Siheyuan: I earned foreign exchange in the heyday

Cai Yinghong originally lived in a small village in the north of Sijiu City. She had three older sisters.

After giving birth to three girls, the parents wished for a son.

After much difficulty, the fourth child was actually a boy, but he lost his life in the last war while trying to protect the children.

Before he died, he looked at his son who had just learned to walk and told his three sisters to take good care of their brother.

The three girls were sensible enough to know that the accident happened because their parents were trying to protect them.

After burying their parents, the three sisters worked hard to farm and took turns to take care of their younger brother.

It was God’s mercy that I was able to raise my younger brother to adulthood.

The three elder sisters relied on farming to support their younger brother to go to junior high school.

My younger brother has graduated from junior high school, but unfortunately my sisters have also gone from their prime to old maids.

From a home where matchmakers had been knocking on the door frequently, our family has now become so famous that even matchmakers are unwilling to come.

Although the three sisters felt regretful, they were willing to do so in order to fulfill their parents' last wish and for the only child of the Cai family.

Unfortunately, although the sisters raised their brother, their family situation had long been known far and wide.

This also made my brother's marriage a little difficult.

The family was already struggling to support their younger brother's schooling, and now the family wanted to arrange a marriage for their younger brother, but the three sisters became a burden.

He has no money and has three old girls who cannot get married. He doesn't know what will happen to his sisters after they marry Cai Yinghong.

If you really want to get married, at this age, forget about the bride price, and you may even have to pay for the dowry.

If Cai Yinghong was willing to drive the sisters out, there might still be some chance.

But with just two shabby thatched houses, the sisters were driven away. They had no land and no house. How could the sisters live? Wouldn't this drive them to death?

Cai Yinghong also knew how much her sisters had sacrificed for her. Since she was going to get married, her sisters had to live at home.

Looking at her three sisters with dark skin and thin bodies, Cai Yinghong, who had been well taken care of by her sisters since childhood, decided to go to the fields to help her sisters with work.

One can imagine what kind of experience Cai Yinghong, who had never done farm work since childhood, would have.

To her uneducated sisters, Cai Yinghong, who graduated from junior high school, was an educated person, which would have been a scholar or juren in the past.

How could she work in the fields? Cai Yinghong felt that she was useless because she could not pass the entrance exam to a technical secondary school after graduating from junior high school. When it came to working in the fields, she, a young man, could not compete with her skinny sister.

Since the establishment of the commune, people have been earning cents and eating from a communal pot for the past few years. Cai Yinghong, who had never done farm work since childhood, earns the least in cents.

The limited vision also forced Cai Yinghong and her three sisters to accept the current situation.

Cai Yinghong thought pessimistically that this was probably how her life would be, and it would be nice for her and her three sisters to live like this for the rest of their lives.

The turning point came with the establishment of a motorcycle factory. The factory, which was desperately short of workers, began to recruit people in the rural areas around the old city.

Junior high school graduates like Cai Yinghong are Chen Changan's favorites.

There was no way. Even technical secondary schools could assign jobs, so it was not the turn of the newly established motorcycle factory.

Chen Changan would be secretly happy to be able to hire a worker who could read, let alone a junior high school graduate.

In this way, Cai Yinghong and a group of young people from the village came to the motorcycle factory to work as temporary workers.

Because he had just graduated from junior high school, Cai Yinghong was taken care of and was taught by a level 6 lathe operator.

It’s no wonder that Cai Yinghong, who was terrible at farming, had a real talent for lathe operation.

He learned how to use a lathe after just one look. No one taught him to read drawings. He could understand a simple drawing by studying it himself.

After watching the master do it a few times, I was able to learn the steps of turning parts.

It takes others half a month to dare to touch the machine, but Cai Yinghong only studied for a week.

Cai Yinghong, who lived in the dormitory, came earlier than her master in the morning. She turned on the machine and made a few parts. After inspection, all of them were qualified.

Just like that, Cai Yinghong, who was converted to a regular employee less than a month after arriving at the motorcycle factory, began to receive the salary of a first-level worker.

The moment she received her salary, Cai Yinghong burst into tears.

I originally thought that this would be my life, digging in the soil for food, facing the earth and back to the sky for the rest of my life.

Now, the motorcycle factory has given him new hope because of one month's salary for this first-level worker.

If he wanted to earn money by work points, he wouldn't be able to do so in a year.

As Cai Yinghong worked in the factory for longer periods of time, she learned more.

Benefits during the New Year and other festivals, and the canteen’s meals are often improved.

Especially the first time I ate braised pork in the cafeteria. To be honest, even if it was a big pot of rice, it was just enough to fill you up. How could you want to eat a big meal of fish and meat? How could that be possible?

Only during the Chinese New Year can one eat meat. To be honest, this was the first time Cai Yinghong had eaten such delicious braised pork in her life.

The whole village was shocked when he returned home for the first time for the Spring Festival, bringing with him the benefits from the factory, especially the cloth and the New Year goods bought by Cai Yinghong.

After all, in the entire village, only Cai Yinghong was converted to a regular employee. How could the benefits provided to temporary workers be the same as those provided to regular workers?

The salary was much higher than that of temporary workers. The welfare was only a few pieces of cloth, which was not enough for each of my three sisters to wear a set of clothes.

What to do if it’s not enough? In order to let her three sisters wear new clothes for the New Year, Cai Yinghong asked her master to exchange cloth coupons.

Although Cai Yinghong did not stay at home for a few days during the Chinese New Year, she returned to the motorcycle factory because of working overtime.

However, matchmakers from all over the country began to come to the house again. Cai Yinghong, whose horizons had long since left the countryside, said to her three sisters before leaving, "People in the city eat rationed food, so they don't need to work so hard in the fields to make a living.

Because I was good at cashing in, our workshop section chief Hou particularly appreciated me.

My household registration has been changed to an urban one. The motorcycle factory where I work is a star enterprise in the city.

The motorcycles we produce are all sold to foreigners, and the money we earn is from foreigners.

I heard from our Chief Hou Duan that the director of our factory has designed a new motorcycle.

The motorcycle factory will continue to expand and recruit more people soon.

Director Hou is also going to the new workshop to be the workshop director. When the time comes, I will ask him to see if he can arrange for my sisters to work in the motorcycle factory as well.

So before you get any news from me, sisters, don’t agree to any of the matchmaker’s requests.”

Perhaps afraid that the sisters would not understand, Cai Yinghong continued, "Once you enter the motorcycle factory, you will be city dwellers, eating rationed food, and after becoming regular employees, you will earn 28 yuan a month.

By then, I can find a brother-in-law who is also a worker, and he will earn more than 50 yuan a month.

The factory will also allocate housing to us. Just think about it, fifty or sixty yuan a month for two people, maybe even more.

Eating the rationed food and living in the allocated tiled house, this is what life is, right?"

Looking at the lives described by my three sisters, I was full of longing.

Cai Yinghong decided that when she arrived at the new workshop, she would talk to Director Hou. Her three sisters would definitely be able to work at the motorcycle factory.

After all, Director Hou claimed to be the factory director's earliest subordinate. He also saw Director Hou often chatting and laughing with the two deputy factory directors.

It would be great if I could get a house so I could live with my sisters.