Working Hard to Pay Off the Wedding Debt

For the first three days our newlywed room was borrowed quarters on the unit—somewhat larger. Our real bridal room was tiny, only about two ping; parlour, kitchen, and landlord were shared.

On the second morning after the wedding, my husband’s classmates Mr Zhang and Mr Tao came to the room to tell me that that evening they still had to host a supplementary banquet for those on duty yesterday who could not attend the wedding feast—two more tables were needed.

They were short of money and wanted my help. I told them I had only one ring; I owned nothing else. The watch and gold chain were lent by Mrs Wang and Mrs Luo to save face, because a bride with nothing on her looks bad and people would ask—they had no choice but to borrow. This ring was the only engagement gift my husband gave me; there was no choice—I took off the ring and gave it to Mr Tao to meet the immediate difficulty.

Early on the third morning I packed simple luggage, took a set of mess tins the unit canteen gave us (two bowls, two pairs of chopsticks, several iron plates), and moved to a private house near the water police station to begin our new life.

The landlord’s family was four: an old couple, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson.

The grandson was a primary-school pupil; the son had another household elsewhere. The landlords originally had only two five-candle bulbs; my husband found them too dim and replaced them with two forty-candle bulbs. Rent plus electricity came to ten yuan a month altogether. The landlords were kind; living with them was cheerful. The morning after we moved, the wife of our introducer (my husband’s colleague Mr Huang) came to tell me: ‘Your husband went over budget for this wedding and borrowed three hundred yuan from Foreman Chen, agreeing to repay on the third day after the wedding. Today is already the fourth day with no word, so he sent me to ask what you plan to do.’ After I heard this my heart ached; I held back tears and asked her to tell Foreman Chen whether he could allow a few months—I would find a way to repay. Three hundred yuan was no small sum. When my husband came home from work I asked: ‘How did we owe so much?’ Embarrassed, he said: ‘Why did he have to tell you? I meant to borrow from classmates first and repay slowly myself.’ I asked: ‘You only earn one hundred and twenty yuan a month—after ten yuan rent and living costs, how much is left to repay?’ From then on I resolved to find work and help clear the debt. I asked the landlady: ‘Is there anywhere I can work for money?’ She asked curiously: ‘You want to earn money? What can you do? We have the oyster beds here—work from three in the morning until six at dawn. Oyster digging does not pay much; do you want to try?’ At three the next morning I reported on time and started work.

Disappointingly, I was slow, handled the small knife badly—others filled three bowls while I managed one—and I pricked my hands, bled, and could not do well however hard I tried.

My husband would come in the middle of the night to the bamboo fence outside where we worked and watch silently while I dug oysters with the others.

I truly could not manage it; after a few days I changed my mind and switched jobs to weaving fans.

One thousand fans for three yuan; at most two thousand a day—exhausting. I thought: ‘What now? Paying off three hundred yuan in three months is impossible.’ I was anxious; even at night I lay thinking whether tomorrow I should look for better, higher-paying work, so people would not say my husband owed so much because he married me. Three hundred was a round sum—were there other debts?

My husband did not tell me and I did not dare ask; I only wanted to clear those three hundred yuan as soon as possible. A neighbour girl my age, whom everyone called Amei, had lost her mother early—we shared the same lot.

Seeing me desperate for work she asked: ‘Do you want to learn to knit fishing nets? If you learn it might help.’ So I began a third kind of work. I studied seriously and soon passed the boss’s test. I took home the net twine and started.

At first the nets were for inshore small fish—fine twine, very tight mesh, slow work. After about ten days I was nearly frantic and wanted to quit. Then Amei came again: ‘There are nets for ocean-going boats, for big fish—I’ll ask my father to bring them for us to knit; he has agreed and will have someone deliver them tomorrow.’ This coarse twine was paid by weight.

Coarse twine went very fast; in a day I could reach the target I wanted.

Seeing me happy, my husband said: ‘I would like to learn net knitting too—if I learn, two of us knitting would be faster, wouldn’t it?’ Moved by his words, I began teaching him; he was clever and learned quickly. When he was away I worked alone; when he came home from his shift he helped knit nets. The two legs under the ancestors’ offering table in the landlords’ parlour were our net frames.

His job was shift work: twenty-four hours in four watches—morning, middle, small night, and graveyard—four days through the rotation then one day off, so he was home a lot. The old landlord and landlady, when idle, sat by the table watching the two of us race to knit nets. Twine tied to the table leg, sitting on a low stool, we knitted to the parlour door, turned back, and started again from the table leg—back and forth without stopping. Apart from housework and meals, our time was net knitting.

My husband’s two closest classmates, passing after work, often dropped in to watch us knit; they could hardly bear to look. The first month’s work went badly and earned nothing. In the next three months, husband and wife striving together, we finally cleared the three hundred yuan. A great stone lifted from my heart—I was truly glad.