An Easy Life

It's too late, when I found Sunny smiling dreamingly and standing side by side with her father in a large beam of autumn morning sunshine pouring down the aisle. They were reading the scarlet booklet!

It was Saturday morning, after the morning jobs in bathroom, Philip got a good mood from the pleasant sunlight on the windowsill, and finally decided to make a compromise which was a wise husband always could do at the last minute before conditions going worse. It was not easy for me that I had been persisting for several months on influencing, persuading, negotiating, bargaining, and threatening Philip to tidy up his mountains of documents, papers, and magazines, which was sleeping in every pieces of flat surface, tucked into every corners with a little depth as soon as they were delivered into the room, except the pile in his bathroom which has been kept updating everyday.

Without having breakfast, Philip zealously pulled his piles down to the floor, sorting and reading the papers piece by piece as if he was fossicking the sand like a gold fever, while Sunny was busy with the missions of the Penguin's Club.

I didn't know how it happened. Perhaps it was Philip who dug the scarlet booklet out of the trash mass and then raised from the dusk leaping rays, granting his lamb with his great glory holy.

"Sunny, you're rich!" With exaggerated smiling on his sweating face, Philip spoke to Sunny fawningly.

The scarlet booklet, a bank deposit book, recorded Sunny's lucky money amounted to RMB 11,710 received from her grandparents, aunts, and uncles in the Chinese New Year from 2003 to 2005.

It is a Chinese tradition that senior people give juniors lucky money which usually tucked in fancy red envelopes. Theoretically, lucky money is a blessing ceremony more than its value. When I once was young enough to have this privilege, a rural old lady fumbled about in her pocket with her quivering hand, and foisted into my hands a red pack which was as crumply as her face, containing only one piece of ten cents' bill, which was even crimpier than the wrap. But the warmth and the sweetness of this memory was definitely beyond the bill’s value and the space and time. In recent decades, more and more people come to attach importance to the amount, and for somebody, for certain purpose, it would be a more convenient tool than the payment around Majhong table.

Sunny was reading the booklet in a dreaming sheen. I knew she was calculating how many American Girl Doll she could buy with the money under her name. From the day in a magazine she knew about that there was such adorable thingy in this world, she began to set a value on all items in this universe with American Girl Doll. After a couple of uncomfortable months when she saved every coins or bills she got from her monthly allowance, a few income or bonus by washing her underwear and getting up early, winning extra bonus from Mrs. Clark the principal for the first reading score in the 3rd grade, or ramping her father, one day she finally triumphantly strode into the American Girl Place located at 111 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago. With her eyes open wide and her hands itch, she purchased her first American Girl Doll whom named Mary soon after. But her bud of greed was not nipped; she soon worried about her Mary's winter clothes, summer dresses, furniture, purses, or another doll which she understood I would never approve.

Even though RMB 11,710 is not enough to do anything really useful, but to let a kid to employ or to know owning such giant possession, which would surely be a giant treasure for a kid, must be sinful and uncomfortable like a guy is lecturing on platforms while a tiny stone hiding in his shoe constantly remind him of it’s existence. In this consideration, like most Chinese parents would do, I saved the money in a bank, a safe place which is the only choice for Chinese people for a long time.

"You!" I stared at Philip with all my electricity enough to drive an electric chair.
"What?" Philip responded as innocent as Forest Gump, and then this troublemaker slipped away and disappeared among his piles.

I asked Sunny, "Is it much?" I meant the money in the booklet.
"Yes." Sunny echoed me from her dream remotely.
"Our family monthly consumption is RMB10K, almost is the same with your money, do you still think your money is much?" I asked further.
"No, not much," she was awakening, "but it is still good to me." Bringing her dream and the booklet, she went into her room.
I pried into her room from the sunny aisle. Sunny was sitting at her desk, lowering her head, thinking.

Well, this is a giant wealth for her, who always want to embrace all the dolls in American Girl Place, and always self-control the desires bitterly.
But how long we could protect this dream for her? The CPI in August was 6.5% higher than the past 12 months, it is the fourth rising month of the year, and it will surly continue on and on while the bank interest can not catch up with its pace even if after five rises.

As soon as I grounded China from a shining mountain, I was shocked to see something has been changing profoundly, enormously, and gravely. Signboards in restaurants said: rising! one of my favorite newspaper doubled it’s price; shopping in Sam’s club weekly, I never can remember where had my car parked in the giant parking lot, and I never can remember the unit price of the groceries, but what I know now is that the purchase amount for my small family has been rising from RMB400 to RMB1000, which was the same amount with I did in Costco, Chicago. My real estates zoomed as three times as I purchased it 6 years ago, but rentals stay in a flat level. All off these happened within one year when I absented from China. I couldn’t recollect any comparative experience in the memory of my past 30 years.

Ten years later, Sunny might think her mother was so mean and sick that had been so gingerly and secretly saving the small money just enough to buy several pieces of candy.

"What shall we do with the money?" in the aisle I blocked Philip who was sweating blood to load his dusty magazines out of rooms.
"Invest!" Philip gasped, detouring towards the gate.
"Stock?" I asked the shifting object.
"Whatever." Philip answered me with his back.

Differentiating from the price raising a few years ago, when I heard about some Chinese people stored foodstuff, televisions, refrigerators to protect their money, this time they choose to invest stock markets. From early of this year, the stock index has been keeping growing up from 2700 in February to 6,124 in October. Fast lessons on stock investment would hit your sight on every street. My friends, Tian Qian, began to educate his 9-year old son to read graphs, buying and selling stocks with his lucky money; Jiangying, who was a manager in a join-venture company, sold and bought his stocks in working time, and he told me a few days ago that stock business was the first and the job was in the second place.

Papers said this was a Panic Investment.

"I think you should have a talk with your daughter." I seized Philip on his way back.
"What talk?"
"About the money. Tell her something morn important than American Girl Doll, and let her know she is growing taller and taller while money might become shorter and shorter."
"Why me? I am busy enough." Philip flung his grey dusty hands in the air crossly.
"Who opened the Pandora's Box? Who studied Money Management in Kent law school? And who is going to fix the lunch for all creature in this house?" I pronounced as an odour of sweet soy-sauce stews pork flowing in the air from our neighborhood, and I believed that Philip’s empty stomach would surly stand on my side.
"sweet soy-sauce stews pork?" Philip asked hopefully.
"No," I answered evilly, "too difficult."
"Sunny, we will have a talk." Philip raised his head and exclaimed as he swaggered into Sunny’s room.

In practice, Philip was not a perfect person to act the role of a financial teacher. In an April of four years ago, he purchased his Audi A6 2.5TDI in RMB500,000, but by the end of the month, the price was bitterly dropped to RMB410,000, and currently stand firm on RMB350,000. Philip could do nothing but slaying the salesman savagely in the phone, and then became a remarkable VIP memeber in a car owner club. A May of six years ago, I stuck to my colors to buy this apartment, he had been keeping his complaining until our property was boosted dramatically with the market fluctuating, and now he begun to moan, "Why didn’t we buy more at that time?"

The door bell rang while I was exploring the refrigerator to form a scheme about the lunch. As I prefigured, standing at the door in a brown uniform the small, slim, and brown woman, with a wisp of hair drooping down the forehead, as if she never could afford the time to spruce it up. She took charge of the sanitary of this building, and was inquiring me humbly in her Hunan accent, "The books, you don't want anymore?" She was referring the piles Philip placed at the doorway.

I knew her job could barely provide a bottom-line wage, so recycle waste became an important extra income. All she could earn would be a primary supporting for her family, the kids and parents, and maybe, brothers and sisters, in a faraway countryside. Therefore, when we deal with some neat trash, such as books, papers, clothes, we just put them at the doorway instead of dumping in the trash bin. I thought it might be better for the lady. At the mean time, I knew there was another lady at the root of the building, sitting beside the sidewalk waiting for this trash everyday, and that would be her only earning. But how much I could do for them?
"Oh, I'm sorry. It's too heavy to put in the bin. Please do help me to get rid of. Thank you!" I was pretending having no idea about her intention. It might be better for her, I thought.

As I returned to my Kitchen, a lunch menu was set up. Noodle! Sunny like it, Philip always oppose it, but it's fast and easy, which is the most important for a lunch. Sweet soy-sauce stews pork? Under the governing of a mean, evil housewife, you guys have no choice. I couldn't understand how my neighbor could manage such complicated dish at noon!

I grabbed all the material I need out of the refrigerator, ground pork, mushrooms, carrots, a pack of lettuce, a box of tofu, and a jar of Miso. To make up a simple lunch never need a recipe.

A cool breeze flooded into the kitchen from the window, rustling the Sam's club's shopping bags left on the floor. Autumn is a pleasant season in Guangdong, it is not hot as summer and not humid as spring, but it is not cold enough to put on a coat, and would be blaming hot sometimes. People have to be strong to resist the cool and blaming hot with the bare skin at the same time.

"A changeable weather. An unstable life." I reflected as I thawed the ground pork in the microwave oven, and throw the vege-stuff into the sink.

Life is so unstable. Look forward, the vision of the future is unclear; look back, neither experiences nor predecessors could we rely on. So many opportunities we have to identify; so many crossroads we have to ponder. The only thing the Chinese people had learnt for so many years is to disbelieve everything, but money is the last alternative they could lean upon. Furthermore, the more bothersome is that no matter how much money they would have, they could not buy them enough security, while a majority of Chinese people are still struggling to survive.

Having the carrots, mushrooms, and tofu chopped into small cubes, and the lettuce token apart, I thought about our family security system. We have a bundle of crazy insurance in AIA, with a giant premium as much as a yearly income of a white-collar, while it could cover nothing, at least I could not feel any benefit towards our daily life, and its value were shrinking as the inflation going on. Besides this, we have social insurance.

To buy social insurance for employees is an obligation according to labor law, and should be paid by employer and employee dividually, covering Medicine, Work-related Injury Insurance, Unemployment Compensations, and Pension. The premium will be calculated base on employee's salary. As far as I knew, few companies will not buy full insurance according to employees’ real salary just in order to reduce company's cost. Employers usually fake a payroll and pay a bottom fare just enough to walk through the obligation under the law. Employees, including the staffs in high class, like general manager, do not care about their future benefits were
reducing. The less payment cause the less benefit one will get, especially in the Pension part, but they do not believe that the government could give them a good future, so they would have more income in hand rather than paying to the government for the unpredictable, uninsured future. And the people's concern seemed to be proved by the events happened in Shanghai and Guangzhou that the social insurance fund, the money the common people pay in the name of social insurance was peculated by some government officials.

Linda, a friend told me before long her mother-in-law past away,"You would never know how useless the social insurance is untill you are really ill."

Long Yongtu, secretary general of Boao Forum for Asia, China, the former vice minister for Foreign Trade, alleged on 12th Sep. CBD International Forum, Beijing that, "Aged supporting problem could not rely on government." Philip commented, "Yes, it's true, because government never do anything about this."

Dry noodles were done in boiled water, and the ground pork was made into a thick and glossing sauce with the cubes of carrot, mushroom, and tofu. Lettuce was scalded in water slightly and seasoned with sesame oil and oyster sauce. And the soup, laver egg soup was always a beneficial choice. I was content for such a lunch. It's simple, nice and nourishing, but boring, a little bit.

Life in China is easy, if you do not think about the future. Or maybe life is born to be easy, don't think too much!

"Lunch is ready!" I broadcasted.

Philip came out of Sunny's room.
I asked, "How's the money talk?"
"Well done!" Philip answered cunningly. "Sunny found out something more important and economic than the American Girl Doll."
"What's it?” It boded me no good.
"She understood that it would be more economic for her if we gave her a baby sister instead of purchasing a new doll by herself with the lucky money. Also, a baby sister is more important."

They touched the button!

"Yes!" Sunny jumped out of the bathroom and yelled excitedly,"Then I can go to the Yale and Harvard but baby sister can only go to Kent!"

Philip smiled, bitterly.