The story behind sister’s new villa - Page 3

From Griffith REVIEW Edition 25: After the Crisis
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.

Written by Frances Guo

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At a cheap local restaurant outside the factory, over stir-fry dishes spread on a large round table, Big Zhou and his mates swore loudly and drank bottle after bottle of Chinese liquor, the cheapest brand but still 60 per cent alcohol, the real stuff.

‘Big Zhou, you coward, why didn't you crash the boss's home with us?' demanded one half-drunk man.

‘I...couldn't. He's my...friend, my old neighbour,' replied Big Zhou, red-faced.

‘Cao (fuck). Your friend? Your old neighbour? Bullshit. Look at you. Did he spare you?'

‘Well...shut up!' Big Zhou's tongue stiffened, his eyes turning to the speaker, burning with rage.

‘Okay, that's enough. No more bloody work. Drink up,' interjected another, clamping his hand on Zhou's shoulder.

In a karaoke bar, a bunch of young girls in sexy skirts wiggled into a dark room. Among the noisy singers around the television, one of the girls sank into the soft couch next to Big Zhou. He opened his eyes. Her legs looked smooth and tempting, her lips red and shining. Still holding the liquor in his right hand, Big Zhou lifted his other arm. He was just about to put it around the slim shoulder, when suddenly he stopped. Under the blue eye shadow, the girl's pretty eyes looked familiar – so familiar that they turned the girl's face into the one he'd been avoiding at home. Blood surged into Big Zhou's head. His world turned black, and he slumped onto the girl's lap.

As my brother-in-law stood among the mess, confronted by angry faces at home, his mobile rang. He went into the bedroom. My sister followed.

‘What...when...how did it happen?' he pressed, his voice tense and anxious. ‘Big Zhou just had a stroke, nearly died, and now he's paralysed,' he whispered to my sister, his face ashen. For years the two men had enjoyed their cheap cigarettes at the end of the stairs together, their wives had washed green leaves in the same cement troughs, and their daughters had toddled along the same humble corridor. ‘I am sorry Big Zhou. I know your area has just been shut down.  I know it would be tough for you, but, please, not like this...'

The news about Big Zhou broke my brother-in-law's spirit, and his body – that night, he too was rushed to hospital. After pacing for hours in the corridor, my sister finally saw a nurse and heard: ‘Your husband is all right.'

The retrenched workers got what they wanted – more compensation – and proudly withdrew from their protest base. Returning from the hospital, confronted by the mess the intruders had left behind, my sister sank into her stained couch and sobbed uncontrollably.

‘It's over. Things will get better,' I said, trying to comfort her over the phone after the angry mob had finally left and her husband was about to come home from hospital. But things were set to get worse.

Not long after the Germans took over, the company was swallowed by another western shark, a Dutch company. Soon the new senior managers arrived and made it clear who was in charge. My sister and her husband did their best to adjust and co-operate. Watching the division she had built and managed for years dismantled overnight and her files taken away, my sister bit her tongue. She went through one internal interview after another, even for lower-level jobs, swallowing her pride each time; but the answer was always, ‘We regret...' Then the announcement came: her service was no longer required.

My sister's world was shattered. She could not make sense of it all. She had devoted twenty-five years to her ‘work unit'. She was always the last to turn off the lights in the office, sometimes staying until midnight without dinner. She had an engineering degree from a respected university and an MBA after countless evenings and weekends of study. She had always been loyal to the company – despite the regular calls she had received from head-hunters in the last few years, she and her husband had never considered leaving.

They had devoted themselves to the factory they had been assigned to as fresh university graduates. It had become their life; their colleagues were like extended family. Over a quarter-century, the large factory had been transformed from state-owned to joint venture, to fully foreign company. They worked their way up, step by step.

Their salaries jumped from a few hundred RMB a month to packages comparable to those of western managers. Every day my brother-in-law was taken to and from his office by a personal driver. When he came home, he stood in front of his sparkling cabinet, enjoying the sight of his souvenirs, mementos from  board meetings around the world – a small Dutch windmill, a  red London double-decker bus, a German beer glass and a miniature Thai temple.

The family had long since moved out of their one-room pigeonhole: first to a two-bedroom apartment, then to a brand-new three-bedroom apartment, the first home of their own. Before long, they had bought an apartment for my parents, and one for my sister's mother-in-law. After the siege in their old apartment, my sister was determined to find a new home and, despite the intimidating price and the demanding management fee, they bought the plush new villa.

Then suddenly it was all over: the company which they had helped build was no longer theirs. The new owner grabbed the keys from their hands and pushed them out. My brother-in-law was told he had two choices – take a menial job under the new Dutch owner, on a fraction of his salary, or move inland, to set up a new company for the Germans. He chose the latter. Although he only sees his family over the weekend, and the demanding job and the tiring early morning and late-night flying have painted more grey above his forehead, he seems content. Despite their achievements, he and my sister are just as humble, and just as determined as the young parents whose sweaty arms held a crying baby in that tiny room, twenty years ago.

BEFORE DRIVING ME to the airport, my sister puts a red envelope in my hand. I open it. Some green Australian banknotes slip out.

‘No, I can't,' I protest, pushing the envelope back.

‘Take it,' they urge.

‘I can't. You just bought this house, and...you need the money.'

‘No, we have no debts; you still have a mortgage, and you are all on your own,' my brother-in-law insists. ‘Don't worry about us – we can always move back to our old apartment.'

‘What about Chenchen? She needs money to study in America,' I say.

‘Don't you worry, by then we'll have saved enough for her. We won't need much ourselves,' he adds lightheartedly, trying to sound convincing. ‘You know the story – when people asked an American tycoon why, unlike his lavish son, he always stayed in moderate hotels, the old man replied: my father had no money, but his father does.'

Half convinced, I take the red pack hesitantly.

Waving goodbye at the new Beijing airport, I board the plane. The cabin is packed. Sitting among Chinese students, as the plane heads south towards summery Sydney, I watch a woman on the small screen in front of me announcing: ‘Wall Street tumbled again, despite another stimulus package from the Obama government.' Where will this lead us? I wonder.