"You really dare to think and act, Brother Yan."
After leaving the post office, Li Kuiyong sighed with admiration. He truly had never even thought of something like this, much less actually doing it.
Wang Yan smiled. "It's not like we've got anything better to do. Write something up and send it in—maybe they'll use it. If they do, there'll be plenty of benefits for us. Like getting offal or bones from the slaughterhouse. Once the article gets published, forget offal—we could ask for meat if we wanted."
"If only we had a stall of our own."
"What pipe dream are you having? Even if we got a stall, I wouldn't let you spend every day stuffing yourself with rich food and drinking yourself to death." Wang Yan glanced at him. "And even if the stall were approved, it'd probably be a commune sideline business. It wouldn't have anything to do with our production brigade."
"Why not?"
"Are the people in our brigade the only people who count? Aren't people elsewhere people too? It's the same principle as governing the country. If this place has a poor harvest, supplies have to be brought in from somewhere else. That's all there is to it. Our brigade is poor, sure, but there are places even poorer."
Wang Yan was willing to explain such principles to Li Kuiyong, to get his mind working, broaden his horizons, and make him consider more issues.
As the saying went, one who could not plan for the whole could not plan for a part; one who could not plan for generations could not plan for the moment. There was also a more modern and incisive interpretation of that saying: "Look at problems from a developmental perspective."
The two laughed and chatted as they left the post office,