Chapter 11: The Changing Times

“Xiyu, do you know…”

The elders reacted quite differently. Her aunt frowned and asked, “What did that reporter mean by saying the old city district would be demolished?”

“I don’t know.”

Lin Xiyu paused, her eyes filled with apology. “I only heard her mention it in passing. I didn’t ask for details.”

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” her uncle said, his expression grave. “If our family’s house is really going to be torn down, things won’t look good for us. When they demolished houses on Seventh Avenue, it made a big difference whether you lived in public housing or not…”

Clatter.

Her aunt, startled, dropped her bowl and chopsticks to the floor.

——

Lin Xiyu’s great-grandfather—her maternal grandfather’s father—was a craftsman whose ancestral home was in Shanxi. During the late Qing dynasty, the old man left Shanxi for Jinan to seek his fortune. After he’d found his footing, he brought Xiyu’s grandfather there as well.

The old man was obsessed with the idea of returning to his roots, always dreaming of going back to his hometown in Shanxi. So despite working for many years, he never bought a house of his own.

After the founding of the new China, during the Korean War, he was seized by a surge of patriotic fervor and donated all his lifelong savings to the cause.

——

Not long after giving away all his possessions, the old man suffered a stroke and died almost instantly, never having set foot in his hometown again.

Grandfather borrowed money from all sides to arrange the funeral, ending up deeply in debt. From then on, the family’s fortunes declined sharply, and they lived in hardship.

——

Grandmother’s family had always lived in rented public housing. In 1958, during the Great Leap Forward, every household was required to hand in their metalware for the mass steel production campaign.

Without even kitchen knives at home, people found it hard to prepare meals. So the residents’ committee converted their original home at 11 Pangong Street into a communal canteen, and the families living there were relocated.

It was at that time that Grandmother’s family, along with the Zhangs and the Wangs, moved together to 9 Donghua Street.

They lived there from 1958 until now—over thirty years.

Through more than thirty years of changing times and shifting fortunes, many things happened. There were also considerable disputes among neighbors.

The most serious conflict erupted in 1984.

The state issued a new policy: all previously confiscated private properties owned by overseas Chinese would be returned to their families.

Old Mr. Huang’s family were overseas Chinese. The compound at 9 Donghua Street was their private property.

Once the policy came out, Mr. Huang’s son, who lived abroad, decided to evict the three other families and sell the old house to a businessman from the south who was doing business in Jinan.

The old city was just a small patch of land within the moat, crowded with people but short on housing.

——

The residents’ committee couldn’t solve the housing shortage. The three families had nowhere to go and refused to move.

So for the sake of a home, they nearly came to blows.

Mr. Huang’s son instructed his brother-in-law in China to hire a few local thugs who showed up in the courtyard, smashing things and trying to force the three families out.

At that time, Lin Xiyu’s biological father was still alive. With the help of his old army comrades, he taught those ruffians a lesson they would never forget.

The brother-in-law, thoroughly frightened, gave up and never showed his face in the courtyard again.

The incident caused quite a stir. Mr. Huang’s family weren’t the only overseas Chinese in the area, and similar disputes erupted in other compounds. The quarrels dragged on for a long time.

Eventually, the residents’ committee had to step in and mediate. Out of consideration for years of neighborly ties, Mr. Huang agreed to let the three families continue living there, changing their status from public tenants to private tenants. The rent jumped from five yuan a month to thirty.

——

Crash.

The porcelain bowl shattered on the floor, the sudden sound striking a chord in everyone’s heart.

Grandmother’s legs gave way. She staggered back two steps and sank onto the bed.