Chapter 4: Hawker Career
"Really?" Yang Wendong's sleepiness disappeared immediately and he quickly got up from the wooden bed.
I saw half a mouse stuck in the front end of the bamboo tube placed in the corner, and its front head was already stuck inside the bamboo tube.
Su Yiyi smiled and said: "It seems that you slept too deeply last night and didn't hear the sound."
"Yes, let alone the sound of mice, it was just mosquito bites I, I don’t know either." Yang Wendong touched a few mosquito bites on his hands and stomach.
He was really sleepy last night, and he slept very hard in such a harsh environment. Mosquitoes and rats were nothing to worry about in the face of the difficult struggle to survive.
Su Yiyi picked up the bamboo tube and said, "This rat is quite big. Should I throw it away?"
"Well, I just need to find a pond to wash it to remove the smell of the rat. Get rid of it, otherwise you won’t be able to catch it next time,” Yang Wendong said.
The current water in Hong Kong is not as good as the water shortage crisis in a few years. Although drinkable water is relatively difficult to obtain, there are still some unclean reservoirs.
Su Yiyi nodded and said: "Okay."
At this moment, Guo Xiuyun also came to the door, happened to meet the two people who had just come out, and said: "Caught the mouse?"
"Well, this thing made by Brother Dong can really catch mice. , look, so fat." Su Yiyi raised the mouse trap and said with a smile.
Guo Xiuyun glanced at it and said, "Go and throw it farther away later, otherwise you will be discovered and someone may eat it."
"Yes." Su Yiyi nodded.
Yang Wendong didn't say anything. In fact, although the three of them lived a very difficult life, they still had some ability to survive. Not to mention how good it was, but they wouldn't starve often.
But there are still many people whose lives are much worse than them. Even if they don't starve to death, they are still living on the edge of life and death. These people don't care whether mice can eat them.
"Let's have breakfast, I bought some steamed buns." Guo Xiuyun still had a lot of things to do before getting up early in the morning to go to work, such as preparing breakfast for several people.
The steamed buns were very dry, so Yang Wendong drank some water and ate them with some pickles.
Actually, this breakfast is pretty good in the dormitory, because the three of them all need to work during the day. Otherwise, if they don’t work, they can basically only eat two meals a day, and it doesn’t cost much. There will be steamed buns.
After breakfast, Guo Xiuyun went to work again. Her job was also in a textile factory. Although it was also very hard, the income was still good.
Su Yiyi continues to embroider her own cloth. This job is unstable, but if the level is high, the income is not bad, and Su Yiyi's embroidery skills are naturally not bad.
In the early days, Yang Wendong worked hard at docks and warehouses and gained some income.
It is just that in any era, it is impossible to make a fortune by relying on hard-earned money. Being able to maintain food and clothing and having a dilapidated place to live was already very good in Hong Kong in 1958.
After a while, Zhao Liming also came over and knew that yesterday’s rat trap caught a big rat, so he asked: “Brother Dong, are we going to make this bamboo tube again today?”< br>
"Yes, anyway, we don't need people at the dock for the time being, so we won't go to the warehouse yet." Yang Wendong nodded.
Zhao Liming added: "Okay, today we will make some bamboo tubes and sell them tomorrow. I have told my father and he also supports our approach."
Yang Wendong said: "Well, that's good. , let’s try it for a few days first.”
After the two decided, they took action immediately, went to the back mountain together, brought back seven or eight bamboos as tall as one person, and started processing them in front of their home.
Because relatively speaking, the transportation of bamboo is much more convenient than the already formed mouse trap.
It wasn't until night that the two of them made 20 sets of mouse traps. However, except for 3 of them, the others were not assembled, because if they were assembled, they would take up too much space and were placed in bamboo baskets. ,inconvenient. "Okay, tomorrow, we will go to the east vegetable market to set up a stall." Yang Wendong looked at some results on the ground and said.
The east vegetable market is a vegetable market near them, about two or three miles away. People in the dormitory basically go there to buy food.
However, the main customers of this market are normal Hong Kong families with some spending power in the surrounding area. The spending power of these people may be ten times that of the squatters.
These Hong Kong citizens with normal residences are the customer group that Yang Wendong is interested in. They may be very concerned about whether there are annoying rats, mosquitoes and the like in the environment where they live, and they are willing to do it for them. Spend a little money on this.
The next morning, Yang Wendong got up early. It was not yet dawn, and he didn’t know what time it was. Anyway, he heard a rooster crow in the distance.
We walked with Zhao Liming to the East Cai Chang, where there were already a large number of people.
People who do business naturally have to get up early, and in ordinary families, one person has to get up early to buy groceries.
In Hong Kong today, the main source of vegetables and meat is still from the mainland. However, due to domestic traffic and transportation reasons, vegetables are often out of stock, which also leads to widespread price fluctuations. high.
"Let's go to a stall nearby." Yang Wendong found a tree on the side of the road and put the mousetrap with a dead mouse tied on it on the ground.
"What? Doesn't it count as setting up a stall?" Zhao Liming asked.
"Of course not. Who would buy a dead rat on the ground?" Yang Wendong said with a shrug.
Zhao Liming nodded and said, "That's right, then we'll call people here?"
"Well, almost." Yang Wendong nodded, and then stared at the passers-by walking around. , and finally locked on a middle-aged woman who was not well-dressed, walked up and said: "Miss, a cheap bamboo mouse trap can 100% catch mice in the house. Do you want to take a look?"
"Bamboo tube?" The middle-aged woman was in a good mood when she heard being called "Miss". She glanced at the bamboo tube in Yang Wendong's basket and asked, "Can this thing catch mice?"
"Yes, Miss. Look, the one on the ground is the one we caught. We just need to put some leftovers in the bamboo. This is the method used to catch mice in many places on the mainland," Yang Wendong explained with a smile.
The middle-aged woman said: "But I have a mouse trap at home."
"Miss, the mouse trap is good, but if you catch the mouse, you have to take the mouse out. Our bamboo tube is different. , you see, as soon as this side is loosened, the mouse will fall out." Yang Wendong demonstrated.
Human beings naturally hate mice, especially women. If they have a choice, no one would want to come into contact with mice or some bugs.
"It looks pretty good. How much does it cost?" the middle-aged woman asked.
Yang Wendong said: "5 cents each, very cheap."
"Well, it's cheap, but I still have to think about it." The middle-aged woman hesitated for a moment and left.
After she left, Zhao Liming complained: "I talked for a long time, but I didn't buy it. I thought it would be easy to sell it?"
"It's not that easy, even doing business It's very difficult." Yang Wendong didn't find it strange. Making money is difficult in any era.
At this moment, several young people holding cigarette butts came over, looked at Yang Wendong and Zhao Liming, and said, "Are you two new here?"
"Yes." Yang Wendong also roughly knew who the other party was, so he answered.
"Okay, you are free to do small business here, but you have to pay taxes and fees, 50 cents a day." said the young man holding a cigarette.
(End of this chapter)