No More Emptying Chamber Pots

Every speck of dust from an era that fell on an individual's head was a sharp sickle.

The meeting ended, and the crowd, unlike the eager crush that had entered, moved like a stream with too little water pressure, slow and sluggish. They had gone up to the mountains and down to the countryside in the prime of their youth, lived through years of hardship, and returned to the city only to find themselves without jobs. Every face bore confusion and worry; no one knew what the future held.

Huang Zhanying had fallen silent too, wobbling along on his bicycle. After a while, he asked, "What kind of jobs do you think we'll be assigned?"

"No idea."

"Aren't you worried at all?"

"Didn't they say the neighborhood office would visit us? Just wait at home. We'll find out when they come."

"..."

Huang Zhanying stared at him without blinking, then suddenly said, "I've noticed you've been acting really strange lately. You used to have so much on your mind, and whatever you were thinking showed on your face. How come you're so carefree now?"

"I'm nineteen. It's time I grew up a little. What's wrong with taking things as they come?"

Chen Qi brushed him off with that and said, "I'm going to the bookstore. Want to come?"

"No, I'm going to ask some other people and find out more."

"Then I'll get going!"

He waved, pushed down on the pedals, and rode his twenty-eight-inch bicycle back to Dashilar amid sparks, lightning, and thunder.

Dashilar was less than three hundred meters from its eastern entrance to its western one, yet it brought together the finest things in all Beijing: Donglaishun, Tongrentang, cloth shoes from Neiliansheng, silks and satins from Ruifuxiang, tea from Zhang Yiyuan, pickles from Liubiju, movies at Daguanlou, snuff from Tianhuizhai, and so on and so forth. During the humanitarian torrent, however, these time-honored establishments had all been renamed, and their old names were now being restored one by one.

There was also an old theater called Guangdelou, where, years later, a fellow named Guo Degang would perform.

The Xinhua Bookstore was also in Dashilar, barely a hundred meters from Menkuang Hutong. You could leave home and be at work. The Xinhua Bookstore's main branch was a state-owned enterprise at the bureau and department level; its city, district, and county stores were the equivalent of subsidiaries or branch offices.

Chen Qi parked his bicycle and went inside for a look. The store was crowded, with people gathered around the social science shelves, picking through the books.

A few years earlier, bookstores had been allowed to sell only nine categories of books, six of which were works by revolutionary leaders. After the National Science Conference was held in 1978, social science books had gradually become more plentiful. Really, what was so interesting about them? Yet people devoured them as if starving and parched.

One young girl was engrossed in a copy of the Geographical Atlas, while an elderly man who looked like an intellectual was actually reading an English edition of Travels in China. Literary periodicals carrying novels were even more popular. People pounced on them the way Gorky pounced on bread...

Chen Qi crept up behind a woman and suddenly shouted, "Mom!"

"Good heavens! You little brat, you scared me to death!"

The woman turned around. She was in her forties, slender and still graceful, and was none other than his mother, Yu Xiuli.

"Is the meeting over?"

"It's over."

"Come here..."

She pulled Chen Qi outside and took him to a corner. "What did they say?"

"As I understood it, they're mainly going to place unemployed young people like us in collective cooperatives."

"Collective cooperatives? That won't do..."

Yu Xiuli frowned. "Oh, we got a notice too. It said our children could take over our jobs. Your dad's a sales rep, always out and about, while my job at the store is more stable. How about I retire early and leave a position open for you?"

"You're only in your forties. Why retire so early? To do square dancing with the old ladies?"

"What kind of dancing?"

"Anyway, I don't need you two to do that. I can manage on my own."

"Manage, my ass! People in collective work units are treated as second-class, and they earn less too. You'll even have trouble finding a partner later."

"But I'm handsome! Finding a partner won't be a problem!"

He said it with absolute confidence, and Yu Xiuli heartily agreed. What could she say? Her son really was handsome!

"All right, let's not talk about this now. We'll discuss it tonight..."

Chen Qi didn't want to argue about it there, so he changed the subject. "Mom, that Geographical Atlas looks pretty good. Can you buy me a copy? I'll take it home and read it."

"All you ever do is read books that have nothing to do with work!"

Despite her words, Yu Xiuli went back into the store and soon came out with a copy of the Geographical Atlas. "Go straight home and don't go running around. Wait for your dad to get back tonight, and we'll have a proper talk."

The large compound enclosed seven inner courtyards.

Chen Qi's family lived inside, in a place of about twenty square meters. His parents slept in the inner room, and a bed had been set up for him in the outer room.

There was no kang. In winter they burned honeycomb coal briquettes, and the power went out from time to time. To bathe, they either went to a bathhouse or washed at home. Washing at home was a hassle: they had to heat three pots of water in succession, one for each person. One person would sit in a large tub in the room and wash while the other two waited outside.

The toilets were communal too. Every household kept chamber pots for use at night, then carried them to the public toilet to empty in the morning. Wang Fei had emptied one of those things, which also meant she had gotten up at night to use it. Hmm.

The Xinhua Bookstore was a good work unit, but it couldn't compare with a large factory. Factory workers were the ones everyone envied: everything was taken care of from birth to death. There were three people in Chen Qi's family, and both his parents earned money. Their combined income was about a hundred yuan a month, so they had no financial worries. Some of their coworkers had elderly parents above them and three or four children below them; those were the ones who really had it rough.

At current prices, rice cost 19 yuan per jin, pork 75 yuan per jin, and cabbage 03 yuan per jin... The real problem was that supplies were inadequate and goods were desperately scarce. You needed coupons to buy anything; without them, even money was no use.

Enough had been said about coupons, so there was no need to go over them again.

It was already noon.

Sunlight finally broke through the grayish-yellow clouds and shone into the room, carrying a hint of spring. Chen Qi sat at the table, idly leafing through the Geographical Atlas, which described many of the motherland's famous mountains and great rivers, its terrain and landforms, and the like.

Others were confused about what had been discussed at the meeting, but he understood it perfectly.

They were going to put these people into collective enterprises to repair furniture, make clothes, pop popcorn, or run canteens on behalf of others. In short, they would find them something to do.

It was the right approach. In 1949, Beijing had thirty thousand service establishments; now there were only a little over ten thousand, while the population had grown, leaving people's daily needs far from met. This group could step in to fill the gap, and they wouldn't have to worry about going hungry.

Collective enterprises had been created to solve the employment problem. Ownership had always been ambiguous, and there were a host of problems left over from the past. But in a place like Beijing, they were still better than being self-employed. Private businesses developed relatively slowly in the capital; next year would be their true starting point.

Other people shunned collective enterprises, but he could go anywhere. It was only a temporary foothold anyway.

As for his long-term plans, this was the early period of reform and opening up, so there were only a few paths to take:

He could pose as a cultured man and dabble in scar literature, lie low in a work unit, head south and become a trader who got rich first and kicked those who got rich later to death, or get into film and television and pursue Gong Xue, Zhu Lin, Li Jianqun, Tao Huimin, He Qing, Chen Hong, Lin Fangbing...

Naturally, he would do what he was good at.

"Come to think of it, this is a great era for turning the natural order upside down... But all that's too far off. First I'll get out of this lousy hutong. I don't want to empty chamber pots anymore."

Chen Qi settled his mind and felt relieved at once. He casually turned another page and came upon a place of beautiful scenery and steep, spectacular peaks.

"Mount Lu?"

He smiled and nodded. "Heaven made an Immortal Cave, and boundless beauty lies on the perilous peaks... Mount Lu is a fine place!"

(Comrades, we meet again! It's been several months, and I've missed you very much.

A new author and a new book-please give me your support!

During the new-book period, there will be two chapters a day...)

(End of chapter)