Affection for Sidaogou during the Famine

Han Zhaozhao and Niu Xiaoyun spent the whole afternoon sitting by the fire, chatting and doing needlework.

Niu Xiaoyun was patching old clothes. When Han Zhaozhao saw her craftsmanship, he felt ashamed of himself.

The stitches are fine and each patch is straight and neat. It is much better than Han Zhaozhao, who is a novice. You can tell at a glance that he has learned it with great care.

Han Zhaozhao didn't like needlework in her previous life. When she was young, her family lived in the countryside, and she did learn from her mother. Later, her family bought a sewing machine, and she rarely used needlework.

When I grew up and moved to the city, I bought clothes to wear and didn't have to sew myself, so I put aside the skills I learned when I was a child.

In the early 2000s, there was a trend of making cotton-padded clothes out of sweater pieces, and she made one for everyone in her family on the spur of the moment.

At first I felt comfortable and warm wearing them, but later I found the various cotton-padded clothes sold in shopping malls to be beautiful, light, and most importantly, machine washable.

If your clothes get dirty after wearing them for a few days, just throw them in the washing machine and you will have clean ones to wear the next day.

Cotton-padded clothes that you sew yourself are not good because they are made of wadding cotton, which will become stiff and hard after washing and no longer warm.

When it got dirty, I had to take it apart, wash the pieces, and then sew it again. It was time-consuming and laborious, and the most important thing was that the style was too rustic to wear out.

After that, she never touched needlework again. She bought bedding, clothes, shoes and bags.

In the end, even expensive brand-name clothes with broken zippers or missing buttons were thrown away and no longer worn. Clothes that were no longer worn or out of season were thrown away in the recycling bin.

The sewing basket was lost in some house decades ago, and not even a needle could be found in the house.

The old lady also taught her about needlework, but Han Zhaozhao was no longer the same Han Zhaozhao as before, and she really didn't have the patience to learn.

Until now, in her grandmother's words, she is very smart at other things, but her mind is not on needlework.

She worked very quickly when sewing the soles of shoes, and she was also nimble when twisting the hemp thread. She could sew clothes and embroider flowers with ease.

She is careless and rough, and in the old society, she could only be used as a maid.

Thinking this in her heart, Han Zhaozhao said it out loud, "Xiaoyun, if my grandma sees your needlework, she will say that I am a rough maid."

After hearing Han Zhaozhao's self-deprecation, Xiaoyun was a little proud, but she was still pretending to be modest:

"I'm new here, and I've only just learned how to embroider flowers and grass. My mother's needlework skills are really good. The mandarin ducks playing in the water, phoenixes and peonies she embroidered are so beautiful!"

"Really? I've been to your house many times, how come I've never seen you before?"

It seems that there are many talented people hidden in their alley!

“Don’t say you haven’t seen it, my sister and I haven’t seen it a few times.

My mother has stopped embroidering a long time ago. There were many children in the family and life was poor. How could I buy her good silk and embroidery thread to embroider?

No matter how well you embroider ordinary fabric, no one will want it, so it’s a waste of your time.

Besides, my mother now works in a food factory and can bring home some cake crumbs occasionally, and her salary is not low.

It’s much more stable than making money from embroidery!

Nowadays, it’s different from the past. Not so many young ladies buy embroidery. Even if the embroidery is very good, who can sell it to?

However, my mother kept a few of the quilt covers and pillowcases she had embroidered. She said that we brothers and sisters should have one each and that she would give one to anyone who got married.

The little girl blushed as she spoke.

"Oh! I didn't realize that you two sisters are both dowries. Whoever marries you will be very lucky."

Han Zhaozhao was knitting socks while entertaining Xiaoyun.

"Tsk, you stinky Zhao Zhao, you're making fun of me again! If you do this again, I won't play with you anymore!"

"I don't want to play with you" seems to be the catchphrase of every child at this time.

The more they say this sentence, the better they play, and the closer they seem to be to each other.

Han Zhaozhao smiled and accepted Xiaoyun's threat, which was not really a threat, and nodded in agreement.

"Okay, okay, I won't laugh at you anymore. By the way, didn't you say we'd go take a bath together on Saturday?

Who's going? Did your mom give you money to buy a bath ticket? "

"My sister is going too, but my mother isn't going. As employees of the food factory, it's cheaper, with a bath ticket costing only five cents.

The bathhouse on our street costs 1.2 yuan, which is more than half the price."

Han Zhaozhao didn't know that there was a price difference between the workplace and the street's bathhouse. And the price difference was quite large, with a difference of seven cents for a bath ticket.

This is all common sense, but there is still a lot she hasn't mastered.

She asked calmly, "Why don't you go to your mother's factory to take a shower? Each person can save seven cents a time. If you take a shower once every two weeks, you can save four or five cents a person in a winter."

Xiaoyun smiled awkwardly: "My mother's factory is too far from home, and I can't stay in the factory for long after taking a shower.

It's easy to catch a cold if you walk all the way home! Save that seven cents, it's not even enough to buy medicine for a cold!

But my two brothers are in good health and they both go to my dad's factory to take a bath.

Anyway, my dad doesn’t like to take a bath, and the factory has too many bath tickets to use up. If they don’t take a bath, my dad’s co-workers will ask them to take one.”

Han Zhaozhao was envious, "As a worker, does the factory even give me tickets to take a bath?

No wonder everyone wants to work in the factory, the benefits are really good!"

Niu Xiaoyun shook her head. "Every factory is different. My dad's factory gives us free bath tickets. If they're not enough, we have to buy some. But they're cheaper than outside. My dad said the factory subsidizes them.

My mother's factory never gave out bath tickets. Whoever wanted to take a bath had to pay for the ticket. But it was still much cheaper than the bathhouses on the street. The food factory was profitable and would provide subsidies. "

Oh! Han Zhaozhao understood! Niu Xiaoyun's father worked in a machinery factory. Jingcheng Machinery Factory was a state-owned enterprise directly under the key large factory, with great wealth, which was reflected in all aspects.

Their workers have high salaries, good benefits, and receive many gifts during the New Year and other festivals, which has always been the envy of workers in other factories.

Xiaoyun's mother works in a food factory, which is not a key large factory directly under the state-owned enterprise, but it is a factory directly under the Beijing Municipal Government.

They produce a variety of the most popular pastries and foods. Although their benefits are not as good as those of state-owned heavy industry factories, they are also very good.

Sometimes I would get some food scraps and take them home to feed my children.

The worst one should be the scrap collection station where Grandma Han works. It can't produce goods, is not valued by the government, and has almost no welfare.

The company where her grandmother works doesn't even have a fixed working time, let alone benefits.

There were several times when it was time to get off work but people selling scrap came to their door, and she and Grandpa Wang had to collect all the scraps before leaving get off work.

The days are short in winter, and the old lady has come home after dark several times.

Moreover, their social status is not high and people look down on them!

Chairman Mao clearly said that there is only a division of labor in revolutionary work, not a distinction between high and low! Regardless of their positions, our comrades are all servants of the people!

However, no matter what era, there are always some people who eat other people's food but do nothing for other people! They divide people into different classes.

People in professions such as cadres, workers, doctors, and teachers are respected in real life.

However, farmers have been looked down upon since ancient times.

Don’t be fooled by what everyone says: “There is no high or low distinction between jobs” or “There is no high or low distinction between people”!

In fact, these are just slogans, and anyone with a little common sense knows it very well.

In real life, how can there be no distinction between high and low jobs?

It is impossible for people to have no distinction between high and low classes!

Han Zhaozhao had seen with his own eyes that old farmers in the countryside wore dirty and torn clothes, and they did not steal or rob, and they used money to buy things, but were looked down upon by the salespersons and city people. The old farmers were poor and had low aspirations, so they dared not say a word.

This is the cruel reality!

Although many people say those high-sounding words verbally, they all know the truth deep down in their hearts.