Preface
Over the past 20 years, more than 200 people have left Taiping Village (a pseudonym), a village of less than 3,000 people located in the eastern part of Shandong Province, at the junction of two cities and three counties, for Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, England and other countries. The pseudonym is a pseudonym for a village of less than 3,000 people in the eastern part of Shandong Province, on the border of two cities and three counties. According to incomplete statistics, nearly 200,000 people are working abroad in Taiping Village, a small, poor county with a population of over 1.1 million. The author and Uncle Fu, as well as the characters mentioned in the article, are all neighbors, and their stories, by and large, represent the pursuit of a generation of hometown people.
On February 15, 2019, the eleventh day of the first month of the lunar calendar, Uncle Fu, who has been back in Taiping Village from Spain for almost a month, still seems to be not quite accustomed to the cold weather in his hometown.
“The Chinese community in Madrid held a big march, and the banks over there froze the accounts of the Chinese.” Sitting in front of the fire, Uncle Fu said with a smile while flipping through his circle of friends.
Hundreds of Chinese waving Spanish and Chinese flags took to the streets of Madrid to protest against the freezing of their accounts by Spain’s second largest bank, BBVA, which they accused of racial discrimination. The Ursera branch mentioned in the media was also the bank where Uncle Fu often accessed his money, “Fortunately I came back a month early, if I had chosen to come back after the year, wouldn’t I have been unable to even withdraw my travel money ……”
This year, is 55-year-old Uncle Fu settled in Spain for the 15th year. He said that even after all these years, it is still not his hometown, and he always looks forward to the day when he returns to his hometown.
Subway entrance of Usera district in Madrid, Spain. Photo/Uncle FookThe entrance of Usera subway in Madrid, Spain. Photo/Uncle Fook
From Taiping Village to Barcelona
In 2004, after collecting his last electricity bill, Uncle Fu, a 40-year-old village electrician, made up his mind that he would go out to work no matter what. In his own words, Uncle Fu said, “I’ve had enough of the miserable day and night all year round.”
Before that, Uncle Fu was the only electrician in the village, and wires, poles and light bulbs for more than a decade, every day to appear in the village in full armor, wearing a helmet, waist with a safety lock and a variety of electric pens, hanging on the shoulder with a large steel shoes to climb the poles.
At that time, Uncle Fu’s speed of climbing poles was probably the fastest in the whole county. Once, the village electricians gathered together for a drink, after three rounds of wine, someone proposed a serious comparison to see who climbed the pole the fastest, as expected, Uncle Fu really is the first.
Uncle Fu worked as an electrician in Taiping Village for more than ten years, and it was also a period of frequent power outages in the whole village. In the summer night, the electricity stopped, the village became quiet all of a sudden, the heat brewed anger, people carried the matzah to the street to cool off, by the way, together with complaints about the electrician Uncle Fu.
But this can not blame Uncle Fu – the village circuit aging, the village of the southern head of the transformer performance is limited, but Uncle Fu can only withstand the abuse from time to time, hard work.
What makes Uncle Fu more anxious is his own safety. He had watched an electrician in the neighboring village was hit by high-voltage electricity, surgery to amputate both legs. Finally, the person was saved, and had to wear prostheses to open the kiosk. This is the plight of Uncle Fu in middle age: a person relying on a monthly salary of 300 yuan to support the family, but also to do a job that makes the whole family fearful.
300 yuan in the Taiping village at that time, only enough to buy two bags of fertilizer in the supply and marketing agency built in the 1970s in the south of the village; or less than half a year of school fees for the village elementary school – in the end, this can not support Uncle Fu’s family of four.
Most of them went to work in Qingdao, which is more than 200 kilometers away – it is the closest to them. In the construction sites and ship terminals, they are all the strong men of the village; while the 80s who dropped out of school early basically went to the manufacturing and service industry. Even if Qingdao is not far away, we go home only 3 times a year, once in the Spring Festival, once in the wheat harvest, once in the autumn harvest; money is not much, the end of the year to bring home but 10,000 pieces.
But Uncle Fu wanted to go to Europe: “At that time our village Xiaorong went to Korea, she is the first person in our village to work abroad ah, think about a girl single-handedly run abroad, I a big man why not go out to break through?”
More than a decade ago, people in the home county to work in Barcelona and Valencia, Spain sporadically, these years also heard of their news, Uncle Fu decided to take this as the goal: “when we went to work in Europe from the countryside, the first choice is to have acquaintances to stay in the country, even now is the same, good to land, good to find a job, earn more money, do a good job can get a green card. “
This simple desire to support the Uncle Fu sold houses and cars, borrowed money around, after spending hundreds of thousands of brokerage fees, finally in May 2004 in the name of travel abroad boarded a flight to Barcelona. And he went before and after, and elementary school classmate Lao Yang.
In Barcelona and Valencia
Like all the first-time workers in Spain, Uncle Fu, once he arrived in Barcelona, joined a Chinese restaurant owned by a native of Qingtian, Zhejiang Province, to wash dishes under the arrangement of a local contact. Lao Yang was in Valencia, doing the same job.
To this day, Uncle Fu still remembers those days vividly: every day, he started washing dishes at 11:30 a.m. and continued until 4:30 p.m.; he continued at 7:30 p.m. and continued until 1:00 a.m. The monthly salary was 400 euros.
“In Spain, we northerners should be grateful to the southerners, especially the Qingtian people, who came early. we came here, in fact, to work for the Qingtian people, and 90% of the workers who went over from China were provided with jobs by the Qingtian people.”
Uncle Fu feels that even a job like washing dishes is always easier than doing farm work at home. And there is an up and down shift for dishwashing, which is easy from Monday to Friday, only slightly busier on Saturday and Sunday, “almost like being a civil servant.” If you want, you can also take a day off each week.
Of course, in Uncle Fu’s opinion, working in a foreign country, making money is only a part of life, but gaining a legal identity and social recognition is the real sign of success for a worker. But for an ordinary worker from rural China, how easy is it to get an identity?
Spain’s policy at the time was that foreigners were first required to have 3 years of residence and a home as a criterion for registration, and after 3 years from the date of registration, they could apply for “social honor”, and then submit their documents to the Ministry of Labor for application. At the same time, you also need to find a boss to guarantee that you will not be unemployed and have an income after you get your residence permit.
For Uncle Fook, getting a green card had to be on his part-time schedule. Only at this time, Dafei, the daughter of the elder brother’s family, also came to Barcelona.
“When Dafei came to Barcelona, I was the one who picked her up. At that time, Dafei was only 18 years old, just recently graduated from high school. I thought she was still young and I should help her apply for a residence permit to get a green card first. As for me, even if I was found out and deported to my country, it would be worth it.”
In this way, helping my brother’s daughter to apply for a residence permit became Uncle Fu’s first goal when he first arrived in Spain.
At that time, the owner of the restaurant where Uncle Fu worked had a “boss residence” (Spanish work residence is divided into “working residence” and “boss residence”) and could apply for a working residence for his staff from the Spanish Embassy in China, and then get a green card, but the process was expensive.
“The price was 135,000 yuan, and I promised to give the boss 140,000 yuan. First give 60,000, the remaining 80,000 I and my niece Dafei stay in their store while washing dishes and saving money for him.”
So, for nearly three years, Uncle Fu and his niece worked night and day in that Chinese restaurant, washing dishes and saving money, waiting to get a green card. The niece’s monthly salary was 180 euros.
“The boss just gives you this amount of money, there is no way, you can only slowly boil. And even the residence permit down is not that simple, at first only 1 year, the second year and then switch to 2 years, after 2 years of work, insurance these are no longer a problem, and then renewed for 2 years, and after that switch to 5 years, and then only permanent.”
Later, Uncle Fu learned that a relative’s friend in Valencia to do clothing, immediately contacted him, want to follow him to learn to do clothing. At that time, this relative’s friend was already earning 2,400 euros a month, which really made Uncle Fook’s eyes water.
Uncle Fu couldn’t leave the Chinese restaurant, so he took one day off a week to go to Valencia to learn how to make clothes. In the early morning of each day, he had to take a few hours’ train to Valencia, where he worked in the garment factory until 3 a.m. the next day, and then took a few hours’ train back to Barcelona, and then continued to wash dishes in the Chinese restaurant.
“I went for a total of 15 weeks and he (relatives) didn’t give me a single penny. When I was most tired, my legs were drifting and I was huffing and puffing in the train.”
In June 2007, the third year after Uncle Fook arrived in Spain, and the third year he and his niece were scrubbing dishes together, his niece’s part-time residence finally came down, which meant that her niece finally didn’t have to stay in the dark kitchen scrubbing dishes anymore and had the freedom to choose her own job, and it also meant that Uncle Fook could feel free and bold to settle down in his own life.
People didn’t understand why he didn’t apply for a part-time residence for himself first. Uncle Fu’s explanation was simple – there was no difference between doing it for his niece and doing it for himself. “At any time kinship always comes first. Love and credit are more important than a residence permit”.
This somewhat outdated “kangaroo rule” also became the magic weapon for Uncle Fu to establish his roots in Spain later.
After his niece got a new job, Uncle Fook also immediately quit his job as a dishwasher and soon found a local garment factory where he made clothes, working 15 or 16 hours a day for three months, but the wages were still not high. Uncle Fu chose to leave once again and moved to Valencia to learn to be a chef in the restaurant where Lao Yang was working – by then, he had already worked as a dishwasher in Valencia to become a second chef and then a chef, earning more than 2,000 Euros per month – and he was able to earn more than 10 years. In the following 10 years, Uncle Fu and Yang, the first two people from Taiping Village to arrive in Spain, became the “typical people” often mentioned by the village people.
But Uncle Fu seems to be born not to be a chef material, “the boss asked me to cook a dish, I do not know how to ah, in the old home instant noodles can not even cook”.
Uncle Fu could only leave once again. “At that time, I only had 20 euros left in my pocket, and I was walking on the street in Valencia, thinking about my future, thinking about my life, while thinking, tears were flowing.
Uncle Fu, who thought he would get a new life in his new job, was a bit depressed: his elementary school classmate was already a chef earning 2,000 euros a month, and he would then be able to successfully obtain Spanish residency through his application. This has been Uncle Fu’s goal all along – but such a good opportunity, but Lao Yang did not think so, he wanted to earn enough money to return home, “to do a residence permit so expensive, the meaning is not very big”.
At the most difficult moment in his life, Uncle Fu once relied on his electrician’s trade to help him.
Several people from his home county had come to Spain to work, and when Uncle Fu learned that a relative was going to repair a refrigerator in Barcelona, he left Valencia again to join his relative, and they hit it off immediately. When the job became available, Uncle Fu wanted to register his residence permit, but when he delivered the documents in Barcelona, the lawyer told him that he had to wait.
When Uncle Fu asked around and learned that Madrid was a good place to do it, he was tempted to leave again.
Unlike Lao Yang, Uncle Fu had his heart set on a legal and recognized residence permit, “just to give an account of himself.
From Barcelona to Madrid
On March 25, 2008, Uncle Fu, who had been in Spain for nearly four years and had changed four jobs, set out again with hope to travel from Barcelona to Madrid. He arrived in Madrid with repair tools, large and small, and landed in a restaurant where he worked in the same village, and the rain poured down that day, “just like the sprinklers in our village fields, pouring water from the sky.
Uncle Fu sat in the restaurant and looked out the window, full of anxiety. A relative who had started a business with him on the phone called him from Barcelona: “Don’t let you go, you have to go, you have to go!”
Uncle Fu’s anxiety was not unreasonable. This is also his first day of business, he did not receive a job, a refrigerator did not repair. This work in the end will not work? He once wanted to repair the refrigerator air conditioning tools all thrown in the trash, and then back to the restaurant to wash dishes. “Washing dishes for 3 years, are washing out of feelings, and then do other, once not smooth, always think about going back to the restaurant to wash dishes”.
After learning that he had just a little bit of work to toss and turn, Aunt Fu also began to complain about him. In the past four years, Uncle Fu only remitted 100 euros to his family every year, which is more than 1,000 yuan. In addition to assisting his niece to get a residence permit, nothing else was gained; while Shu, an old neighbor who went to work in Spain later than Uncle Fu, was able to remit 1500 Euros to his family every month, which is nearly 20,000 RMB; Lao Yang was also able to remit 2000 Euros to his family every month.
In 2008, the monthly income of 20,000 RMB for a Chinese rural family, its significance speaks for itself. Aunt Fu just couldn’t look at it anymore.
When the rainy season passed, Uncle Fu continued to advertise around with a stiff upper lip. What happened afterwards was beyond Uncle Fu’s expectation, as more and more people came to him to repair air conditioners and refrigerators – in Madrid, the repair of home appliances in the Chinese community was originally handled by a repairman from Taiwan, who died in an accident during that time, and this “position “It was only after a long time that Uncle Fook learned of this.
At that time, Uncle Fu gave customers the assurance that if they did not believe in his workmanship, he could come back after 2 months to get the repair fee; if any problems arise within 3 months, they can call him directly and return for free. Uncle Fu was like a tractor with full power, shuttling through the streets of the Chinese community in Madrid with his equipment. After that, he never stopped for a whole year. This seemed to be the reward for his four years of hardship in Spain, business was so good that he was busy until New Year’s Eve 2009.
“On New Year’s Eve, I came back at 12 o’clock at night, and Shu prepared all the New Year’s goods.” Uncle Fu said with a smile, “I just felt at that time, I was the time to come.”
August 4, 2008 was a day that Uncle Fu would never forget – his residence permit was finally issued, and he and his local friends had a great meal at a Chinese restaurant – “Without a residence permit, you don’t feel safe, and when people bully you, you don’t dare to say anything. You are afraid to say anything, many people will bawl the moment they get the residence permit, we work in Spain, suffered too much aggression.”
This year, Uncle Fu saved more than 10,000 euros, on the fourth day of the first month of 2009, after working in Spain for nearly five years, Uncle Fu and Yang decided to go back home to Taiping Village, to see his wife and children.
In 2009 in Taiping Village, going abroad has long been the trend: Xiaorong, the “first person to go abroad”, has given birth to her second child in Korea; Xiaoyan has married a promising young man in Korea; Ha’s cousin’s wife has just embarked on a working trip to Japan, which also laid the groundwork for the subsequent marriage crisis with Ha’s cousin; Daquan, an old neighbor, has waited for 7 years and finally got the opportunity to work in Oxford, England …… There are more people who are preparing for working abroad.
Uncle Fu stayed in the village for but half a month, and then hurriedly returned to Spain to continue his business.
But Lao Yang is not leaving. No one knows why he did not go to Spain to continue his career as a chef, probably he felt that he had earned enough and wanted to live in peace with his family.
Shandong people in the Ucera district
Uncle Fu, who flew back to Spain alone, took another four years to finally establish his footing.
Uncle Fu’s district, Ursera, is the largest Chinese settlement in Spain, with more than 30,000 Chinese people living here. There are nearly 20 Chinese supermarkets, more than 50 Chinese restaurants, Chinese schools, and Chinese law firms. But Uncle Fu is no longer content to stay here.
The owner of a Chinese owned bar in the Ursera district of Madrid, the capital of Spain, is also one of Uncle Fook’s clients. Uncle Fook has more than 2000 such clients in and around Madrid. Photo/Uncle FookA Chinese-owned bar in the Ursera district of Madrid, the capital of Spain, where the bar owner is also one of Uncle Fook’s clients. Uncle Fook has more than 2,000 such clients in and around Madrid. Photo/Uncle Fook
In 2010, Uncle Fook bought his first pickup truck in Spain, which cost 15,000 euros. With the pickup truck, he expanded his business to the Chinese community 200 km away. After that, most of the foreign workers who arrived in Madrid from Shandong were driven by Uncle Fu from Madrid airport to the Ursera district with his pickup truck. If they came from their home counties, Uncle Fu would even take them to his home, where they would live and eat in his house until he helped them find a job.
“From 2009 to now, no less than 200 people.” In a foreign country, the warmth of the group may also be a remedy against loneliness and longing.
In 2013, Uncle Fu returned from Madrid to his home in Taiping Village, Shandong Province. This is the second time he came home after leaving Taiping Village for nearly 10 years. He already has his own business circle in Madrid and decided to bring his wife and children to Spain.
At first, Aunt Fu refused to go to Madrid. For a 48-year-old rural woman who had never been to the city, the discomfort of suddenly moving to an unfamiliar country in the second half of her life was palpable.
In the winter of 2013, I was still studying in Beijing, and I drove Uncle Fu’s family to the Beijing International Airport with my hometown buddy and sister-in-law, Ho, who also run a restaurant in Beijing. On the way to the airport, Uncle Fu’s 14-year-old son, Xiao Fei, was excited all the time. He was very happy to hear that the Chinese school in Madrid would not assign so much homework. Aunt Fu looked worried and did not have the excitement of the Forbidden City and Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. Uncle Fu joked on the side: “Don’t make it look like a life and death, as if our village who died at a funeral.”
When Uncle Fu’s family arrived in Madrid a week later, I opened a video and Uncle Fu’s family chat, I saw Aunt Fu’s face cheerful and I chatted about what I saw when I first arrived in Madrid, no longer a week before the decadence and frustration. “You come to Madrid too, there are Chinese people everywhere!” It was obvious that Aunt Fu, who had just arrived in Madrid for just one week, had quickly adapted to life there. Today, Auntie Fu’s main job is to cook for the family, walk in the park after dinner and dance with many old Chinese women.
In the spring and fall of 2014, Uncle Fu’s daughter and son-in-law arrived in Madrid, followed by nephew Xie and niece-in-law Xiao Feng. A year after her arrival in Madrid, her daughter and son-in-law gave birth to a big, fat baby boy, and Uncle Fu, who had just celebrated his 50th birthday, was thrilled to hold his grandson in distant Spain.
Later, Uncle Fu told me that he had never thought that he could bring his wife and children to Spain, originally thought that it was good enough to work abroad to earn more money, and now he could reunite with his family in Spain, which was totally unexpected.
People rushing to work in the Ursera district of Madrid, Spain. Photo/Uncle FookThe people who rush to work in the Ursera district of Madrid, Spain. Photo/Uncle Fook
The news that Uncle Fu had brought his wife and children to Spain to make a home blew up in the village once again. Lao Yang, who had been back in Taiping Village from Spain for four years, became anxious again – the year in which his wife chose to go to Korea to work and his daughter got married, leaving Lao Yang and his son to stay at home. Yang’s son is already at the age of marriage, and in Taiping Village, it is a huge expense for a rural youth to get married and buy a house. People say that it is not because they want to buy a house to marry their daughter-in-law, and Lao Yang’s daughter-in-law is afraid that she will not go to Korea.
In 2017, Lao Yang’s daughter-in-law came back from South Korea, and they raised the whole family to finally buy a commercial house in the county for their son, who was causing trouble, as a future wedding house, with a monthly payment of more than 3,000 yuan. Because of the matter of buying a house, Yang and his daughter-in-law had a dispute: Yang insisted on buying a piece of land in the village for his son to build a house with a courtyard; his daughter-in-law thought it was necessary to buy a building in the county to do so.
This year, Uncle Fu also bought his own house in Madrid – a large house of 188 square meters with a yard, the total price of 180,000 euros – this is a dream come true for a Chinese rural man working abroad. After the house was renovated, Uncle Fu’s family of eight moved in: Uncle Fu, Aunt Fu, son, daughter and son-in-law, grandson, nephew Xiao Xie and niece-in-law Xiao Feng. Every New Year’s Day dumpling wrapping, the number of people gathered would reach nearly 20.
From Madrid back to Taiping Village
Back in the second half of 2018, Uncle Fu’s 89-year-old father told everyone that his son and daughter-in-law and grandson were coming home from Spain for the New Year.
In January 2019, Uncle Fu came back. Having further expanded his appliance repair business in the two years just past, together with his son Fei, Uncle Fu decided to take advantage of his return to send his son to a technical school in Jinan for further training in order to cope with the various refrigerator repair problems he encountered in Madrid.
Uncle Fu purchased parts for repairing refrigeration equipment. Photo/Author Uncle Fu’s purchase of parts for repairing refrigeration equipment. Photo/Author
In addition, Uncle Fu also wants to buy two sets of buildings in his home county – nowadays, the price of housing in the small county has soared to 7,000 yuan per square meter, which is already a sky-high price in the small county, but for Uncle Fu, who earns nearly one million RMB per year in Spain, it is not a particularly difficult thing.
He plans to save 10 million RMB for himself and his son in Madrid in 10 years, then he and Auntie Fu will go back home to take care of themselves; two houses, one for him and one for his son – to buy a house in the county, which is by and large the ultimate goal of the village people.
Unlike Uncle Fu who returned to his hometown with his clothes on, Lao Yang’s son could not even pay the basic mortgage at that time, and in August 2018, 56-year-old Lao Yang was only forced to travel to Madrid once again. Everyone said that he was nagged and complained by his son and daughter-in-law, and had no choice but to go down this road.
After arriving in Madrid, Yang lived with his cousin Jie’s family, another working man from Taiping Village, and still worked as a chef in a restaurant. However, just a month after arriving in Madrid, Lao Yang became extraordinarily quiet, and then went from being quiet to talking to himself.
Cousin Jay later told me that during that time, Lao Yang would often say something demoralizing, and no one knew why. Until November 2, 2018, Cousin Jie suddenly received a call from Lao Yang: “I’m leaving, I’m not working part-time, I’m not fighting, you’ll know later.”
That afternoon, someone found the body of an Asian man in a park near the Ursera district: a fruit knife in his right hand and a deep and long cut on his left wrist. Less than a few hundred meters from the park was a hospital. When the person arrived at the hospital, there were no vital signs long ago.
One night later, Cousin Jie received a call from the police, the police told Cousin Jie, they found a cell phone from the body, in the phone directory of common contacts found Cousin Jie’s phone – the deceased is the old Yang.
Cousin Jie was terrified and called Uncle Fu first, crying while telling him the news that Lao Yang was dead. Uncle Fu was the first to arrive at Cousin Jie’s house, loudly scolding Cousin Jie not to cry. The two men were thus confronted with the death of their old neighbor and classmate.
Cousin Jay said that Lao Yang often received international calls from his daughter-in-law before, when he had expressed a strong, want to go home, but each time, Lao Yang’s daughter-in-law would cry to him, his son’s monthly mortgage of several thousand dollars how to do? And Lao Yang’s son also called him every month to ask for money. Old Yang from Taiping Village home to Spain for the agency fee to go abroad or find others to borrow money to solve the …… in the end which is the straw that crushed the old Yang on the verge of collapse, we have no way to know.
The two brothers of Lao Yang scraped together enough money to travel to Spain, so that Lao Yang’s brother and son went to Spain and brought back the dead Lao Yang. After spending tens of thousands of euros, Lao Yang was burned to the ground in a foreign country and embarked on a journey home.
On February 1, 2019, the tenth day after Uncle Fu returned to Taiping Village, Lao Yang also came back. The son of Lao Yang held the urn and fell on his knees in the snow-filled Taiping Village. On the day of the funeral, I saw the long-lost daughter-in-law of Lao Yang, the original fat middle-aged woman who had long since lost weight.
Three days later, the 2019 Lunar New Year came.
On March 15, 2019, Uncle Fu’s family, who had been back home in Taiping Village for two whole months, once again embarked on a journey to Spain. Before leaving Taiping Village, Uncle Fu visited several properties in the county and entrusted his relatives to pay attention to them and tell him as soon as there are good properties. Uncle Fu said that when he comes back in two years, he must live in a new house in the county.
Today, Uncle Fu’s daughter and son-in-law both work in a barber store, and the majority of customers are Chinese; nephew Xiao Xie and niece-in-law Xiao Feng work in a nail salon, and Xiao Feng said that Spanish customers give higher tips; niece Dafei and her husband have opened a small supermarket. There are also more than a dozen people from the same village, such as Yong’s brother and sister-in-law, who are also located in the Ursera district and other areas of Madrid, and all of this is inseparable from Uncle Fu’s support over the years.
In June 2019, Uncle Fu sent me another WeChat to tell me that if everything goes well, Brother and Sister Howe’s residence permit will be issued soon, and after more than 4 years, they will finally be able to return to Taiping Village for the New Year at the end of the year. I remembered that in 2013, we sent Uncle Fu’s family on the plane together, and on the way back, Brother Howe told me with a serious face that he would definitely take his whole family to Spain too.
(The names of Taiping Village, Uncle Fu, Lao Yang and others in the article are pseudonyms)
A local Chinese art group holds a grand parade to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Madrid, the capital of Spain, in the 2019 Chinese New Year. Photo/Hao 2019 Chinese New Year, the capital of Spain, Madrid, where a local Chinese art group held a grand parade to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Photo/Hao
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