24 City Page #4

Please.

You called me "aunty"?

You should call me "granny".

Granny.

This Director Song, has he come yet?

He has.

He's probably in a meeting with the bosses.

Are you new here?

Yes. I just graduated.

You can wear make-up to work?

Foreign enterprises expect you to,

or they won't hire you.

Isn't this state-owned?

Factory 420 was a state secret.

The original name was Xindu Machinery.

Later it became the Chengfa Group.

Its code name has been 420 all along.

Like a military designation.

That never changed.

I remember when we got our wage packets,

there was a 5 yuan bonus for secrecy.

Pretty good!

Around 1960,

at the time of the natural disasters,

people didn't have enough to eat.

But our factory gave us each

Our work was vital, aeronautical stuff.

No negligence.

Hao Dali, worker in Factory 420

Held the national title of March 8th

Red Banner Holder

Factory Xindu staff canteen

Vegetable Ration Coupon

I still remember that on pay days,

the bank set up a desk at the factory gate.

It was just a table really

for us to deposit our wages.

Back in 1975, I earned 58 yuans.

I deposited 30 yuan every month.

I fed my family

and sent some money back to Shenyang.

My sister lived in a village,

she had many children.

So I sent her all my old clothes.

She altered them for her kids.

The factory provided us

with uniforms, work-gloves,

that kind of thing.

I never threw them away.

I collected the used gloves

and I sent them to my sister.

She washed them, unraveled the thread,

made balls of it,

and wove clothes, trousers

for my nephews.

This year, my sister...

Her youngest son, actually,

sent me 500 yuans.

So I rang my sister

and asked her:

"Why are you sending me money?

"What for?"

She answered:

"l know things are tough in your factory."

My sister's son lives in the village.

He runs a small grocery store.

It gives him some extra income.

It never crossed my mind

that I'd need help from my sister in old age.

When did you join the factory?

Factory 420, in 1958.

From Shenyang, we moved here in groups.

I was in the last group.

My boy was three years old.

I was 18 when he was born.

So I'd be 21! Yes, 21 that year.

Not quite an adult, in fact.

I'd never left home before,

I'd never been on a boat.

That year,

the Chengdu-Baoji railway collapsed.

No route overland, so we came by river.

First a train to Dalian,

then a boat to Shanghai.

Then we took a river-boat

along the Yangtze to Chongqing.

And then a bus from Chongqing

to Chengdu.

It took 15 days to get to Chengdu.

As we approached Goddess Peak,

there was thick fog that day.

We went on deck,

but we couldn't see anything. Nothing at all.

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