Xing'an Mountains 1984: Starting from climbing mountains to support the family

Chapter 11 Supply and Marketing Cooperatives

"Little brother, don't forget to bring the remaining badgers here tomorrow!"

Wu Gensheng had a smile on his face, but he was cursing in his heart.

After some bargaining, he finally got to know this young man! What a cunning guy.

In fact, Wu Gensheng didn’t know that the person in front of him was a man in his sixties or seventies who had dealt with too many people. In front of him, Wu Gensheng, who was in his forties, was still too young.

"It's eight dollars and seventy cents in total. Take a look and make sure you don't miss it. You can come back later to find the difference."

Wu Gensheng took out a stack of Mao Zedong's banknotes from his pocket with a painful feeling and handed it to Chen Weidong.

Money is valuable these days, and the largest denomination is still the ten-yuan Great Unity note. Most of the other notes used by ordinary people are in coins of a few cents, while eight or seven yuan in change is already a huge sum of money, and a thick stack of it can be used.

"Hey! I believe it."

As Chen Weidong spoke, he counted the money again.

"Uh...this kid!" Wu Gensheng was speechless.

After putting the money into his pocket without missing a penny, Chen Weidong did not leave immediately. Instead, he asked Wu Gensheng if there were any extra meat coupons, grain coupons, salt coupons, etc. in the store.

You have to know that in 1984, coupons were still the norm, except for cloth coupons which were abolished in 1983.

You needed tickets to buy basically anything: meat tickets, grain tickets, oil tickets, sugar tickets, cigarette tickets, tea tickets, soap tickets, sewing machine tickets...there were all kinds of tickets.

If you want to buy something, you need more than money, you also need a ticket.
For example, when you go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy meat, in addition to giving the money, you also have to hand them a simple little note.

The small piece of paper said "Meat ticket for one catty". The font was black in some cities and red in some other cities. The sizes of the pieces of paper were slightly different, and they were all printed by each city.

This small piece of paper is a "ticket".

However, nearly six years have passed since the reform and opening up in 1978. Some provinces have implemented the policy of contracting production to households, and the ticket system has also been loosened.

In fact, if you think of a way, you can buy a lot of things without a ticket.

But generally speaking, it is cheaper, more affordable and more convenient to buy with tickets.

Food stamps, flour stamps, etc. are distributed in the village according to the population of each household.

Chen Weidong's family also had food coupons, but he had no money before and could not use them at all. He came in a hurry today and forgot to bring them with him.

"Yes! I don't have anything else here, but I do have some tickets."

Wu Gensheng said slowly, he owned a state-owned restaurant, he had nothing else, and he always had a lot of these tickets left over every month.

Then Wu Gensheng remembered something and took out a stack of tickets from the cabinet in the room. He said to Chen Weidong generously: "These tickets are about to expire, so I will give them to you."

"Did you give it to me?"

Chen Weidong was surprised. Although he didn't know much about Wu Gensheng, he could still see that this guy's greed was almost written on his face.

However, before Chen Weidong could even say a few words of thanks, Wu Gensheng continued, "But let's make a deal first. If you catch pheasants, rabbits, etc. again in the future, you must sell them to me!!"

"it is good."

Chen Weidong responded, of course as to whether to sell it to Wu Gensheng or not, we will decide when the time comes.

"Uh... this kid agreed too readily!"

…………

"Cabbage, fresh cabbage, 2.5 cents a pound!"

"Radishes are two cents a pound!"

"……"After leaving the state-owned restaurant, the streets were bustling with activity. It was really interesting to go to the market these days, with hawking sounds everywhere.

Chen Weidong bought two large cabbages, and three or four pounds of radishes and potatoes, and then came to the grain station. In these days, rice and flour were basically bought at the grain station.
Grains are divided into coarse grains and fine grains.

Fine grains are white flour, and coarse grains are cornmeal, sweet potato flour, millet, etc.

These days, most people have many children, and some don’t have enough to eat, and those who have some money go to the grain station to buy coarse grains.

Because in addition to being cheap, one pound of coarse grains is equivalent to about one and a half pounds of fine grains.

There weren't many people in the grain station.

There was a sign indicating the price of grain at the door. The price of a pound of fine grain was 1.8 cents, and the price of a pound of coarse grain was 1.2 cents.

These days, people bring their own containers when buying food.
Before coming, Chen Weidong had considered this, so he took some effort to find a relatively clean sack at home to store the food.
But seeing Wu Gensheng so enthusiastic just now and taking away his sack of badgers, Chen Weidong decisively took two grain bags for free and no longer worried about having no containers to store the grain.

Chen Weidong calculated for a moment and then said to the saleswoman beside him, "Buy ten kilograms of flour and twenty kilograms of rice."

"Total, four dollars and twenty cents!"

After loading the grain, Chen Weidong carried the grain to the supply and marketing cooperative. The supply and marketing cooperatives in those days were equivalent to small supermarkets in later generations, barely providing people with their daily needs. Soon Chen Weidong arrived at the door of the supply and marketing cooperative and walked in.

After taking a look, there were not many products displayed inside, and the price list was hung behind the cashier counter.

Chen Weidong bought some Salt Lotus brand MSG, salt, five-spice powder, sugar, and other cooking condiments.

There is also kerosene and matches.
There was a kerosene lamp at home, but it had run out of oil a long time ago, so at night, we could only rely on the light of home.

Liu Xueting often had to hold the younger ones' diapers at night to prevent them from wetting the bed. Without lights, it was easy for them to bump into things. As for matches,

Anyone who has used match sticks knows that this thing is easily affected by moisture and is not easy to use. Otherwise, it would not have been gradually replaced by matches.

Then Chen Weidong planned to buy some pork and lard.
He has to hunt and also provide nutrition for his wife and children, so he needs to have some food in his stomach.

There are meat sellers in the supply and marketing cooperative, and there is also a butcher worker in front of one of the stalls.

He was probably in his thirties, quite plump, and had a lot of fat in his belly.

There are slices of pork on the chopping board, some fat and some lean.

Chen Weidong's heart moved, he walked over quickly and asked:
"Master, how much is this meat?"

"Do you have a meat ticket?"

Hearing this, the man looked up at Chen Weidong and asked.

Chen Weidong nodded.
Seeing that Chen Weidong had a ticket, the man didn't say much. He pointed at the pork on the chopping board and introduced it, "Pork ribs are 79 cents a pound."

"Eighty-cent pork."

"Lard lard board 89 cents."

"..."

In the era of material scarcity, people didn’t have much fat in their stomachs. When buying pork, most people preferred fat meat, followed by half-fat meat, lean meat (lean meat), bones…

Not only that, pork is also more expensive than other meats. These days pork is also called big meat, and lard is also called big oil.

Decades later, the situation was reversed.

Chen Weidong bought a pound of lard and another pound of pork ribs, and handed him two more meat tickets.

After buying the pork, Chen Weidong had only 35 cents left from the 8.7 yuan he earned from selling the badger.

(End of this chapter)