Chapter 22 Snow-white rice tempts you
Kuanjie Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital was renovated from the Royal Palace.
In the early days of liberation, in order to accommodate doctors who came to support from all over the country, the government deliberately used several large houses next to Kuanjie Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital as staff dormitories.
For example, Lin Sophora flavescens was allocated three main rooms in the east courtyard of Gege Mansion. This condition was definitely a great deal.
For deans like Shen Guomin, who have reached the main hall level, their housing is even more preferential, occupying all 3 main rooms and 2 side rooms in the main courtyard.
Because his home is right next to his work, and it only takes 5 minutes to walk through the back door, Dean Shen always goes home for lunch after get off work.
There was nothing I could do about it, the food in the hospital cafeteria was so bad. Every day there were just cereals and radish, which made me lose my appetite.
Dean Shen is from the south. Southerners like to eat rice and are not used to the millet porridge, stick noodles and steamed buns from the north.
Before 1959, the country was not that difficult, and Shen Guomin's family could get some rice every month.
The Shen family will also replace the whole grains, flour and the like they receive with rice, which is enough for the whole family, and occasionally eat some pasta for a change.
However, as natural disasters become more and more serious, food supply can no longer be described as tense. It feels like the supply will be cut off at any time.
Fine grains are no longer available. When I go to the grain store every month, I can only buy sweet potato and sweet potato stick noodles. Rice and flour have not been seen for a long time.
Dean Shen's family is in the same predicament as the Lin family. They want to eat rice and rice porridge so much that they go crazy.
Of course, there is also a black market in this era. The tighter the food supply, the more prosperous the black market actually is.
But the price of food on the black market is too high.
In 1959, the retail price at the grain station was 1.8 cents per kilogram of refined flour and 2 cents per kilogram of rice (both required with a ticket)
But in the black market, the price is multiplied by 20 times, that is, rice and flour start at 4 yuan or 5 yuan per pound, and there is no market at all.
(Online data, in 1961, the black market price of 1 catty of Beijing food stamps was 3 yuan, 1 catty of national food stamps was 4 yuan, and 1 catty of BJ stamps was 5 yuan. This price does not include food money. Of course this is Abnormal prices in three years of special times)
But an ordinary worker's monthly salary is only more than 30 yuan, and a ninth-level fitter like Yi Zhonghai only earns 99 yuan.
Lin Sophorae enjoys a director-level salary of 159 yuan, while a monthly salary for a director like Dean Shen Guomin is 201 yuan, which is already the 11th administrative level.
If you think about it this way, not many people can really afford the rice on the black market?
Of course, there are also rich people, such as Manchu elders, private bosses of public-private partnerships, and speculators who still have money in their hands.
But someone like Shen Guomin, who has loved D education for many years and has a certain level of cadres himself, will not go to the black market easily. If he is caught in the black market, his future will be completely ruined.
Therefore, Dean Shen's family, like thousands of other families, lived a miserable life.
When Dean Shen returned home, his wife had already prepared lunch, including a few corn buns and fried wild vegetables. The wild vegetables were obviously very oily and had obviously been filled with a lot of oil.
This makes Dean Shen very distressed:
"Ah, how much oil has been poured into this? There is no need to waste it on me."
Wang Huiqin took another plate of pickled cucumbers from the kitchen and complained:
"Eat something. If you don't eat this old bone, you won't be able to stop it. You are still a doctor. Don't you know that stomach pain requires nourishment? Nourishing the stomach is the most important thing. Now that the white rice porridge is gone, there will be no more. If you add oil and water, your stomach will become as thin as white paper.”
Dean Shen sighed softly and picked up the oily wild vegetables, feeling quite sad in his heart.
He thought that the Shen family was still a wealthy family in Gusu back then. He himself had been well-clothed and well-fed since he was a child, and he had never been in debt for food or clothing. As a result, I am so old that I can’t even eat a bowl of rice, which makes me sad just thinking about it:
"Oh, there's nothing we can do. God is going to be against us. It's either drought or floods. There has been no peace since last year, and we don't know when it will end."
If Lin Sanqi were at the scene, he would definitely tell Dean Shen: This year has just begun, and there are still two years to come.
At this time, Wang Huiqin said softly: "Hey, there are a lot of large and small yellow croakers buried under our bed. Why don't we take some and exchange them for food on the black market?"
Dean Shen refused without thinking:
"Forget it, the black market is too dangerous. Be careful of people taking advantage of others. Besides, who are you going to change? You going? Me going? Let our son go? It's not appropriate for anyone to go."
The old couple looked at each other in silence and began to eat their lunch which was only enough to fill their stomachs.
At this time, the open door suddenly went dark, and a young man carrying a sack and covering his face broke in from the outside.
As soon as the young man entered the house, he put down the sack and closed the door with a bang.
Shen Guomin and Wang Huiqin were so frightened that their nests fell to the ground. They thought someone would dare to break in and rob them in broad daylight?
"Who are you and what are you going to do!"
Lin Sanqi quickly took off the towel covering her head and face, then said with a smile:
"Dean Shen, it's me, Lin Sanqi, we met this morning."
"Lin Sanqi? I asked you, what do you want to do in broad daylight? I don't know if people scare people to death."
When Dean Shen heard that it was a boy from the Lin family, he let down his guard, but he felt a little unhappy because he felt that this young man was too reckless.
Lin Sanqi didn’t take it seriously. She had already calculated it in her heart. No southerner could resist the temptation of rice:
"Dean Shen, please keep your voice down. I'm here to bring welfare. Do you want rice?"
“Rice???!!!”
The screams of Shen Guomin and Wang Huiqin were almost broken.
"Yes, rice, fragrant rice, white-flowered rice, definitely first-class rice, look, look!"
Lin Sanqi was like the big bad wolf tempting Little Red Riding Hood. He opened the bag at once, revealing a bag full of rice. He grabbed it with his hands, and then slid it down between his fingers like a waterfall.
Dean Shen stepped forward quickly, picked up the rice with trembling hands, waited until all the rice fell, and then picked it up again.
"Rice, it's really rice. This is the best late rice. Wow, Lin Sanqi, where did you get it?"
After the excitement, Dean Shen still retained a glimmer of reason and vigilance. With so many rare fine grains suddenly appearing these days, it is absolutely impossible to come from a regular source.
Lin Sanqi decided to make up a story:
"Dean Shen, you don't know. During the 10 years that I was homeless, I was entirely supported by my brothers and sisters in the black market, so I have a very close relationship with them. No, I also got these grains from them.
I know that Dean Shen, like our Lin family, is from the south and is not used to the staple food of the north. No, I can go to work in the traditional Chinese medicine hospital immediately under the care of you, Director Shen. I am still a regular worker. I just want to get some food to thank you. ”
After hearing this, Shen Guomin shook his head: "I can't harvest this grain..."
(End of chapter)