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Go to a big city, or a small county? It is a problem that plagues the entire generation of the post-90s generation. Buying a house in a county town has a lower cost of living and is closer to home, and in many narratives, it is more suitable for young people to settle down. Aaron is a native of Yingshang County, Anhui Province, who has worked hard in the county seat for more than 10 years, and after trying various possibilities, he found that life in the county town is not easy.
Aaron chopped off his finger with a knife during a trip to the countryside.
It was less than a month before the New Year, and at the coldest time of winter, at 8 o'clock in the evening, after finishing the last table of the night, he threw down his spoon, lit a cigarette, and walked to the corner of the mat. The cold wind blowing from the country fields blew in his face, and he squinted, his whole body exhausted.
Winter is the peak season for making mats in the countryside of northern Anhui, there are more red and white happy events in the countryside, Aaron has been doing it for 28 consecutive days, people are in a bit of a trance, and their arms are shaking when cutting vegetables. But he calculated that there was almost no time to rest years ago, and there were still several rural wedding banquets waiting for him to go to Zhang Luo.
When the three or two tables under the table dispersed one after another, he struggled to get up, planning to chop the ribs again, and when he came tomorrow, he could directly get off the pot. A few light bulbs hanging from stakes were wobbly and flickering, and he stared at the ribs, picked up the heavy machete and swung it down, but chopped it on his thumb. The thumb was almost completely broken from the joint, only a little skin was attached, and the blood was whizzing on the board, and he could no longer feel the pain.
Aaron is 30 years old, after graduating from high school, he went to the city to earn a living, he has lived in the county for more than 10 years, during which time he married and had children. Yingshang County, Fuyang City, where the county seat is located, belongs to the Yellow Pan Area of the North China Plain, and the Huai River flows along the southern border of the county, twisting and turning, mud and sand, and Aaron's county life is spread out on this flat land.
Going to the countryside to make a mat is another drop in the life of the county young Aaron. On National Day last year, several of our classmates gathered in the county town, and because he was doing a banquet in the countryside, he rushed to come at ten o'clock in the evening. He hadn't seen him in two years, he was much older, his bright eyes dimmed, he spoke very little, and he showed a tired look.
He had to get up at four o'clock in the morning and hurry to the countryside, so he didn't drink a sip of wine, but just stared at the wine glass in front of him in a daze. A classmate who was very interested in making red and white seats asked, "How did you think of going to the countryside to make a table, but I haven't eaten a country seat for a long time." This sentence made the decadent Aaron have a voice.
"I went to the countryside with an uncle to do a banquet, and he has been doing this line for decades, and the red and white happy things in the eight townships of the neighborhood are looking for him to do. I followed the study, no matter the wind or rain, as soon as I had to work, I had to carry a cloth pocket, two machetes in the pocket, insert three or four long spoons, and run to the countryside..." He was mainly responsible for cutting vegetables and side dishes, and in two or three days he had to make dozens to hundreds of tables, and the kitchen knife always went up and down to cut non-stop. In his narration, some classmates showed complicated expressions.
Figure | A country dish for making a table
In the countryside of northern Anhui, most of the people who do red and white things are rural cooks, and few counties go to the countryside, let alone young people like Aaron. But Aaron also had no choice, for ten years, he had opened a clothing store, a breakfast shop, delivered couriers, and done logistics, all of which ended in failure.
Almost 5 years ago, with the support of his father, Aaron paid a down payment for a house in the county town and finally became a city person. Now the eldest daughter is 10 years old, attending primary school in the county, and the youngest daughter is 1 and a half years old. Money is used outside the home, and Aaron can only survive with extraordinary diligence. The development space of the county is limited, there are not many occupations that can be chosen, after the breakfast shop opened because of the epidemic closed, Aaron no longer has a way out, can only go to deliver takeaway, go to the countryside to do seats.
Like a broken finger, Aaron County's life is intermittent, and it is impossible to settle down after all. After rushing to the hospital to stitch up his thumb, Aaron was unable to work, and during the best season of making money at the table, he had to stay at home to recuperate.
The county seat in China is the end of the countryside, the beginning of the city. The county seats on the hub nodes have extremely limited resources and space. As a result, the young people of the county rarely talk about chance and luck, but in order to live, they cannot but do their best to hit the low ceiling overhead.
When he was 18 years old, when his classmates were sprinting for the college entrance examination, he returned to town to help his parents do the cotton business. At that time, he will have to be on his own, and he will have to do things in a stormy manner, and he must do the quality inspection, negotiate the price, unload the goods, settle the accounts, and give money. For every 20,000 catties of cotton he collected, he would hire a large truck and follow the car to Heze, Shandong Province, to sell. The buyer did not pay the final payment, he stayed in a small hotel for four days, and solved the problem by squatting with the boss.
Reading or not dividing the road of young people in the county into two, reading and going to college, the county town is a starting point, Aaron does not read, the county town is all he has. After marrying early, Aaron's children were born the next year, and the pressure of life became greater. He and his wife decided to move from the town into the county seat.
Aaron has three middle school classmates, one runs a restaurant in the county, one runs a small Internet café in the town, and one inherits the family's wedding photography shop. Internet cafes and photo shops are on the verge of closure because Internet cafes are gradually replacing Internet cafes, and big photo studios are eliminating street wedding photography shops.
The path for ordinary youth development in the county is really limited. Without enough money, Aaron can only do a relatively low-end business, and he and his wife decided to open a cheap women's clothing store in the county.
The women's clothing store is located near a middle school in the county, which is considered to be a downtown area and the flow of people is endless. The storefront shops on both sides are selling clothes, the consumption of small counties is low, there are no big brands on this street, basically they are franchise stores, and the clothes sold are also miscellaneous brands, dozens of dollars a piece, or even a hundred dollars can buy three pieces.
Opening a shop, decoration is a big thing, during that time Aaron and his wife were very active, running from the town to the county every day, carefully studying the decoration style, personally selecting decoration materials, and supervising the construction of workers. More than a month later, a clean and bright storefront was completed, and although it didn't look much different from the clothing store next to it, Aaron was full of joy and dreamed that the store could earn the first pot of gold in his life.
The second time I entered the main store, there was a problem, not only was it out of stock, but the price also doubled. After half a year, fewer and fewer people came to the store to shop, coupled with the high cost of purchase, the price exceeded the consumption level of people in the county, and no one bought. Eventually closed the door.
Entering the county town for the second time to start a business, Aaron threw two junior high school classmates to open a logistics station. At that time, it was 2015, the logistics and express delivery industry in the county and town mushroomed, Aaron aimed at this direction, persuaded the classmates Ah Yan and Ah Fu, joined a newly opened logistics company in the city, and set up a logistics sub-station in the county.
Like Along, Ah Yan and Ah Fu are also young people who have been making a living in the county seat. Among the three people, Ah Yan has the highest education, graduated from college, majored in coal mining, and worked in a coal mine in the county after graduation. In those years, as the price of coal fell, the mine became more and more depressed, and his monthly salary dropped from eight thousand to three or four thousand, but the number of times he went to the mine did not decrease. Marriage followed by the birth of a child, a sense of family responsibility made him afraid of the mine, afraid of accidents, he resigned and returned to the town to help his parents maintain the family's wedding photography shop, the business is getting bleaker, there is no way to retreat, he can only choose to go to the county town to develop.
After graduating from high school, Ah Fu has been wandering in the county town, doing decoration, installing air conditioning, selling houses, like a diligent "pig" chasing every outlet.
The warehouse of the logistics station is rented in the farmer's market, and the house of more than ten square meters is five or six meters high, and there is no place to stand after unloading. The big truck drove from the city at seven or eight o'clock every night, and the three of them threw off their shirts, unloaded the goods bare-chested, and climbed up and down on the truck. The goods are basically large pieces, steel, bed plates, barrels of paint, etc., each of which weighs dozens of kilograms. Unloading for more than an hour, their pants were soaking wet.
Figure | Aaron several people are unloading
The day after unloading, Aaron rode an electric tricycle carrying Ah Yan and Ah Fu through the towering chengbei development zone, delivering the goods to the customer's home one by one. At this time, Yingshang County is about to open the high-speed railway, and the house price has been rising, with an average price of five or six thousand, and the highest reaches more than 10,000. Dry logistics station, Aaron They have no basic salary, a piece of goods earn one or two dollars, every month to the end of the account, the three bosses can only earn one or two thousand yuan.
Within three months, Ah Fu took the lead in leaving the area. Aaron understands Ah Fu's hard-working personality of only three days, and tells him that the headquarters will soon set up a basic salary plus commission system for them, and pay five social insurances and one gold. Ah Fu did not believe this set, did not come to work and did not return the news, never contacted Ah Long again, and continued to mix in other industries in the county.
The next year, Aaron bought a house in the county, but the down payment of more than 100,000 yuan was given by his father, and the decoration money had to be earned by himself. Soon after, Ah Yan also began to waver, often borrowing the reason for the lumbar muscle strain to not work. Aaron's insistence has not changed anything, he can only earn one or two thousand a month, and the basic salary and five insurances and one gold promised by the headquarters have never been fulfilled.
Figure | A corner of the county seat
The county logistics market is so large, there are several large companies stationed here, it is difficult for new companies to have big development. The site ended hastily, and Ah Yan couldn't wait to return to the coal mine to work, preferring to go to the mine more, and the salary would at least be more real.
Aaron's attempt to settle down in the county seat was once again interrupted.
Life divides the young people in the county into two waves, one is the ordinary youth who are mostly not studying, and the other is a teacher or civil servant in the county. This distinction is most obvious in the circle of friends, where young people with preparations will bask in daily life, which is some photos of bathing, playing ball, and traveling. And Aaron almost does not send a circle of friends once a year, and real life is enough for him to cope.
After the delivery of the house in the county, in order to make up the decoration money, Aaron set out 70,000 or 80,000 yuan from credit cards and some lending platforms, carrying high interest every month. In order to make more money, he began to deliver express delivery at a courier station, earning four or five thousand yuan a month, paying off all kinds of arrears, barely enough for a family to live.
In the county, the express stations are concentrated on one street, there are more than twenty, Aaron sent a courier can earn four yuan, and pay social security. Just when he thought that this job could be done for a few years, the next year, several sites fought a price war in order to compete for customers, and the price was lower and lower, and before he could resign, the store manager announced that the site was closed.
Figure | Aaron was busy at the courier station
The development space of the county always has a ceiling, and every time Aaron tries to jump up, he is always intercepted and dropped. The fate of countless young people floats in the small waters of the county seat. Fortunately, Aaron is always optimistic and has a heart that wants to live a good life. The courier couldn't work, and Aaron began to think about opening a breakfast restaurant.
With the experience of previous failed stores, Aaron prepared the breakfast shop. He never cooked before, went to the city to learn cooking for half a month, and when he returned, he practiced at home for about ten days. According to the taste of the people in the county, he was ready to make vegetable steamed buns, how much oil and salt to put in a pot of vegetable steamed buns, and what ingredients to match, he kept trying until he and his wife were satisfied before they officially opened.
The breakfast restaurant needs to be diligent, and at three or four o'clock, you have to get up and make noodles and boil porridge, and wait until the first rays of the sun shine in at dawn before the guests enter the store one after another. At work, Aaron and his wife wear white uniforms, hats and transparent plastic masks, a hygiene guarantee rarely seen in small restaurants in the county. Aaron summed up a set of word-of-mouth business experience: green vegetables only buy the freshest in the morning, salad dressing, tomato sauce are big brands, others buy a bucket of hot sauce for dozens of dollars, he buys one or two hundred.
The county people, who have a slow pace of life, usually pay great attention to the quality of breakfast, and the restaurant with good taste can quickly spread word of mouth. Business gradually improved, nearby vegetable sellers, construction site people came to eat, and some people from the south of the city specially drove over, did not say a word, after eating napkins to wipe their mouths and leave. Under the management of mr. and mrs. Aaron, the monthly profit of the restaurant exceeds 10,000 yuan, which is a high income in the county where the per capita salary is only about 2,000.
The momentum was interrupted in early 2020, when his breakfast shop was closed for three months after the outbreak. At the same time, his wife became pregnant with her second child during this period. After the epidemic eased, restaurants reopened, but business was not as good as before. As his wife's due date approached, Aaron realized that the store could not be busy on his own, so he had to transfer the store.
The breakfast restaurant is the highlight of the life of the county's young Aaron. After closing the store, life returned to a state of uncertainty.
Unemployed, mortgaged, and then the second child to raise, Aaron not only had to run to the countryside to make a table, but also delivered takeaways in the city. He has half the time to make a table every month, half the time to deliver takeaways, 12 hours a day, and can deliver fifty or sixty orders. If you send enough 700 orders a month, each order is 5 yuan, and if you can't reach it, it will only be three or four yuan per order.
Like a tireless horse, Aaron rushed on the roads of the township and county, not daring to have time to breathe. "In the past, I still had the heart to go to KTV with my friends to sing, but now I don't want to go at all, and when I am idle, my heart is like an ant crawling." Working two jobs, making a mat and delivering takeaways, he can maintain the family's county life.
On the night Aaron cut off his finger, his uncle saw his broken finger and cried out in fright. The car rushing to the hospital sped down the country road, Aaron desperately clutching his severed finger, blood constantly oozing out, dripping on his pants, on his seat, on the gear plate. For more than an hour, he even slept because he was too tired to work for 28 days in a row.
Months passed, and Aaron was still at home nursing his wounds, unable to do anything, with gauze wrapped around his fingers and his arms dangling from bandages around his neck. Occasionally, he took his one-year-old daughter to play in the small park downstairs, and the children in the neighborhood went on a rampage, and he catned to the waist, holding the hanging arm in his arms, and the other arm in front of the toddler daughter.
- END -
Written by | Wu Xun
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