Teresa Teng

"How do you know the prices so well? That just shows you want to buy one too!"

"I-I don't want to buy one. Can't I just look?"

"Stop bickering. Let me say a few words..."

Chen Jianjun generally kept his opinions to himself, but whenever he wanted to say something, his mind was already made up. "Forget about a television. With what our family has, there's no way we could get one. Only families with connections can watch TV.

"There's no need to buy a bicycle either. Your mom doesn't use one, and I ride one from work.

"I think we should buy you a watch. You're not so young anymore, and a watch would be convenient."

"Hey, that's right! Wear a watch, and people will look up to you wherever you go."

Yu Xiuli agreed.

"A watch? All right, let's buy one."

Chen Qi nodded. A person's luck could be changed by what they wore, and he had plenty of experience with that.

In his last life, for instance, he'd had terrible luck with women. Then he bought a Patek Philippe watch and a Maserati, and hey, his luck changed in an instant. Girls kept saying the air-conditioning in his car wasn't good enough and taking their clothes off as soon as they got in. It was endlessly annoying...

"As for a tape recorder..."

Chen Jianjun scratched his head, then suddenly chuckled. "Actually, I want one too. I was planning to save up for one, so this works out perfectly."

"Chen Jianjun, have you no shame? Using your child's money to satisfy your own selfish desires? Where's your Party spirit?"

Yu Xiuli scolded him.

"All right, all right. It doesn't matter who buys it. Then it's settled: a watch and a tape recorder," Chen Qi said with a smile.

"How much is that going to cost? The money will be gone in the blink of an eye." Yu Xiuli's heart ached at the expense.

"Once it's gone, I'll earn more. Eight hundred today, eight thousand tomorrow," Chen Qi comforted her.

People's general impression of this era was that everyone was poor.

It really was poor, but it depended on the place and the group. Some people were quite well-off at this time, such as workers at large factories, employees in good positions at state-owned enterprises, and cadres of a certain rank...

Their wages were already high, and they had nowhere to spend their money anyway. Their work units covered everything!

Naturally, they could save money.

Of course, if you looked at the whole country, especially the countryside, it was painful to see. A farmer could count himself lucky to see any money after a year of hard work.

There were quite a few watch brands. The best known were Shanghai Brand and Seagull Brand, while Beijing also had its own local BJ Brand.

A Shanghai Brand watch cost about 120 yuan.

Chen Jianjun hadn't managed to get a watch voucher yet. He only had a voucher for a tape recorder, so they bought that first.

Last year, the Ministry of Commerce had organized a "Hong Kong Study Group," which bought 10,000 cassette recorders for 93 Hong Kong dollars apiece. They were shipped back and priced at 200 yuan each (at the time, 100 Hong Kong dollars was approximately 30 yuan).

People had begun lining up in the afternoon, and by the following morning, they had crowded together so tightly that they smashed the counters.

Today was Sunday, a day off.

For now, people only got one day off a week. It wouldn't become two until 1995, and even by 2024 it hadn't truly been implemented.

All three members of the family set out together, making a special trip to the Municipal Department Store on Wangfujing Street.

This was the first large department store in New China, and Zhang Binggui worked here. Who didn't know Zhang Binggui? He was a candy salesman, a national model worker, and a deputy to the National People's Congress, more famous than any star.

When he rode the bus, people gave him their seats. When he went to bathe, people scrubbed his back. When he was seriously ill in the hospital, national leaders came one after another to visit him. After his death, the department store erected a bronze statue of him in the square, with an inscription by a leader: "The spirit of a blazing fire shines across the land"!

The selection of goods here was the most complete, and it was crowded on Sundays.

The three of them went in with the stream of people. In no hurry to buy anything, they wandered around first.

The first floor sold things like face cream and shampoo, but a counter had been set aside specifically for Zhang Binggui to sell candy. A sea of people pushed forward, taking pride in buying candy he had scooped up with his own hand.

He had a special skill called the One-Grab Technique.

If a customer wanted two liang, he grabbed exactly two liang. If they wanted half a jin, he grabbed exactly half a jin. Supposedly, he had practiced diligently with little stones to master it.

Labor was the greatest honor, and in this era, those weren't just empty words. Zhang Binggui and Shi Chuanxiang were both models of it. Some people said they had official positions, but give you an official position and have you shovel human waste every day-would you do it?

Chen Qi wanted a look too, but he couldn't squeeze in, so he had to give up.

After wandering around for a while, they reached the tape recorder counter, where there were surprisingly plenty of people too. Chen Qi almost laughed. It felt just like, Wasn't the economy supposed to be bad and money hard to earn? How come every last one of you is richer than me?

Thanks to Sino-Japanese friendship, the first wave of foreign-brand household appliances to enter the mainland were all Japanese: Panasonic, Sharp, Hitachi, Sanyo, and so on.

The tape recorders familiar to us were the large kind that could hold two cassettes and had several speakers. At this time, they had single decks that could only hold one cassette. They were smaller, but thick and solid, like big bricks. (There's a picture at the end.)

The three of them were lucky and didn't find it out of stock. In the end, they spent 200 yuan on a Sanyo single-deck tape recorder.

"My goodness, a thing like this costs 200 yuan!"

"Why don't they just rob people? It costs more than a bicycle! We're not some fabulously wealthy family. Sooner or later, you two will squander everything we have."

Yu Xiuli kept grumbling, until Chen Jianjun couldn't help saying, "Our family only buys one major item every few years. It's not like we buy them every day. Both our wages are decent, and our son's making something of himself too. It won't come to that."

"Exactly. When it's time to spend, spend!" Chen Qi said with a smile.

"You two have already surrendered to capitalism. I can't bear to look at you."

His parents wanted to keep browsing, but Chen Qi couldn't be bothered to move around anymore. He carried the box and left first. Everyone he passed looked at him with envy, their gazes burning. He was the brightest-looking lad around.

He went downstairs and had just stepped out the front entrance when someone suddenly tugged at him. Startled, Chen Qi thought it was a robbery. He turned around and saw a shifty-looking fellow in a hat, with a very shrill voice.

"Buddy, just bought that tape recorder?"

Seeing his guard go up, the man smiled. "Don't worry, I'm in business... Want some tapes?"

Tapes!

Chen Qi's eyes lit up. "You sell cassette tapes?"

"Want to take a look?"

"If it's too far, I'm not going."

"I'm in this business for the long haul. I can't cheat you. Let's talk over there."

The man led him to a relatively secluded corner, pulled his clothes open, and, like Doraemon's pocket, pulled out cassette after cassette.

"Ten yuan a tape!"

"Why don't you just rob people?"

"They all came from down south. You know how it is. I'm just earning a little for my trouble."

The man was very enthusiastic. "Take a look at this one. This is Teresa Teng. She's the hottest thing right now. Everyone down south listens to her."

Chen Qi flipped through them. "When Will You Return?," "Seeing Cooking Smoke Again," "Don't Pick the Wildflowers by the Road"... They were all familiar songs. The covers were plain and the packaging crude, but they were cassette tapes, at least.

"Got any Liu Wenzheng?"

"What about Xu Guanjie?"

"No Luo Wen either? You don't have anything, and you dare come out here selling?"

"You're an expert!"

The man was astonished.

Chen Qi chuckled. You're just some random passerby. Do I need to play the innocent little lamb with you?

The man slapped his thigh. "All right! Seeing how knowledgeable you are, eight yuan a tape, and they're yours!"

Fuck, smuggling really made money!

Eight yuan was enough for one person to live on for a month.

If Chen Qi hadn't had his cheat, he'd probably have been miserably scratching a living from the fields too. He bought three Teresa Teng tapes, tucked them inside his shirt, and left.

He had earned 800 yuan in manuscript fees and received a 50-yuan subsidy. Before he left for Beijing Film Studio, Yu Xiuli had also given him 30, bringing his total assets to 880 yuan, an auspicious number. Now he had spent 200 on the tape recorder and 24 on the tapes, leaving 656.

For all he said, he wasn't planning to hand the money he'd earned over to his parents. If they asked, he'd say he was saving up to marry a wife.

That evening.

Late at night, all was quiet.

Chen Qi locked the doors and windows and lit a candle-the power was out again. He set that brick on the table and turned the volume down. His parents sat on the bed, suddenly looking very solemn. In the candlelight, a voice they had never heard before, gentle and beautiful to the utmost, emerged:

"After we part tonight, when will you return? Once you've finished this cup, please have a little more food. How many times in life can one get drunk? If not now, when will we make merry?... Ah, have another cup, drink it dry..."

(Thanks to Erliang Liuqian for becoming an alliance leader!

That's all...)

(End of chapter)