Year 1979: Eating meat with my wife and children

“Our third child is such a good-for-nothing! He won’t do any of the work assigned by the neighborhood committee, and all he does all day is eat and sleep at home.”

"Dongzi is such a child, he's so old but still doesn't understand things. It's so hard to find a job these days!"

"That's right! Other families are almost fighting over work, and Dongzi has a job but won't go to work. I'm so worried about you, what are we going to do!"

Li Xiangdong was lying on the kang (a heated brick bed) when he heard the chattering sounds coming from the yard. He groggily opened his eyes.

Looking around, the furniture and decorations in front of me all look new, but the style is very old.

The overwhelming sense of familiarity made him dizzy for a moment. Wasn't this his home from decades ago?

The voice that just called him a bastard was so familiar—it was his mother!

You can be reborn just by sleeping?

As memories slowly surfaced in his mind, he wasn't panicked; instead, he was filled with anticipation!

He picked up the large pair of shorts from the bedside, put them on, got up from the kang (a heated brick bed), and hurriedly ran to the calendar hanging on the wall with his size 43 feet on the old cloth shoes on the ground.

November 1979, 7

He walked to the mirror with revolutionary symbols and looked at his young reflection.

With his trendy short parted hairstyle, bright eyes, handsome face, and tall stature of 180cm, everyone who sees him will say he's a great young man!

Hearing that his mother was still in the yard, chatting enthusiastically with the neighbors.

Li Xiangdong pushed open the door and stood at the entrance. He didn't say anything, but stared straight at them.

"Dongzi's awake?"

"Oh dear, it's time for dinner. Aunt Li, we're heading back now."

The two elderly women next door felt uneasy under his gaze, and after saying something, they walked out of the yard.

Only one middle-aged woman with short, shoulder-length hair is standing in the yard; she is Li Xiangdong's mother.

Li's mother put her hands on her hips and looked at him with a hostile gaze. "What's wrong? You don't want to listen to me? Then you'd better be more careful and go report to the neighborhood office!"

“I’ve been back in the city for over a month now, but I’m not doing the work assigned by the neighborhood committee. I just wander around aimlessly all day.”

"So many educated youth are returning to the city now. They're just grateful to have a job to support their families. How can you be so picky!"

In Li Xiangdong's eyes, his mother had changed from an old, frail woman leaning on a cane to the woman before him, standing with her hands on her hips, jumping up and down, and cursing him.

He was initially somewhat moved, but his mother was so talkative, her incessant chatter making his head spin.

Recalling the work assigned by the neighborhood committee, he retorted, "I'm not going to pop popcorn! My dad's age is more suited to doing that."

Having just been reborn, he didn't want to argue with his mother about this, so he turned around, closed the door, walked to the kang (a heated brick bed), and put on his white vest.

This white vest was an award given to his father by his workplace, with the words "Advanced Worker, Coal Shop Award of Jianguomen Street, Beijing" printed on the front.

The Li family has been coal miners for three generations.

Li Xiangdong's grandfather, Old Man Li, worked at a coal factory near the street office before liberation. At that time, most of the coal used by residents was coal powder, which was processed into coal cakes like making glutinous rice balls after being sent to the coal factory. Old Man Li was good at making coal balls.

Later, with the public-private partnership, the private coal mine became a state-owned coal shop. After the division of jurisdiction, the coal shop was short-staffed, so Old Man Li found a way to arrange for his father to work there as well, and the father and son worked together in the same coal shop.

After Old Man Li retired, Li Xiangdong's elder brother took over. Fortunately, honeycomb briquettes gradually became popular in Beijing, so there was no need to shake coal briquettes anymore, and it wasn't as hard work as before.

Li Erge is a boiler operator who works at a bathhouse under the jurisdiction of the neighborhood committee, where he is responsible for tending the boilers for customers.

Li Xiangdong dressed and came out of the west wing, where he saw his eldest and second sisters-in-law, who were pulling his reluctant mother into the main room.

He hurried to the front of the back house, which was closest to the main water pipe and sewage pipe of the alley. When the pipes were laid, the water tank was built here to save money.

I turned on the tap, rinsed it briefly, and then picked up the old towel hanging nearby to wipe myself dry.

I glanced at his courtyard house; it was still the same as I remembered.

This courtyard house, which has one entrance, covers an area of ​​more than 300 square meters. The main gate is located in the southeast corner of the courtyard. Crossing the gate, you are directly facing the gable wall of the east wing. Below the gable wall is a screen wall with a relief of the character "福" (fortune).

Turn left and walk a few steps into the main courtyard. The ground is paved with bluestone bricks. There is a tree on each side of the courtyard, a jujube tree and a pomegranate tree.

There is a bitter well in the northeast corner, with a blue stone slab on top of it. There are many children in the family, and they are afraid that they might accidentally fall into the well.

"That old man is really amazing!"

Li Xiangdong muttered something under his breath.

The Li family weren't native Beijingers. They were able to settle down in Beijing and obtain urban residency thanks to their grandfather, Old Man Li.

At the end of 1948, before Beijing was peacefully liberated, Old Man Li, along with Old Woman Li and his father who had just come of age, followed the army to Beijing.

Unlike those who fled the city, Old Man Li used the money from selling his old family's land and house to buy the main house of their current courtyard, as well as the side rooms connected to it, at a low price amidst the chaos of war.

After the peaceful liberation, other neighbors moved in one after another. Some bought their own property, while others were given houses by the neighborhood committee or their work units.

Because housing in Beijing is becoming increasingly scarce, the east and west wing rooms have been divided into two rooms, housing four families. The back room has also been allocated to two families. Including the Li family, this courtyard house houses a total of seven families.

Over the course of more than twenty years, Old Man Li used private sales, along with his father and two older brothers Li Xiangdong's job housing allocations, to bring in neighbors in the courtyard who wanted to exchange houses and participate in "house exchange meetings" to move around the property.

To this day, only the Li family remains of this courtyard house.

The main house and the east and west side rooms were repartitioned, creating three rooms, with the living room in the middle where the whole family eats.

Old Man Li and Old Woman Li lived in the east room, while Father Li and Mother Li lived in the west room.

Li Xiangdong's two older brothers each had a room in the east wing.

He lived in the west wing, while the remaining west wing housed the two young nieces of his eldest and second eldest brothers.

The back of the house had poor lighting, so Old Man Li demolished the coal shed and storage room that his neighbors had illegally built. Now, they store their honeycomb briquettes and other miscellaneous items in the back of the house.

In my past life, after Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour speech, the spring breeze of reform swept across the land, and with the added boost of the overseas travel boom, the price of courtyard houses began to rise sharply.

The Li family also faces a problem: their tree has many branches.

Li Xiangdong used the money he received after selling the courtyard house to buy a small apartment of just over 100 square meters.

He squandered the rest of his money because he was envious of others making money in business and tried to do business with them.

While others are going public, he's on a rampage...

"What are you standing there for? I've called you several times and you haven't said a word. Go eat!"

As Li Xiangdong was feeling sentimental, his mother appeared beside him again without him noticing.

Li's mother's voice grew louder and louder as she spoke, her temper rising.

'slap slap'

She slapped Li Xiangdong hard on the back twice.

"Ouch... Mother, you're too ruthless! I'm your own son!"

Li Xiangdong was in so much pain that he jumped up and down on the spot.

"I'm beating my own son!"

When Li Xiangdong saw his mother raise her hand again, he turned and ran outside.

"You guys eat first, I'm going to the restroom."