Read Online Miss Chopsticks by Xinran - Free Book Online Page A

them a huge profit, she would donate it to children in the countryside. After all, a city person would hardly bother to pick up a five-fen coin if they saw it in the street, but it could make a huge difference to a peasant child. Guan Buyan thought that this was a good idea, so he begged an old-fashioned metal biscuit tin from his father, and stuck a slip of paper to it which read: ‘We respectfully ask you to contribute your five-fen change to help poor children who have not been to school. We will report back to you on their progress. Thank you.’
    It was this tin that had caused a hitch on their opening day. On the advice of his elder brother, Guan Buyan had invited thirty party officials for a meal in the restaurant in order to ensure that they would regard his business venture favourably in future. Since the Happy Fool was so tiny, it was of negligible interest to these officials, most of them simply stayed long enough to say a few polite words and pick up the two bottles of spirits that Guan Buyan was offering as a gift. However, one man from the local administration offices took more of a look round. His eyes immediately fell on the five-fen biscuit tin with its request for contributions.
    â€˜Don’t you know that only registered religiousorganisations are allowed to make collections for charity,’ he asked sternly.
    Wang Tong’s heart flew into her mouth. ‘But hasn’t the government called for citizens to help “eradicate poverty”?’ she asked in a nervous voice, looking over at her husband.
    The official wasn’t to be swayed. ‘The Government has asked for contributions of clothing and money for poor people,’ he said even more fiercely, ‘not for you to collect other people’s cash!’
    â€˜This isn’t …’
    Guan Buyan restrained his wife. ‘This Leader is right,’ he said. ‘When the business is up and running, we can send money to the countryside ourselves.’
    â€˜Quite correct, you can’t break the law, not even in a good cause,’ said the official, and took an extra bottle of spirits with him when he left.
    That was the end of the five-fen collection tin, but Guan Buyan’s wife continued to collect the extra fen each week, and to put them into a special account. She had wanted to find a way to help people in the countryside ever since she had visited the village where her elder sister, Ling, had spent the Cultural Revolution. Because city families had been allowed to keep one of their children with them provided they sent the others to the countryside, Wang Tong had had a very different experience of the Cultural Revolution from her sister. However, she couldn’t forget Ling’s stories of how the inhabitants of Guanyun, a village in the north of Jiangsu Province, was so poor that even a postage stamp was considered a great luxury. Ling had talked of how the local postman had befriended the young city people, who had no way of communicating with their parents except by letter. He showed them how to steam open letters from their parents, place a new one inside, then return the original envelope to the sender, so that they didn’t need to buy the stamps they couldn’t afford. She spoke of how this man had, in a way, saved the lives ofmany of them who, without the comfort of communication with the outside world, might have taken their lives.
    Wang Tong had found her sister’s accounts of village life, with its starvation diet of sweet potatoes barely credible. After all, she had never read such things in the newspapers. Determined to see the village with her own eyes, she persuaded her sister to return to Guanyun, a few years after the Cultural Revolution had ended, to show her where she had lived. Wang Tong was horrified by what she saw. There was a girl of fifteen with no trousers to wear even though the autumn winds had begun to blow, and children wailing for a small piece of sweet