by Zhou Daxin
“Our Party secretary has been sick for a long time. It’s the leader who makes all decisions for the village,” said Nuannuan.
“Then it is the leader we shall go talk to.”
Nuannuan took Uncle Tan, Lao Cao, and Xiao Zhao to the village committee. She felt that would be her opportunity: if Zhan Shideng would not help with the company, she would do it. If he would, then she would settle with the money from accommodation.
Much as Nuannuan had expected, Zhan Shideng was quite unhappy to hear that the hill should not be closed. Yet he could not complain in front of officials such as Lao Cao and Xiao Zhao. He looked even more upset when he heard about the company and the handover of half the income. He rejected the offer coldly and said: “How easy do you think it is to start up a company? With the mere income of ticket sales, how much can we have left if we give half to you? We never had many visitors to the west bank! What if we have only a hundred visitors every month? 10 yuan for one ticket, we could not earn more than a thousand yuan. Not to mention the salary of the tour guides, cleaners, ticket salesmen and security guards! If we have to give half of the income to you, the village committee will be working in vain!”
“This company is not set up for the sake of immediate profit; we are protecting the cultural heritage left by our ancestors,” said Uncle Tan.
“If it is too difficult for the village committee, forget about it. We will find someone else.” Lao Cao waved his hand, looking unhappy with Zhan Shideng’s attitude.
“What fool would run such a bad business?” Zhan Shideng looked at Lao Cao in despise.
“We, we Kuangs will do it!” Nuannuan suddenly spoke up.
Zhan Shideng stared at her in anger and kept his silence. After a while, he laughed coldly and said: “If you like, do it.”
“Xiao Zhao, we shall see this through, then,” said Lao Cao as he turned to Xiao Zhao. “You should draft a contract under the name of the bureau and have Nuannuan sign it. After the establishment of the company, you should sign a formal version again!”
“No problem.”
That same day on her way home, Nuannuan was filled with joy. Of course she knew that little profit could be earned from the sales of tickets to the Great Wall of Chu. But with the support from the bureau to run this business, Zhan Shideng could no longer make trouble with her and she could earn more money from Chu Di Ju with more visitors. The profit should be good combined with the money from tour guiding. That night, Nuannuan warmed up some yellow rice wine and cooked a full dinner for Uncle Tan, Lao Cao and Xiao Zhao. Uncle Tan raised the bowl of wine and spoke solemnly: “Kaitian, Nuannuan, with this contract signed, we are putting this Great Wall of Chu into your protective hands. Though the origin of the wall is still of academic dispute, it is in effect one of the heritages left to us by our ancestors. That is the true value of this wall and visitors will come to see it. You must remember to protect it from further harm whilst you earn the money from visitors. Otherwise you will be the shame of your ancestors!”
“Stay assured, Uncle Tan,” said Nuannuan, also with full respect, as she put down the bowl on the table. “My family only had this life because of this wall, so we are indebted to it. I feel quite attached to it as well. Kaitian and I will do our best to protect it …”
The next day Lao Cao and Xiao Zhao left whilst Uncle Tan stayed in the village for another five days. He went to see the wall every day. Nuannuan asked Kaitian to keep him company but he rejected the offer and told them that he had been quite familiar with the hill, and that he could follow the visitors who would go into the hill every day. He told the couple to work on the company. Nuannuan occupied herself with the establishment of the company. Before Uncle Tan’s departure, Nuannuan said to him: “Uncle Tan, we went to the town and the county office these days, and the establishment of the company is on its way. You named our Chu Di Ju, so you should name the company as well.”
Uncle Tan thought for a while and wrote down: South Water Landscape Company. Kaitian did not understand. He asked: “What is South Water?”
Nuannuan smiled and answered: “The Red Lake is involved in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. Of course people from the North will call it South Water.”
Kaitian nodded and said: “Yes, that is right! Our company runs the landscape near the South Water. This is a perfect name!”
Kaitian rowed the boat to send Uncle Tan back to the east bank. Nuannuan saw them off at the pier. When saying their goodbye, Uncle Tan said to Nuannuan: “In Hebei there is a village called Shou Ling, meaning “to guard the mausoleum”. Nobody knew why the village has such a particular name until the discovery of the mausoleum of Liu Sheng, a prince of the Han Dynasty 2,000 years ago. The name of your village, Chu Wang Village, seems like a similar mystery. I don’t think it is because a family of the surname Wang lived here. I asked the seniors in the village and no one talked about a Wang family. So I had my hypothesis, too.”
Nuannuan was confused.
“Maybe there are some other secrets of the ancient Chu state hiding in this village.”
“Secrets?” Nuannuan was amazed. “What type of secrets?”
Uncle Tan smiled: “It’s just my hypothesis. I will surely tell you if I knew what the secrets are …”
Nuannuan looked at the boat sailing away. She turned to look at the lakeside, the village and the hill, speaking to herself: “Are secrets of Chu hiding in my village?”
Chapter 32
The Kuangs officially established South Water Landscape Company half a month afterwards. The plate with the company’s name was on the gate to Chu Di Ju. The morning of the opening, Nuannuan said to Kaitian: “To make this day better, you should go buy some fire crackers and light them in front of the gate.”
Kaitian nodded and said: “Sure!”
The loud noise of fire crackers attracted both adults and children in the village. People looked at the plate with full curiosity …
Kaitian was registered as the manager of the company. However, Nuannuan was the one in charge of the business. She put the affairs of the company under four categories: tour guiding, where she put Spotty Laosi in charge of taking the visitors to see the wall, the lakeside and the temple; boat management, where Jiuding was in charge of taking visitors around in boats; accommodation and meals, where Shallot was the head of food, drinks and rooms; finance, where Kaitian managed the sales of tickets to the wall and boats, tour guiding fees and accommodation fees, etc. Nuannuan agreed with Spotty Laosi, Jiuding and Shallot that they would be paid 450 yuan every month, and the number would raise or decrease according to their performance. Because of the clear division of work and the good pay, the three of them were highly motivated to make the company work.
Nuannuan had the carpenter in the village make a new wooden sign and painted it white. She had someone write with red paint on it: South Water Landscape Company welcomes you to the beautiful west bank! Jiuding and Black Bean shipped the sign across and put it up in the east bank. More visitors were willing to come to the west bank because of a functional tourism company, and Chu Di Ju was fully booked every night. With more visitors came more income in the company. Kaitian could not control his smiling face every night when counting the money.
Harvest in autumn had befallen the village as the days passed in Chu Di Ju, where everyone was busy receiving guests. People in Chu Wang Village were happy to see their corns bursting out of the leaves, the green beans getting bigger and darker, the sweet potatoes fruiting out of the soil, the cottons flaunting their white flowers, and the peppers in the fields red as the sun. Everything was telling people to get ready for the harvest. Knowing that everyone working in the company had crops in their fields, Nuannuan had them rotate working hours so that some can go home to help with the harvest. One morning, shortly after the guests were just getting up, Kaitian and Nuannuan went to do their farm work, planning to harvest all corns in the field by the side of the lake before lunch. Spotty Laosi was taking a group of more than 20 visitors to Lingyan Temple when h
e passed by. Visitors recognized the owners of the company and stopped to watch them harvesting the corns. This group of visitors were all from an IT company in Zhongguancun, Beijing, and few had seen anyone working in a field. Out of curiosity and excitement, one visitor suggested that they take a picture of him doing the farm work. Nuannuan was glad. She said: “Sure, take any picture you like!”
The visitors all went into the field to take pictures as they harvested the corns. The corns were gone very quickly with the flashing sound of the cameras. Again one visitor asked: “Can we take the corn we harvested home as a souvenir?”
Nuannuan quickly thought of something and nodded: “Yes you can. But one yuan for every corn you take!”
“Yes!” The visitors were more than excited. They did not care to pay such a low price and all began looking for the biggest corn to take. Finally, everyone took at least two corns with them. One even took six. Kaitian made close to one hundred yuan that morning simply by selling the corns. When the visitors left for the temple, Kaitian said to Nuannuan in satisfaction: “Now I understand why people always say that those who have money will earn more money. At the start it was so difficult for us to even earn one yuan. But now we just had one hundred without doing anything!”
Nuannuan thought about it for a while and said: “Do you see what I see from this?”
“What is it?” Kaitian did not understand.
“We can earn money from one more tourist activity just like this!”
“Yes?”
“The harvest,” said Nuannuan as she pat on her thigh.“Local people like us only feel tired with the harvest work here in the village. But those city people, they feel excited by it! We’ll take them to harvest green beans, red peppers, sweet potatoes, cottons and peppercorns in the fields. They can work there for as long as they want and take away as much as they like, as long as they pay us. They will stay longer in the village and we will earn more money by providing them accommodation.”
She stopped and thought for another while. Then, she said: “This reminds me of the farming gardens in Beijing.”
“Farming gardens? What is it?”
“So they made a garden out of farming fields and open it to visitors from the city so that they can harvest the crops. People in the suburbs of Beijing open the gardens up to earn money from the visitors.”
“Making money just like that?” Kaitian was amazed. “What do they grow in the gardens?”
“I’ve never been there. I was working hard! But I can guess: vegetables and fruits. Eggplants, cucumbers, pumpkins, tomatoes, grapes, peaches, pears, apples, etc. People living in the city feel confined so they easily feel excited to do farm work. I’m thinking that in the future, we can open similar gardens in the village and attract more visitors.”
“Let’s try it next Spring in our contracted fields,” said Kaitian as he rolled his sleeves up.
“Sure! Let’s try …”
The next day a group of visitors arrived from the east bank. They were all from the city of Tianjin and there were dozens of them. Nuannuan and Shallot came to the pier to welcome them. As Nuannuan was busy greeting visitors stepping out of the boats, she heard a cynical voice behind her: “The proprietress of the company is busy with her business!”
She turned and looked. Her smile vanished from her face. She spoke in a serious voice: “What can I do for you, leader?”
“It’s time for the election of the leader,” said Zhan Shideng, his voice suddenly turned soft. “According to the requirement of the town office, I am reminding every family in the village about the election. If anyone from the town office comes here to ask, remember to tell them that I did this.”
Nuannuan suddenly frowned and asked: “When is the election?”
“Next month. You need not prepare anything, just come over to vote.”
Chapter 33
Nuannuan’s mind was preoccupied as she ate dinner. She called out to Kaitian as she put her bowl down: “Dangen’s dad! Come here a minute,” and went into the bedroom. Kaitian believed Nuannuan was asking about the day’s income, and entered the room saying excitedly: “5,500, equal to a year and a half spent in the fields!”
“I am not asking about money, I want to talk to you about our influence in the village.” “Influence? What influence?” Kaitian did not expect this.
“Do you want to be the village leader?”
Kaitian laughed: “Wanting is one thing, what man does not want to become an official? Every time I make a request to Zhan Shideng, and every time he torments me. I think to myself, that if I, Kaitian, was to become the leader, he would see my real strength! But do you think it would really be possible? And who would want us to be leader? Would Zhan Shideng even allow it?”
“Next month there will be another election, to elect a new leader.”
“But isn’t the new election just to re-elect Zhan Shideng? Wasn’t the last election just like this? His family has connections in all of the villages and the county, and these days you need connections high up to be an official.
“A village leader is elected by vote from the entire village, and if villagers don’t vote for him he won’t get it, even if people high up want him in!”
“The Zhan family numbers more than us Chu’s and your Kuang’s put together, do you think any Zhan would vote for us? Not only that, he will keep his position by threatening, tooth and claw. He has scared many into cowardice this way. Who is courageous enough to vote against him and trigger his anger? Let’s not come up with such dreams!”
“That’s not entirely the case. As leader over the past few years, although Zhan Shideng hasn’t harassed villagers with the Zhan surname, he hasn’t bought much good fortune to the Zhan’s either, and many in the Zhan family are still so poor they can’t even rub two coins together. And haven’t a few of them borrowed money from us? The only Zhan’s that truly remain in touch with Zhan Shideng are his younger brother and sisters, and his male cousins.”
“You are right about that.” Kaitian scratched his head.
“So I’m thinking that our effort could decide the matter, and this is an opportunity that will never come our way again. If you really do become the village Leader, you will never have to take Zhan Shideng’s trouble again. Also, it would bring much honour to the old Kuang family. Have the Kuang’s ever had an official in the family?”
“Nope, I’ve heard dad say that we have worked in the field for many generations, and maybe our ancestral tombs have never held the blood of officials, nor burnt the imperial incense of official tombs.”
“Let’s not talk about all that superstitious nonsense. How about we just go for it?”
“If we really are going to contend with him, we will definitely need an idea to go with it!”
Nuannuan raised her hand, and brought it down swiftly on the bedside frame. “I’ve already got one! Starting from tomorrow onwards, we must do more for the village folk, so that they understand that we are people that will bring them good fortune!”
“Sounds like hot air to me. We don’t have any authority, what can we do?”
“We have some cash in our hands now, and money can make things happen.”
“Like what? We use our own money?”
“We can start to do a few things for the present time. Firstly, regardless of whether they are a Zhan or a Chu, we hire a son or daughter from each of the poorest families in the village into our company to work, and provide them a working wage to subsidize their family expenses, as our Chu Di Ju now needs a few more people to serve food, wash and change the bedding and clean the rooms.”
“Yes, this can be handled easily.”
“Second, alongside the wharf and by the village we can put up some wood-board shacks, with nice-looking shop fronts, to sell general goods. This wouldn’t cost much, and after they are put up, we can get the open-air stall traders selling alcohol, tobacco, and local mountain products to move in for free to sell from them. So they won’t need to deal with the whipping wind
and burning sun all day, and probably would thank us for it.”
“Yes, this is a good idea too, and we only need to spend a bit of money for it.”
“Put in a bit, get out a lot, you get me? Also this is a good way to attract more tourists for us. It allows them to see that everything here is neat and tidy, upright and honest.”
“Got it.”
“Third, don’t the tourists like the scene of an autumn harvest? Wouldn’t they want to go and do it themselves? Go and tell Ma Sige to allow a few tour guides to bring tourists into the fields of the poorest of the Zhan’s, and allow them to help out by harvesting, and when possible, buying the produce of the family. They will probably thank us endlessly for that.”
“That they would.”
“Fourth, go and buy some pencils, erasers, pencil cases and homework books for primary school students, a couple of hundred yuan worth, and give them as gifts to each family with a primary student, telling them that this will help the children to attend school, also showing them that, as the Kuang’s earn more money, we can expand our aid to middle school students, to subsidize one year’s school fee for every middle school student.”
“Who will go and send those gifts?”
“You of course! This is your opportunity to be friendly up to the village people!”
“Okay. Any other ideas?”
“One more, on the days that we have many guests, we will introduce them to a few of the more hospitable families for accommodation and meals, and let those families earn a bit with a hosting fee. They too would probably thank us endlessly”.
Starting from the second day, Kaitian started on the many ideas that Nuannuan had come up with, and after a few weeks, the results were becoming evident.
As villagers knew he had money in his pockets, on seeing Kaitian they used to speak to him with tones of jealousy or flattery. Nowadays, Kaitian could hear a difference; when the villagers saw him, they sounded truly respecting and thankful. When Kaitian told Nuannuan about this change of tone, Nuannuan laughed: “That’s exactly what we want. I have also carefully taken note of it, in the past when people saw you they would always start with a laugh: ‘Kaitian, you fucker, you have earned more money again, have you?’ And now, many people open with a warmhearted question: ‘Kaitian, busy lately?’ Don’t underestimate the difference between these two questions. It proves that, in the minds of the villagers, you are no longer just a wealthy man disconnected from them. This is a good start.”
