1
In mid-December 2016, my sister’s friend Xu Rong called me to ask me to help out at her down jacket customization store. During that time, the store had a backlog of more than 100 orders, and people came to the door every day to rush the work.
Xu Rong rented two storefronts, one on Nonglin Road, a small tin shed. Although the shed is small, but the flow of people, Xu Rong every day in the tin shed to receive orders. The other storefront in the pedestrian street, workers in it to make clothes. The facade is very deep, from the glass door to the back wall of at least 15 meters.
In addition to me, there are four workers in the store. Behind the glass door, a large wooden board was supported against the wall, which was the workbench of Ge Jilin, a tailor. He was 26 years old, round-faced, fat, with a big ass, a native of Guangshan County; further in against the wall were three electric sewing machines, the first of which sat Xiuying, 34 years old, of medium height, with a doe-eyed face and a blowing mouth, a native of Pingqiao District; the second sat Fubing, 36 years old, a native of Miao in Guizhou, thin and small, with some black teeth; and I sat on the third sewing machine.
The half-room behind me is where Auntie Hu works, where she cooks, washes dishes, sweeps the floor, dismantles old down jackets, and nails buttons …… that we don’t do, all of which she does. The back wall also opened a small door, which has a small room of 6 square feet was divided into two, half is Hu Da Ma’s dormitory, half is the kitchen.
The feather store (author’s photo) feather store (author’s photo)
Ge Jilin is a talker, I just came ass not yet warm, he shouted at me: “This brother, how a word does not say?”
Although Xinyang is small, each county has its own dialect. Ge Jilin’s accent is also very awkward to hear, do not listen carefully, you can not understand what he is saying. I was busy with the task at hand and ignored him, he called out to Xiuying and Fubing, no one paid attention to him, he shouted at the back of Hu Da Ma: “Aunt – we carry (joking, bragging) a ha’er?”
Aunt Hu laughed: “I’m a wife, what’s there to carry with you, a young man?”
Seeing Ge Jilin joking with them, I thought they had been working together for several months, but I did not expect Ge Jilin to come only ten days earlier than me.
The tailor who left before Ge Jilin was called Hai Mao (sound), very interesting, he asked the boss Xu Rong to buy buckets of water for everyone to drink, Xu Rong did not buy, so he paid for it himself. After the purchase, he will drink water every day will pick up the cup of tea, held up to the store in front of the camera to shake a few, and then proudly tilt his neck to drink it.
They talk about the camera, I just found a camera installed in front of the store behind the store – Xu Rong although not in this store, but everything that happens in the store she can see clearly. No one can be lazy and steal a mouthful of needles.
Hai Mao cut carefully, down jacket made to fit. But the work is slow, not for the workers to do, Xu Rong has long looked at him with water deceitful displeasure, and then they had a big fight, Xu Rong to pay him off, let him go away. He had just left, Ge Jilin came.
2
The next morning, I went to work to the front of the store, the wind blew over a strange sickening smell.
Next door to sell shoes to play in our store, also said there is a bad smell, so bad. Ge Jilin laughed in embarrassment and said it was his socks. He came so many days, socks and shoes have never been washed. At this moment, his socks are on the advertising box outside the door.
We advised him to go next door to buy a pair of cotton shoes to wear, and then wash his socks and shoes. The older sister next door also said, “I don’t earn your money, take a pair as it is. My God, your feet stink too much!”
Ge Jilin had to follow the sister next door to her store to get a pair of the cheapest cotton shoes, 20 yuan. After washing his feet and putting on the new cotton shoes, he exclaimed that he was comfortable.
Xiuying teased him: “Your feet are so smelly, your daughter-in-law and you sleep in the same bed do not mind na?”
“Smug what son, she loves still love over it!” Ge Jilin is not angry, smiling in response.
“Little Ge mouth will say, girls like this.” Fu Ping said.
“That is! You do not know how much my daughter-in-law loves (how much she loves) to listen to me talk. Now they say it costs a lot of money to marry a daughter-in-law, but I didn’t spend any money to marry my daughter-in-law!”
“You are so good at coaxing, teach Hu Da Ma’s son tomorrow.” The company’s first son is 31 years old.
The first son is 31 years old, and the youngest son is 28 years old, both still bachelor. The first one is a little bit of a big deal. The company is always wearing a set of old fashioned suit, cuffs collar are worn hair. The most you can do is to add a smock outside.
The woman who was sitting at the back of the buttoned-up Hu heard Xiuying’s words and said lazily, “All right, Ji Lin? Tomorrow, go and teach my son. My son, my son, rarely speaks a word a day.”
One day at noon, Ge Jilin was joking when his cell phone rang. He picked it up and looked at it, pulled open the glass door and walked out, only to return more than 10 minutes later. When he came back, his face was no longer smiling, and he didn’t talk, but turned on the speaker and listened to Kim Nam-ling’s “Against the Current” repeatedly.
Until the evening, Xiuying noticed Ge Jilin’s abnormal: “Hey! Why didn’t Ge Jilin say anything this afternoon?”
Ge Jilin twisted his face, sniffled a bit, coughed again, and said, “My daughter-in-law said that her mother told her to divorce me, saying that there is no hope for people like me.”
Two years ago, Ge Jilin went to the northeast to open a down jacket custom store, lost more than 100,000. A few days ago, three people went to his home to ask for money, his daughter-in-law was angry, holding his 1-year-old son back to his mother’s house.
I gave him the idea: “Why don’t you rent a house here and bring your daughter-in-law over. Your daughter-in-law is just in her early 20s, nothing, listen to her mother all day long, time will really change their minds. I have a room for rent next to me, 300 yuan a month.”
We think this is a good idea, but Ge Jilin and can not afford to give up 300 yuan of rent.
3
Most of the customers of our store are middle-aged and elderly. Young people love beauty, but also willing to spend money, every year to eliminate one or two pieces of old down jacket, elders feel sorry to throw away, will get our store to refurbish.
They bring the old clothes, choose a style, talk about the price, and pay a deposit of 50 to 100 yuan. After the tailor measures the size, he writes a receipt and tears it to them. When the time comes to do so, the store will call them to come over to “look at the down”: one of the customers feel that their old down jacket in the down is very good, afraid that the businessman will change. The second is that the store’s real profit is in this link.
The store in order to retain customers, generally start talking about the price is not high, 200 yuan can do a medium-length models. When the old down jacket is dismantled, there is inevitably loss, and then make a new one is certainly not enough, so “look at the down” time, Hu Da Ma will remove the good down on the electronic scale: “Look, not enough to do a piece of, have to add down, at least 2 two.”
“Then let’s add 2 taels.”
“According to me, since you have taken the trouble to do it, it’s not bad for 10 or 20 dollars. You should add 2.5 taels, make it thick and warm.”
“Okay, then add 2.5 taels.”
“There are two kinds of velvet, the best, 60 yuan a tael, and shredded wool, 30 yuan a tael. Which one would you like to add?”
“So expensive, then add shredded lint.”
“The fluffiness of shredded silk is not good. 2.5 taels of the best velvet is enough, but 3.5 taels of shredded silk is needed to fluff it up. And shredded silk is not as warm as good fleece, I suggest you add good.”
The customer was silent, calculating in his heart, and sighed: “Then add the best.”
This addition, and more than 100 yuan. Good velvet into the price of 17, 8 yuan a tael, and shredded wool as long as a few dollars a tael.
One day at noon came a Guangshan woman. Her cotton pants were cut, and Auntie Hu called her to come and “see the lint”.
Almost every family in Guangshan makes down jackets, and she was no exception. The woman brought two more old down jackets with her and couldn’t use up all the down she had removed. The woman was unable to get her to add down, and was so angry that she pouted.
The woman’s cotton pants are the responsibility of the pay apple to do. Usually, after “looking at the down”, it takes two days to get the clothes, but this woman insisted that Fu Ping do it right away: “I’m in a hurry to wear them, why don’t you do mine first?”
“No, everyone is waiting for it.”
The woman went to Xiuying, who refused, and then came to me, and I didn’t agree. She carried the bag with the down and walked out, and when she got to the door she turned back and said in an aggressive manner, “I’ll go to your boss and see if you do it!”
Just as she left, Ge Jilin said, “You can see it, right? She is not waiting to wear cotton pants, but afraid that we steal to replace her down. She went to Xu Rong, down are with her. The bad down she took out, who cares!”
A while, Xu Rong called, said the woman is her hometown, let us help do it. But no one wanted to, Xu Rong had to work overtime by himself.
In fact, the reason why Xu Rong this store in this place is open for 8 years, is because theft of down such a thing, has not really done.
4
One afternoon, Fu Ping suddenly said to Xiuying: “Xiuying Xiuying, your husband is here.”
Xiuying listened without even turning her head, only to say indifferently: “What’s so rare about him coming.”
I looked up outside the store, a uniformed courier carrying a tube of fabric pushed open the glass door and came in. He leaned the fabric against the wall and walked out without saying a word. He was Suyoung’s husband.
After he left, Xiuying complained to Fubing about her husband’s laziness, not doing anything after work every day.
“You earn more than 4,000 yuan a month, I can also earn more than 3,000 yuan a month, what’s so great about you? You tell me, I come home from work at 10 o’clock, and I have to breastfeed my daughter at night, which night also can not sleep a full night. He treats me as a robot every day, when I say him, he says ‘marry wife, marry wife, cook and laundry’. Fuck, he forgot that there is an expression called ‘married man married man, clothes and food’! You have to be able to support me, do not let me go to work, I serve you well every day!”
“Sometimes, I really want to divorce him and live alone, I can also support myself. What do you think of these men, they don’t know how to care for women at all. When I gave birth, I had two cesarean sections, the doctor used scissors to ream my belly, how much pain he suffered, he never thought about it.”
“Isn’t your mother-in-law here? She does not help you do some housework ah?” Ping Fu asked.
“Just let her take the two children, she wants to run. Day in and day out, ‘I’m going back home tomorrow, I must go back home tomorrow!'”
Ge Jilin interjected with a smile, “She misses the old man at home, right?”
“I also want to have a mother-in-law who can help me with the children, and I won’t have to worry so much about my son. When I first came to Xinyang, my in-laws were still alive and I treated them well, I washed all the clothes and cooked all the meals. But within a few years, they passed away.” Fu Ping said. Her husband, Song, got divorced at the age of 36 and went to work in Shenzhen when he met Fu Ping, who was then in his early 20s.
Xiuying asked, “When you first came here, your mother-in-law was happy to see her son bring home such a young daughter-in-law, right?”
“That’s for sure. But my husband’s relatives don’t think I’ll stay long, saying I’ll run away sooner or later, and the result is that I’ve been here for more than ten years. When I came to Xinyang, I was pregnant with my son and thought it was not bad here, but when I came to take a look, my heart was cold. His family only has three old tiled houses, cooking or burning wood, the kitchen is smoky and dark.”
Ge Jilin took the fabric, turned his head and asked, “Sister Fubing, has your husband ever beaten you?”
Fubing grunted, “It’s good that I don’t hit him, but he still hits me.”
Xiuying said, “He wouldn’t dare to hit you, Sister Fubing, they haven’t gotten a marriage license yet. If he dares to hit, Sister Fu Ping will immediately run away.”
“What! Your son is 12 years old, and you still haven’t gotten a marriage license?” Ge Jilin turned his head and opened his mouth in shock.
Fubing was calm: “No. My family never agreed. My family has never agreed. My mother hid the account book and didn’t want me to get a marriage license, afraid that if I don’t have a good time here, I won’t be able to go back when I want to.”
“Before, I went to work with my cousin in Shenzhen, when I left, my mother told my cousin that your cousin is silly, do not let her fall in love, especially not with a man from outside! As a result, I still talked about a foreign, my cousin opposed it so much, he also beat me, forcibly brought me back to Guizhou. At that time I still hate him. But a few years ago, when I came home and saw my cousin again, I said to him, ‘Cousin, why didn’t you beat me harder back then?
Xiuying asked Fubing, “Did your parents ever come to Xinyang?”
“No, I didn’t dare to let them come, for fear they would be sad to see me in my present condition. When I went home last year, I gave my mother 1,000 yuan, but she said she didn’t want anything, but gave it back to me. She said ‘as long as you get by on your own’.”
“I wanted to go to Beijing to work in a garment factory, find a place to live, and take my dad over to visit. My dad really wanted to visit Beijing, but never had the chance. My mom said, ‘Don’t tell your dad like that, once you do, he’ll take it seriously and always look forward to ……'”
5
The first time I saw her, I had to get up at 7 o’clock in the morning to take her son home. At 7 o’clock in the morning, she has to get up again, take her son to breakfast and send him to school.
Every night at 8 o’clock, Fu Ping had to call her son. Before that, Fu Ping and Xu Rong agreed to pay 5,000 yuan per month and put out 6 pieces of down jacket every day. In order to catch up on work, she was so busy on weekdays that she didn’t have a few minutes to make a phone call. After dialing the phone to her son, she tilted her body and put the phone between her shoulder and her head, and her hands kept working.
She asked her son what he ate at night, if he had written his homework, if he had finished, he should go to bed early, don’t always watch TV, and be safe …… “Oh what oh? You can’t talk!”
“You sleep with your mother at night, right?”
“No. …… Then don’t plug the door to your room, I want to see if you’re covered when I get back from work ……”
On the day of New Year’s Day, school was out, and my son came to see Fu Ping at noon. Usually open meal if he is here, Hu Da Ma will call him also eat some. But pay apple afraid Xu Rong from the camera to see, always give him money to eat outside. But this day, Fu Ping made an exception for her son to eat a meal, but Hu Da Ma looked a little unhappy.
A while later, Xiuying came back from outside and said to Fubing, “Just went to the toilet, the old man always makes me fee.”
Our store does not have a toilet, can only go to a nearby compound. That toilet charges 20 yuan a month, everyone in the store can go, and now it has been due for 3 days.
Ge Jilin said with a smile: “How he did not dare to ask me for it? Is it because you guys go there too much?”
The next morning at 8:00 am, I just arrived at the store, suddenly heard a shout from behind the door under the board: “Yah! I overslept!” Then I saw Ge Jilin peel back the curtain around the board, got out from underneath, rubbed his eyes, and ran to the toilet.
Not long after, he ran back: “The old man who was watching the door wouldn’t let me go to the toilet, so I almost peed my pants. I told him I’d come back for the money after going to the toilet, but he wouldn’t do it.”
Xiuying laughed at him: “Yesterday, he said he wouldn’t ask you for money, right?”
Ge Jilin took 20 yuan from the shoe box on the cutting board, laughed and ran towards the toilet again.
At night, when the tin shack on the agricultural forestry road was closed, Xu Rong would occasionally come over to see this side. Ge Jilin took the money in the shoe box to her and said, “It’s time to pay the toilet fee this month, the old man always wants it, I have no choice, I took the initiative to pay 20 yuan.”
Xu Rong took the money and counted it, and looked at Ge Jilin’s account book and said, “Jilin Yeah, why didn’t you tell the old man that he paid 5 yuan less. We have less than a month to work, I plan to leave on the 24th, so pay 15 yuan a few good ah!”
Ge Jilin young, open-mouthed, “to say you go to say, I can not afford to lose that person!”
Xu Rong made a fool of herself and had to walk away sarcastically. Although she was angry, but also can not change a cutter, if another change, and then next year to hire someone, there will be no one to work with her.
Xu Rong but just 40 years old, the surface looks quite young, dyed yellow hair, but a closer look, a layer of white hair against the scalp. She has to worry about the business of the store every day, but also with two children. One night, she came to the store, sighing. Her son had pushed a classmate at school and the classmate had hurt his arm. Xu Rong was so anxious that she kept saying, “What should I do? What should I do?” Finally, we persuaded her to buy something and go to the hospital to visit the child who had fallen.
When Xu Rong left, I asked them, “How come I never saw Xu Rong’s husband?”
They said that Xu Rong’s husband was working in Shanghai and only came back during the New Year. He had found a mistress outside, and Xu Rong didn’t care, as long as he paid 40,000 yuan in alimony every year. Xu Rong himself also found a, the two do not interfere with each other.
6
After a few days, the weather is getting colder, the northeastern wind is blowing, and days of light rain has turned into rain and snow.
More than 1 p.m., an old lady who looked more than 70 years old carefully pushed open the glass door and poked her head in. Her hair was all white and her face was crumpled. She propped herself up against the door and asked Ge Jilin: “Little master, have my clothes been made yet?”
“Close the door! It’s cold – what’s your name?”
The old lady gave her name and slowly walked in, closing the door behind her and tossing her wet hair behind her ears. Ge Jilin took the ticket book over and looked through it, saying, “It hasn’t been cut yet, you can come back in a week.”
“Ah! I’ve been ordering for more than a week, it’s time for me!” The old lady’s face frowned more tightly.
“There are a lot of people, others have been ordering for longer, don’t believe me, ask them.” Ge Jilin pointed inside the store, there are two customers waiting to pick up clothes. One of the older sisters said, “Auntie, I’ve been ordering for half a month, and it’s just come to me today.”
The old lady sighed heavily: “If I had known, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s snowing, and my old man is still wearing a single coat.”
Everyone was silent, and only the humming of the sewing machine remained.
The old lady stood frozen for a long time and then said to Ge Jilin, “Little master, why don’t you ream out my clothes first? My family is the countryside, it is not easy to come to a trip, it takes more than an hour by car, 5:00 to go back to pick up the grandson after school ……”
Ge Jilin said impatiently: “I said no, no, everyone’s home has something!”
After a while, the glass door was pushed open, a middle-aged woman stuck her head in and said to the oldest mother, “Cousin, you came to get a clothes why so slow, I waited for you for a long time.”
“Ugh! I haven’t cut it for me yet. I asked the little master to cut it for me first, but he just wouldn’t do it.”
The middle-aged woman pushed the door in and said, “Do you know how difficult it is for my cousin? Just help her to cut it first. My cousin drank medicine and died, and his daughter-in-law ran away, leaving behind two sons. Now they are more than 60 years old, and still have to earn money to support two young grandchildren. Others as old as they are, have long retired to enjoy the blessings. Tell me, what kind of sins are they making?”
After hearing this, Ge Jilin pushed aside the clothes he was cutting: “Oh, why didn’t you tell me earlier, I’ll cut them for you now.”
The old lady didn’t think it would work, so she kept talking: “My old man is 1 year older than me, he is 64 years old this year, and he is still working on the construction site. Every night he goes back and screams at me that his back hurts and he can hardly stand up …… He saves all the money he earns for fear that one day he won’t be able to work anymore and his two grandchildren won’t have money for school …… I want to make him a jacket, but he won’t let me do it, I still do this jacket secretly, and when it’s done, I bring it to him. I want to make a jacket for him, but he won’t let me.
In a short time, Ge Jilin finished cutting the clothes and asked us, “Who will make this dress?”
The three of us sewers discussed and divided the material into three parts: I made the hat and lining, Fuping opened the pockets for the lapels, and Xiuying made the sleeves and collar.
The old down jacket that the old lady brought was the kind that no one would pick up in the garbage, and there was no way to remove any down. But this time Hu Da Ma did not call her to add down. I felt the piece of clothing, The load is not thin.
We worked together and finally got the clothes out at 3:00, which was the fastest we’ve ever done. We didn’t ask for money for the work, the old lady only gave the rest of the money for the clothes to Ge Jilin. Ge Jilin went under the cutting board of his dormitory and found an old jacket of his own, put it in a bag and handed it to the old lady.
She left when it was less than 3:30, and should be able to get back at 5:00.
7
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. Once I also stayed behind.
After 9:00, Fu Ping answered a phone call. After hanging up, she said happily, “It’s my son, it’s my son calling! He said the socket at home was broken and leaking electricity, and asked me to be more careful when I went back to boil water at night. My son has grown up and knows how to care for his mother ……”
She laughed happily and tears flowed unconsciously. She wiped a hand with her sleeve, and suddenly remembered something, shivered and picked up the phone, while dialing the number, said: “Look at me, I was so happy, I did not tell my son to be careful.”
“Hello? Son, you do not touch the socket …… mom know, you do not care about mom, go to sleep ……”
I worked overtime until 12 o’clock and it was a little hard to get through. At the end of the day, I offered to send Ping Fu home.
On the way back, there is a section without street lights, very dark. The lights of the old electric car were not much brighter than candles. It was much better when we got to Nonglin Road. The light of the street lamp came out from the canopy of the balsam fir trees, casting a patch of dull and dappled shadows on the concrete road.
I asked Fubing, “Why don’t you see Lao Song?”
“He went to Beijing to work.”
“Beijing has high wages, so you have to bring a lot of money back for the New Year.”
“Where is the money? He took the train to Beijing just the night before you came. He didn’t want to go, but I urged him to go. All he does at home is to study lottery tickets and buy lottery tickets, and he has spent all his money, but I haven’t seen him win anything. He is getting older every year, and in a few years, no one will want him to work anywhere. If you don’t go out and save some money while you can, what will you do when your son grows up ……”
The thermal power plant has a special railroad line for transporting coal, next to a black hole shantytown, where Fu Ping is rented.
I walked home on my own after sending Fu Ping, thoughts: Ge Jilin was blocked every day by the debt, the daughter-in-law to run; Hu Da Ma every day to save money, gouge money to two sons to marry; Xiuying and her husband long-term cold war; Xu Rong is the boss, but also did not earn a few money, and her husband is no feelings to speak of; Fu Ping it, for love insisted on marrying the old Song, in the end, and what got it; I myself needless to say, mixed with the failure of the top, poor and old bachelor.
However, compared with the old lady, our troubles are nothing.
After a few more days of work, not much work, we have a few days to go on vacation. Old Song stayed in Beijing for ten days, did not find work, and ran back. Not only did not earn money, but also hitched in a few hundred bus fare.
8
In 2017, pay apples followed my sister to work in a garment factory in Beijing, a monthly salary of about 8000, much higher than in Xinyang.
In November of this year, my nephew’s lip was rotten, and my sister rushed back from Beijing to see him. In the evening, she picked up Xiao Song, the son of Fu Ping, to have dinner with her. Xiao Song and his nephew played on the computer together until 10:00 p.m. When my sister sent him home, he didn’t really want to go back.
When I sent Xiao Song back to Fu Ping’s house, he didn’t answer the door. Little Song kept tapping on the door: “Dad, I’m home, you open the door na. Dad, I know you are inside, open the door, are you drinking again?”
My sister said, “Is your father not at home, why don’t you come back with me?”
“My dad is home, I can hear him snoring.”
We listened carefully to the faint sound of snoring coming out of our ears.
At this point, Xiao Song suddenly remembered that Fu Ping used to keep a spare key tucked into the brickwork in the corner. He asked my sister to use her cell phone to light up, and indeed in the crack of the brick to pick out a key.
Open the door and press the light, the bedroom is full of alcohol. The old Song is lying on the bed, covered with a blanket, asleep to death.
When I went back, my sister said to me: “Alas, I should not have taken Fu Ping to Beijing. After Fubing went to Beijing, her feelings with Lao Song faded. When Song called, he would scold him when he could not say a few words about Fubing. If one day Fubing runs away, Song will definitely hate me.”
This winter, Hu Da Ma came back to work in Xu Rong’s store. She still wore the old yellow suit, two sons or bachelor. She was old, and work was not easy to find.
Xiuying is still working in Xu Rong’s store, her daughter is no longer breastfeeding, much easier. Ge Jilin did not come, I do not know what he was doing.
At the beginning of this year, I heard my sister say that Xu Rong’s husband had esophageal cancer. Speaking of her husband’s condition, Xu Rong did not have a sad look, as if she was talking about a passerby with whom she had no connection.
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