At that time, even a strong and efficient worker would earn no more than a few dozen cents a day. After a year of hard work, there would be no bonuses. Instead, the villagers would often owe money to the commune. Apart from their low income, farmers had to pay a lot of tax: public grain tax, educational surcharges, special agricultural production tax, militia training fees, pig-slaughtering tax, family planning fees… the list went on and on.
When Yuhe had been a squadron leader in the army, there was a soldier from Beijing in the squadron, who was quite smart, but skinny and weak. Yuhe took special care of him, making sure to do most of the work for him when there was a mission, and always helping him pack first every time that there was an emergency assembly. When Yuhe retired from the army, the soldier from Beijing had flung his arms around Yuhe and burst into tears.
Three years later, the Beijing soldier had also retired, but the two had kept in touch. The Beijing soldier knew that his squadron leader's hometown was poor, and on holidays would always send Yuhe packages containing things like food and clothes that were almost new.
Both Yuhe and I had crawled inside the tunnel shelters in Fujian, so I could well understand the deep feelings and profound friendship that endured between those who had fought together.
After the Dragon Boat Festival in 1982, the Beijing soldier wrote to Yuhe, asking him to come to Beijing because his unit was recruiting temporary workers. Beijing? Zhang Yuhe had never dreamt of going to Beijing. Both Yuhe and his wife were excited but also worried. After three days of consideration, Yuhe decided to go and have a look before he made up his mind.
As the train pulled up at the station, Yuhe recognized the familiar figure of the Beijing soldier stood on the platform. After twenty years, it was a speechless reunion, and they held each other with mixed feelings.
After retiring from the army, the Beijing soldier had been assigned a job as team leader of the motorcar unit at the Bureau of Public Hygiene. Some time earlier, a few of the old workers had retired, and suddenly the bureau was unable to recruit any new ones. But it was no wonder: in the early 1980s, young people in the cities were very ambitious; none of them would have wanted to devote their youth to cleaning roads and toilets. And so the bureau had had no choice but to recruit some temporary replacement staff.
The Beijing soldier asked Yuhe if he was willing to take the job. Yuhe answered, "I used to be a soldier; how hard can cleaning be compared with everything I've been through?"
Zhang Yuhe, then forty-three years old, was assigned the cleaning job. His wage was thirty yuan per month.
It was Yuhe's responsibility to sweep the area between Wanshou Road and Wukesong. At four o'clock every morning, the workers assembled at the office in Wukesong and cycled to their individual working spots, where they cleaned the street and collected the garbage. They did this until eight o'clock. In the afternoon, they worked from two to six doing the same job.
Cleaning required no skill, just patience and endurance. Yuhe took his job seriously and spared no effort at it. When there was a team evaluation, the area of road that Yuhe was responsible for often came out on top, and he always received the unit's praise. Once, when his team couldn't hire someone to clean a toilet in the area, Yuhe offered to clean it.
With a job and a regular income in Beijing, things were a lot better than being back home, and Yuhe was very content. During the first three years, he didn't even go back for the Spring Festival. Although people were celebrating the New Year, the streets still needed cleaning. From New Year's Eve until the fifth day of the New Year, the paper scraps from fireworks were everywhere and the cleaners were even busier than usual. During his time in the army, Yuhe had become accustomed to a little hardship, and so he took the job during the holidays and let his coworkers go home for the first couple of years.
I asked, "Were there already migrant workers in Beijing when you first arrived?"
After thinking for a while, Yuhe asked, "Are housekeepers migrant workers?"
"Of course."
"Everyone says that people from Anhui were the first to take jobs as housekeepers in Beijing, but actually some housekeepers in the homes of a few prominent leaders were from Hong'an. And yes, there was also a farmer's market to the west of the Cuiwei Tower in Gongzhufen, which was removed a couple of years ago. There I met some fellow people from Hubei who had their own small businesses."
I asked, "What were the living conditions of migrant workers like at that time?"