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.“It was reproduced in so many places in the fifties and sixties!”Our bus lurched unsteadily toward the Wenzhou terminal; the vehicle was packed with people shouting into cell phones.But Jin Yang’s smile was as steady as the plastic mole that clung to his chin.It was the same benevolent gaze that he had maintained throughout the flight, as if in fact he was still the leader of the nation, and not a passenger stuck in the middle seat on the early-morning special to Wenzhou.I kept trying to figure out his background; I studied the business card and asked about his position with the “Beijing Strong and Prosperous International Martial Arts Cultural Development Company.” “Do you participate in martial arts?” I asked, and he smiled serenely and said, “Yes, I do.And Chairman Mao always emphasized the importance of physical activity! Did you know that he made a famous swim across the Yangtze River?” He told me again that he came from Changsha.He remarked that Edgar Snow’s book had first introduced the Chairman to the West.With every secondhand anecdote, the smile seemed creepier, until at last I abandoned the conversation.Was this man completely insane? Did he really believe he was Mao Zedong?At the terminal I picked up my bag.Before leaving the airport, I stopped to use the men’s bathroom.It was empty except for Mao Zedong.He stood at the first urinal, and I heard him speak softly, as if to himself.“Meiguo jizhe, Meiguo jizhe,” he said.“American journalist, American journalist.” I decided to occupy the urinal that was farthest from Chairman Mao.As quickly as possible, I went about my business, zipped up, and left without a word.He still wore the same benevolent smile, standing alone in the bathroom, muttering happily to himself.AT THE BRA RING factory, the summer malaise ran through August, and then it finally ended with the appearance of deep coffee.In September, a new customer ordered over one hundred thousand rings, all of them dyed the same color.After months of inactivity, Little Long was suddenly busy; his laboratory was full of test tubes containing a shade of dark brown.In his color book it was identified as “deep coffee.” The new customer was a bra assembly plant in southern Zhejiang, although Little Long and Master Luo didn’t know much about the company.The bosses usually gave employees few details about customers, for fear that they would jump to another job with information about potential buyers.In this case, the bosses told Master Luo only that the new customer was involved in export, which meant that the rings needed to be of the highest quality.As for the final destination, Master Luo didn’t know—it must have been some country with an appetite for brown underwear.That same month, another new customer made a major order, and now the whole factory began to move.For the first time since spring, two metal punch presses were in operation, and the Machine rumbled eight hours a day.The Taos returned en masse: both sisters, the father, and a cousin were called in to work on a daily basis.The factory rehired a few of the assembly-line women who had been laid off, and Boss Wang told me that September was the first month in which income exceeded expenses.Eleven months had passed since they first designed the plant, and they were still a long way from recouping their investment, but finally the business was profitable.Over the summer, the factory dormitory had acquired its youngest resident.Boss Wang’s wife and two-year-old son often lived in the building for weeks at a time, and now the place also became home to Master Luo’s newborn baby.Before the child was even two months old, his mother, whose name was Cheng Youqin, had taken him across China, traveling more than twenty hours by bus.In the dormitory the family lived together in an unfinished room on the third floor.They had a simple wooden bed, a hot plate, a few cooking utensils, and a cardboard box where they stored their clothes.Apart from that they had almost no possessions.Cheng told me proudly that the baby could already sleep through the sound of the machinery.On the fiftieth day after the birth, I invited the family out to dinner.In China, people often mark such days, with a baby’s hundredth being particularly important.We met in the dormitory; Master Luo was smoking a Profitable Crowd cigarette while he changed his son’s clothes.The baby’s head had been shaved recently, because of the heat in the factory, and he had his mother’s pretty eyes.Fat cheeks, full lips, a nose that could have come from Buttontown: this was a good-looking child.Master Luo put him in my arms.“How’s his big brother doing?” I asked.I assumed the older child was still in the village, being cared for by grandparents or other relatives.But the moment I asked the question, Master Luo’s face fell, and his wife gave him an uncomfortable look.“There’s something I should tell you,” Master Luo said slowly.“This is actually our first child.When Boss Wang and Boss Gao hired me, I told them I already had a son so I could ask for a higher salary [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]