People in Yang City love having morning tea.
In earlier years, elderly people would bring their birdcages, drink tea, and enjoy dim sum while showing off their beloved birds. Though there aren’t many bird keepers nowadays, the tradition of morning tea persists. Young people rarely have morning tea on workdays, which made Xia Xiaolan stand out as she ordered several famous dim sum dishes for Liu Fen to try.
In all her years, Liu Fen had never dined in a restaurant.
Even when she married Xia Dajun, they didn’t have a wedding banquet. She remembered it was 1963 when her family was struggling to make ends meet. Her brother Liu Yong worried about supporting his two sisters and asked a matchmaker to find Liu Fen a husband. The matchmaker said the Xia family had three sons, all strong laborers, and Liu Fen would have enough to eat if she married into their family.
Back then, the fields were collectively owned, and everyone had to work daily to earn work points. The Xia family’s eldest son was already married, and with five strong laborers, their lives were supposedly better than others. However, Liu Fen remembered clearly that having “enough to eat” merely meant noodles for the first two days after marriage, followed by noodle soup and sweet potato porridge on the third day.
Marriage meant moving from Qijing Village to Dahe Village.
When Xia Xiaolan was born a girl, Grandmother Xia was dissatisfied, Xia Dajun was disappointed, and no one wanted to celebrate her full month.
During the postpartum period, Liu Yong somehow managed to get a chicken and brought it over. Liu Fen only got two chicken wings, and to this day, she still doesn’t know who ate the rest. In the Xia family, she never had a proper meal. Old Mrs. Xia managed the household and wouldn’t give any good food to a daughter-in-law who couldn’t bear a son.
Ironically, Liu Fen’s most complete and sumptuous meal was when she divorced Xia Dajun. Liu Yong was overjoyed and invited several tables of villagers for a feast… Liu Fen still clearly remembers which dishes Li Fengmei prepared. But that was still a village banquet. Today’s dim sum restaurant made Liu Fen feel uncomfortable.
The noodle soup she had in Anqing County and the donkey meat soup in Shangdu were all from small shops and stalls.
The restaurant Xia Xiaolan brought her to was too grand, and Liu Fen feared being laughed at… She was grateful she wore the new clothes Xia Xiaolan bought her last night; otherwise, she would have embarrassed Xiaolan today.
The exquisite dim sum quickly filled the table.
“Mom, try these crab roe buns.”
“Black bean sauce spareribs.”
Xia Xiaolan slowly introduced each dish: fresh beef congee, crystal shrimp dumplings, fried spring rolls, char siu bao, egg tarts, honeycomb tripe… accompanied by a pot of Tieguanyin tea. Being able to order so much for two people in 1983 was truly extravagant.
Two old men nearby muttered about having money, speaking in Yang City dialect that Liu Fen couldn’t understand. Xia Xiaolan responded candidly:
“I’m treating my mother to something special.”
Yang City locals don’t like speaking Mandarin; those who do are outsiders, and outsiders are poor.
But Xia Xiaolan, an outsider, showed her wealth with dignity, leaving the two old men speechless. She wasn’t showing off but displaying filial piety. Their children and grandchildren might not spend so much money on their elders.
“It’s too much, too much…”
These were the words Liu Fen repeated most often.
Xia Xiaolan, experienced in handling her mother, simply said the food was already served and wouldn’t be refunded if left uneaten. With a full table, Liu Fen fell silent. People nowadays have bigger appetites, and nothing goes to waste. It’s just that most people can’t afford it economically, usually ordering just a pot of tea with two dim sum items to chat for two or three hours.
Xia Xiaolan was here simply to treat her mother to good food, not for idle chat.
Was it delicious?
Of course, it was.
The ingredients were substantial, and she had chosen a well-established restaurant where every dim sum item exceeded standards. In later years, when some old establishments became chain restaurants with massive daily customer flow, Xia Xiaolan would find the dim sum rather ordinary.
But now, before the waves of time changed things, she could enjoy this several more times and had to seize the moment.
Though Liu Fen couldn’t understand the Yang City dialect or what nearby diners were whispering about, she could sense their envy. What were they envying? The fact that she had such a good daughter. Once Liu Fen realized this, everything seemed to taste even better.
She pushed the spareribs toward Xia Xiaolan:
“Xiaolan, you eat too.”
She didn’t know how much effort went into making crab roe buns and egg tarts, believing meat was the best thing, so she saved the spare ribs for Xia Xiaolan.
Xia Xiaolan accepted her mother’s goodwill without explanation.
While the mother and daughter were enjoying their meal, the restaurant had some private rooms separated by carved windows and doors.
Two middle-aged men sat there, with only two or three dim sum dishes on their table, yet they occupied a high-class private room. Noticing his companion looking at the mother and daughter in the main hall, one man sighed:
“The number of outsiders in Yang City has been increasing these past two years.”
The bespectacled middle-aged man nodded, “Yang City’s prosperity is incomparable to inland cities. With Peng City Special Zone’s guidance, the gap between Yang City and inland cities will only grow larger. Within a few years, inland residents will flock here.”
“You’re quite optimistic about Peng City Special Zone?”
Currently, Peng City Special Zone is still under construction, far behind Yang City with its deep cultural heritage. It had originally been a spontaneously formed marketplace – even as a special zone, could it surpass Yang City?
Yang City was filled with high-rises, comparable to Jing City and Hu City.
Could Peng City Special Zone surpass Yang City?
The bespectacled man didn’t argue with his companion. Like that girl having dim sum outside, he had met her on the train before, though he forgot which village in South Yu Province she was from. Back then, she hadn’t been so wealthy, but in just a short month, it seemed she had struck her first pot of gold in Yang City.
More inland people like her would come seeking fortune.
The Special Zone’s construction would require massive labor force participation. How to manage the influx of outsiders? From “Beizijiao” on the shores of Dapeng Bay in the east to “Anlecun” by the Zhenzhu River estuary in the west, could the 86-kilometer “Second Line” project truly prevent capitalist elements from infiltrating inland?
Last April, construction began on the 2.8-meter-high wire fence and was still ongoing.
Could a wire fence prevent capitalist infiltration?
People’s natural yearning for a better life couldn’t be blocked by a wire fence. Cordoning off Peng City Special Zone might prove futile.
The middle-aged man had no interest in catching up with Xia Xiaolan.
Taking time to enjoy morning tea during his busy schedule, his life path would likely never intersect again with country girls like Xia Xiaolan, despite their fateful sharing of the same train, same sleeper car, and now this chance meeting at a Yang City restaurant… It didn’t mean he needed to associate with Xia Xiaolan.
Oh, he remembered she was quite clever.
Not just clever, but quite filial too.
As for Liu Fen, he merely glanced over her – just another ordinary rural woman of the times.
Xia Xiaolan didn’t know she had crossed paths with the middle-aged man from the train.
She took Liu Fen around Yang City for the day, not just staying near the train station. Yang City was more economically developed than Shangdu, including the newly completed Yang City White Swan Hotel, also called “32 Floors,” located on Shamian Island, adjacent to the White Goose Pool where three rivers converged… Liu Fen had never seen a 32-story building before.
Xia Xiaolan said in a couple of years, they’d come back to Yang City, and if conditions allowed, she’d take Liu Fen to stay at the White Swan Hotel, overlooking the three rivers and their beautiful scenery.
Liu Fen silently chanted “Amitabha” – how could she enjoy such luxuries? She didn’t dare to even think about it.
In the afternoon, Xia Xiaolan returned to the wholesale stall as agreed, and the vendor had indeed gotten the cotton clothes – handling them much more gently compared to how he pulled other clothes from the snakeskin bags.
These cotton clothes surprised Xia Xiaolan: “Cold weather gear?!”