette tapes, which was quite a sad story.
Of course, Qin Xiang thought that it was quite tragic for her to be scammed out of her entire fortune and then hit by a car in the book. With her limited intelligence, it would be better for her to stay obediently by her mother's side and listen to her.
If her mother had run the textile factory, she would definitely have made a lot of money. But those foreigners were wicked. Not only did they sell outdated and obsolete machines, they also sabotaged the instruction manuals and parts.
Many people buy the machine but don't know how to use it, or can't use it at all, and have to spend extra money to buy parts.
Qin Xiangxiang wasn't the only one who was scammed and went bankrupt; many state-owned factories were also deceived and lost a lot of money, which is heartbreaking.
Qin Xiang thought to herself that she would never take the college entrance examination again, since she wouldn't pass anyway. She might as well focus on learning a foreign language. Even if she didn't make money, at least she wouldn't let her mother be scammed!
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