“Never make any money, and that’s how it’s going to be for the rest of your life.”

Qianjin Si Road is a road in the old city of Hankou, starting from Beijing-Han Avenue in the north, bearing Shan Dong Road, and ending at Zhongshan Avenue in the south, connecting to Minsheng Road. Wuhan Electronics Market is located in a building along the street, with a history of at least 30 years. The first floor sells a variety of electronic components, electronic wire, the second floor sells audio, there are also repair watches, the sale of used electronics.

Master Zhou’s store is located on the second floor of the market. Said store, in fact, hundreds of stereos, old VCD players and old TV sets piled into the corner. Some of the old style Yamaha, Panasonic, Sharp and Sony stacked together, falling into the dust. Master Zhou stood in front of a VCD machine, put a CD of Liao Changyong into it, playing “Red Earth Incense”. CD is bought from the couple next to the store, 5 yuan two discs. Master Zhou did not know who Liao Changyong was, mainly to test the machine. “VCD’s words, Sony can’t compare to Panasonic’s, its optical head is not good enough to pick the disc. “

He is only about one meter six, black thin, shirt worn hairy, but with quite fashionable. Black silk narrow-rimmed presbyopic glasses, plaid short-sleeved shirt, camouflage pants, cowhide sandwich slippers, chest a small black Kun bag. A small rattan bowler hat on a freshly collected amplifier.

“This is made in the domestic underground factory, look at the power jack at the back. Imported have to use the converter, this is a direct 220-volt interface. “

He stood on tiptoe to turn on a small Sharp color television set high above. The TV still works, can automatically search the station, there are five stations, snowflake point cover the human shadow.

“What the TV says is false. I don’t even watch TV or newspapers. I just listen to the radio, Radio Asia and Voice of America. And Phoenix TV is okay. You young people of this generation, ah, this is not the time to talk to me, should go to Hong Kong to see. “

Master Zhou was born in 1957, Wuhan Caidian people. From his grandfather’s generation, “the composition is not good “, the landlord, was pressed on the bench with bamboo sticks and hoses beaten. Master Zhou has three sisters, due to the identity of the descendants of landlords, out to work not to accumulate work points. When he was a child, he felt that he could not lift up his head when he went out, and he was too depressed to speak. When he saw people, he gave way to them because he was the “children of the landlord He was a “child of the landlord”.

In 1983, he went to work in the city and worked in a township lime factory. In 1985, he opened a private restaurant in Wangjiawan, spending several hundred yuan to get a business license, an original and a copy, and renting several hundred yuan. Opened six or seven years, selling hot dry noodles. A bowl of two triangles of money, the purchase of flour to use food stamps. Hired three workers, earned some money, also considered “ten thousand yuan household “.

“You have money others than you have money. 80s there are bosses a day to sell soda can sell 50 or 60 cases. “Master Zhou opened a bottle of Coke to drink up.

When he opened the restaurant in Wangjiawan, a Huanggang contractor who often came to the store to eat abducted his wife. The wife rolled away the property deed and money on New Year’s Eve, leaving Master Zhou and his three children. He found someone to borrow money and opened two more grain and oil stores in Gutian Road 1 and Gutian Road 2. Profits are not as good as opening a restaurant, only 15%-20%. Doing two years, and changed back to open a restaurant.

“There is no culture, educated have opened a large hotel “. He heard at the time that the Hankow Railway Station was to be built, and moved to that neighborhood. But there was just a vegetable shed, not much business. After a few years, the train station still had not been built, and business was getting worse. Master Zhou switched to selling second-hand stereos on the weekend at the Taining Street yard sale market on Jianghan Road and a fruit stall on the side. The stereo is to collect refrigerators, air conditioners, these home appliances scrap people’s homes to pluck, dozens of dollars to pluck, and then hundreds of dollars to sell.

He lit a cigarette, “is today to this job, tomorrow to that job, no fixed. “

This business from 1999 until now, but changed twice. Tai Ning Street around 2013 to rectify, the stall is scattered to the front of the Methodist Hotel and Hong Kong Road, the time changed to 9:00 pm to 12:00 pm. Master Zhou moved his stall to the underground yard sale on Jianghan 2nd Road. Last October, because the World Military Games to be held in Wuhan, the market was temporarily closed up, he moved to the forward four road electronics market.

“Doing anything is not profitable. “Master Zhou sighed. He is not considered a love of electronic products, recently preferring to pour Chinese medicine. Himself to Hankow Turtle Mountain to pick He Shou Wu and cinnamon back home research, said the former can be a blood tonic, the latter can be an aphrodisiac.

“Yo, you sell this machine to me thia, one hundred and fifty OK? “At this time, Master Chen came over with a Sharp record player, Master Zhou greeted him.

Recorder red and black, dual card, automatic flip, is a little cracked on both sides of the audio foam film. This is the master Chen just spent three hundred dollars to plunder, intends to repair resale out. “One hundred and fifty? Two hundred and fifty you can not get, but also one hundred and fifty. Fully automatic, foreign things are good. “

“I think this machine is top of the line. ” Master Zhou exclaimed. “This machine is much “, Master Chen is a little proud that “My family has several “.

Master Chen is also very thin, trekking pull a pair of slippers, baseball cap slanted on the head, hanging a large string of keys around the waist. He is a native of Hanchuan, Hubei, and Master Zhou the same age, is an old acquaintance. Engaged in the recorder two years, like to pick up around the leak, repair a repair to sell on the idle fish. How much money can be sold depends on the quality of good or bad, how the sound, but this is just a hobby.

“Like I repaired the machine, package him 100% satisfied. Repair not satisfied I do not send. “He fiddled with the lighter in his hand to jingle.

Master Chen originally worked in the Hanchuan shopping mall electronic repair department, 1991 daughter was born that year to Hanzheng Street as a cloth merchant, until 2016 to retire. “Our economic conditions are not quite good, not like they have tens of millions. But a few million is still there. “In 2014, the family bought a house near Qianjin Si Road, then it was 8,000 yuan per square meter, and now it has risen to Nearly 20,000 yuan.

I have a neighbor who can collect several million in rent a year, and the highest rent for a clothing storefront on Daxing Street was about 2013. Almost 2013, a year can collect 1.2 million. Now the most expensive rent to sell cloth in the first Avenue of Longteng, the annual rent of 600,000. “

Master Chen, who has been in the cloth business for 25 years, rarely goes to the Keqiao District of Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, to get goods. He only dumped smuggled goods – good quality and cheap. “Shunfeng Wang Wei in the early years of smuggled goods from Hong Kong, shipped from Hong Kong to Guangdong’s Puning City, Jim Long County. That county are engaged in smuggling cloth, we then go back to transport Hanzheng Street to sell. Are pulling themselves, quite dangerous. “

Although retired, but Master Chen did not reduce the attention of the bosses on Hanzheng Street. His news are from the neighborhood. “I have a neighborhood to advance four houses sold in 2013 in Hankou North bought a suite, per square meter 3500 Now it can’t come back, and there is no up there. “

There are also some at the same time business loss is very bad. “There is an old folks money originally 30 million, and loans 50 million, from Malaysia and Thailand smuggling imported flower cloth. The result was a total loss, can not sell. He did not know that the style of flower cloth will soon become obsolete, the most dangerous is the flower cloth. I only sell a small portion of flower cloth. A roll of cloth 50 yards, a yard is 47.925 meters, a roll can earn 200 yuan. “

“At that time is the Hanzheng Street boss made money, are red. “Master Zhou interjected. Asked why he did not go to the Hanzheng Street, he grinned again: “That we are not that piece of material sha. “

“Right “, Master Chen again took the words over. “Yesterday we together a boss, his electric fan is broken, asked me to take a look, by the way to talk. Said now so many bosses, tens of millions of dollars, are ruined. Gambling more. A fellow countryman left last year, he also came from Hanchuan to Hanzheng Street to engage in clothing, to his son’s harm. His eldest son in Nantong engaged in oil, last year wanted to list. As a result, the city did not become a step forward, borrowed a lot of loan sharks can not repay, fled to Guangzhou. Several of our fellow villagers between this boss is the largest, at least 30 million assets are there, to his son went bankrupt. Loan sharks have three cents interest, two cents interest, at least 1.5 cents interest, one million a year interest on 150,000. I also let go of the loan. “

In 2016, after the marriage of his son, Master Chen closed the cloth line, playing record players at home, “the girl is not engaged, the son is not engaged, I can not engage. I also can not engage.” His son is working as a pharmaceutical representative; his daughter-in-law is a graduate student at Huazhong University of Technology, working in the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi. Daughter from Zhejiang University after graduate school into research institutions, research on new drugs for the treatment of intestinal cancer, the day before to Changsha to hold a seminar, this morning at 10 o’clock back, the Mid-Autumn Festival and intend to go to Nanjing.

“She is too ruthless! We can’t control, and she doesn’t need us to give money, she gets tens of thousands a month by herself. “

Master Zhou listened with a little envy. He has a son and two daughters, both born in the 80s, 85 years ago. In 2016, the family took savings to buy a 60-square-meter house on Jianghan Road, at 19,000 yuan per square meter, with five people living together. In addition to earning power, he is also a bit worried about the children are not married, “now the young people ah “, sighs again.

As he was talking, his cell phone rang. It’s 4 p.m., the regular daily closing time. “There are quite a lot of people like me “, Master Zhou put away the folding chair leaning against the wall. “Have not been able to earn money, and so on for life. “

Master Chen laughed, “you mainly think too much. Engage in audio, engage in Chinese medicine, but also quite a taste. “

Two people carrying a chair, one carrying a record player, into the sunny streets of Hankou.