Leaders, Part 1

Evening. The six children returned to the opera school. Chen Qi walked with them for part of the way, shaking hands with the teacher at the gate to bid them farewell. "Thank you so much for your hard work today. On behalf of all the educated youth at the Dashilar cooperative, thank you!" "Don't mention it. The kids got some good practice; it was wonderful for everyone." The teacher paused, then asked, "Er, will they be needed again tomorrow?" "It should be in the newspaper tomorrow. Let's see the public reaction. If the response is good, we'll have to trouble you again. If this turns into a regular long-term event later on, we certainly won't let you come all this way for nothing." "All right, all right. See you around!" The teacher understood his implication, raised no objection, and led the students into the courtyard. Liu Bei wasn't tired in the slightest. She had sung one piece in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a rest at midday—completely stress-free. She trotted back to the dorm in high spirits. It was an eight-person room, and the other girls swarmed around her at once, chattering over one another with questions. "How was it today? Was it fun?" "What did you guys do?" "Was lunch good?" "Quiet! Quiet! Listen to me!" Liu Bei pressed her hands down, carrying an air of supreme authority in the dorm. "Right under Qianmen's Arrow Tower, there were so many people—must have been a thousand! Sing just a little bit casually and they'd cheer their heads off. The applause sounded like thunder, it was so thrilling! "Afterward, they wouldn't even let us leave. We were nearly squished to death! The teacher had to fight with all his might to rescue us. "Lunch was pretty good too. They cooked over their own stove, just like a cafeteria—radishes and Chinese cabbage. We ate our fill, and we didn't have to pay a single fen for bus fare." "Wow!" The other girls sighed in chorus, filled with yearning. Liu Bei rolled her eyes around before finally dropping the biggest bombshell. "Hey, guess who I saw today?" "Who? Who?!" "Foreign guests!" "There were foreign guests too?!" "You bet! A woman with blond hair and blue eyes, speaking bird gibberish nobody could understand! I sang a piece for her, and she even said 'Good, good' to me!" "Woooow—!" If envy could materialize into physical blades, Liu Bei would have already been stabbed like a pincushion. The gaggle of young girls chattered endlessly, not lying down until the teacher came for evening bed check. Lying on her simple bed, Liu Bei replayed the wonderful day in her mind, wishing every day could be this thrilling. Those older brothers and sisters were so warm, even giving her a boiled egg to eat. And Brother Little Chen was quite handsome too. …… China Youth Daily. It was already eight in the evening, and Yu Jiajia was still waiting for news at the newspaper office. Because the article involved a foreigner, it had to be submitted for special review and could only be published once the relevant authorities granted approval. The attitude toward foreigners at this time was deeply ambivalent: on one hand, there was a desire for them to come in and take a look; on the other hand, there lingered the bloodline of revolutionary struggle against American imperialism—both welcoming and vigilant. Years later, when foreign capital would enter on a massive scale, the entire nation would look yearningly toward the Western world. The country would need foreign exchange and economic development; common folk would believe the moon was rounder abroad, the elite class would begin emigrating, and public intellectuals would crop up everywhere. Reader, Yilin, Zhiyin, and Youth Digest—the Four Great Classics of Reform and Opening Up—would run completely rampant across the land! That wave would take forty years to wear off! "Why hasn't there been any word yet? Don't tell me it got axed!" "If I'd known, I wouldn't have listened to that bastard!" Yu Jiajia muttered under her breath. This article could have been framed from multiple angles, but Chen Qi had instructed her to frame it like this: an American friend experiences old Beijing tradition, gathering happily with educated youth and young opera performers, listening to Peking opera, drinking large-bowl tea, full of praise, "very good"… Forget ordinary citizens—even the leadership loved reading that sort of thing! "Xiao Yu? Xiao Yu!" "Here, right here!" Suddenly, an older reporter came running in. Yu Jiajia shot to her feet. "How did it go? Did it pass?" "It passed!" "You have no idea whose desk it went up to! The leader read it and praised it endlessly—personally approved it in vermilion ink! Front page tomorrow!" "Hiss!" Yu Jiajia sucked in a sharp breath as if choking on a piping-hot bowl of stewed wheaten cakes. "Front page?!" "That's right! You've really made a splash this time. Not a single young reporter in our whole unit has ever landed the front page!" "It's all thanks to the teachers' excellent guidance." A wave of pure exhilaration washed over Yu Jiajia, accompanied by a sudden epiphany: Oh, so *this* the hell is what journalism is all about! …… "Yesterday, the renowned Qianmen Large-Bowl Tea Cooperative invited a troupe of young performers from the Beijing Traditional Opera School… The young performers staged a splendid performance, drawing continuous cheers from the gathered crowd, and welcomed an unexpected American guest. "Eve showed great interest in Chinese folk culture, listening to Peking opera in person and tasting the large-bowl tea with her own lips; this traditional Eastern beverage offered her a truly novel experience. "At the end, Eve even took souvenir photographs with everyone before reluctantly departing…" At the opera school, the director and teachers read through the piece three times before reluctantly setting down the newspaper. Reporter Yu was truly someone you could count on! When she said it would be published, it was published—and on the front page, no less. Even though there wasn't all that much content about their school, an international friend was in the picture, after all, which made it completely understandable. "Wonderful!" "I say we should keep this activity going. It brings honor to our school and gives the students a chance to practice. How about this: take the students over right away!" "We didn't say we'd perform today, did we?" "Strike while the iron is hot, don't you understand? Be proactive!" …… West of Qianmen's Arrow Tower. This was the newly opened tea stall, staffed by twenty people. They were also educated youth. Their cooperative had been set up a bit later, and having no idea what to do, they saw that large-bowl tea was thriving and copied the idea. They had been open for several days, and business had been decent. Pedestrians along this broad avenue came from either the east or the west; large-bowl tea wasn't anything special, so people simply drank at whichever stall they came across first. Today, however, was a little different. "Comrade, care for some tea? Two fen a bowl!" A pedestrian approaching from the west looked over as he passed the stall and hesitated for a moment. An educated youth hurried to call out, "Ours is jasmine tea too, completely clean, and you'd have to walk several more steps to reach that other one!" "……" The pedestrian made no reply and kept walking. The educated youth looked after him—sure enough, he went straight to the stall on the east side. "Comrade, care for some tea?" "Comrade, have a bowl of tea!" People trickled past, but not a single one stayed. One pedestrian, badgered to the point of annoyance, snapped, "They've got an opera performance over there—do you have that? They have foreigners coming to drink tea—do you have that?" Of course they didn't. The entire group fell into deep despair. Dozens of large bowls were laid out across the table, yet not a single bowl had been sold. "We haven't made a single sale today. What are we going to do?" "We haven't earned a single fen!" "Look how bustling they are over there. That Huang Zhanying really has some skill, coming up with so many clever tricks!" Both envious and jealous, listening to the soaring opera singing and the thunderous cheers echoing from the other side, even their own hearts itched to go take a look. …… "Bravo!" "Bravo!" Today it was still Liu Bei and the six of them, putting even more vigor into their singing. Watching an opera performance for free naturally made people want to buy a bowl of tea to drink. Cheering until their throats went parched only made them want to drink even more… At the stall behind them, kettle after kettle of tea was brewed, yet supply could barely keep up with demand. Was this just large-bowl tea? This was the Mixue Bingcheng of 1979! "I can't take it anymore—exhausted to death!" Even someone as burly as Huang Zhanying was beginning to flag. "The way I see it, we need to buy several more large kettles, get another fifty large bowls, and bring in a few big vats, or we won't be able to keep up supply at all." "Buy a few more tables too," Chen Qi said. "Open a new stall right next to this one—it's about time to set out the sandals. How is business on the west side?" "Not a sparrow at the gate—deserted!" Huang Zhanying actually managed to use an idiom. "Let them copy us, serves them right! Now they're tasting the bitter end." "Come now, be a little more broad-minded. With so many tea stalls across the inner city these days, they had little choice either. Times aren't easy for anyone." The strong never complain about market conditions—because they are the ones who wrecked the market in the first place! Chen Qi never engaged in petty commercial warfare; he only practiced broad-mindedness. He said, "Listen carefully to what I say, and don't let it reach outside ears. "Their business is only going to get worse. When they can no longer keep going, they may take the initiative to come looking for you, asking you to take them in. If they don't come, you go find them. Tell them we're short on hands and willing to absorb new people. "Then you state your conditions to the government: have them allocate business premises for us. We must secure a storefront—the bigger, the better. At the same time, we'll expand our business scope so we can sell even more goods." "Huh?" "What 'huh'? You want to run street stalls for the rest of your life? When that day comes, we won't just be a tea stall anymore—we'll be a comprehensive department store."