The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 217: Prices in Hong Kong and Pawning Watches
In Hong Kong, many prices are measured by kilogram, at least in the 1970s.

The retail price of rice in Hong Kong is 0.48~1.77 yuan per kilogram. The rice that can be sold for 1.77 yuan is first-class rice. In other words, a kilogram of good rice can be sold for nearly cents in Hong Kong, while a kilogram of cheap rice is about cents. It is not much more expensive than in China, and no tickets are required.

Pork is about 8.6 yuan per kilogram, and beef is about 12.1 yuan per kilogram. The price of meat is high because there is not much breeding in Hong Kong, and meat is purchased domestically.

However, the domestic refrigeration capacity is poor, and there is not much frozen meat transported. The climate in Hong Kong and Guangzhou is similar, and the weather is not cold in winter. If the meat is not frozen and transported, it will easily spoil. Even if it is not spoiled after transportation, it must be processed quickly.

So the pigs transported from China are partly frozen and partly live. The live pigs take up space and are not easy to transport, so they are naturally more expensive.

Eggs are different. They are easy to store. Eggs are almost as expensive as pork in China. But in Hong Kong, eggs are only about 1.8 yuan per kilogram, which means an average of more than 20 cents per egg.

As for vegetables, which are seasonal, the prices vary greatly. Jiang Cheng's New Territories is actually the cheapest place for vegetables. On the one hand, the New Territories is closest to the mainland, and on the other hand, there are many vegetable fields in the New Territories.

In some villages in the New Territories, cabbage can be sold for a few cents, but in urban centers such as Mong Kok and Tsim Sha Tsui, cabbage can be sold for a few cents.

Jiang Cheng didn't care about anything else at the moment, he just wanted to know how much the meat could be sold for. Not the retail price, but the price at the meat stalls.

Jiang Cheng planned to sell it directly to the butchers in the market at a lower price, and then go about his own business. He would have to leave Hong Kong within two days and had no time to waste on selling meat.

Therefore, Jiang Cheng woke up at around five o'clock. In the morning, he had to take the pork to the market and ask the butcher directly if he wanted it.

"Brother Cheng, why are you up so early?"

"I have to get some money today. I have to sell the pork first and go to the pawn shop. There are so many things to do. I have to leave tomorrow night."

Jiang Cheng said while putting on his clothes, "Everything is difficult at the beginning. Once everything is on track, he won't have to rush when he comes to Hong Kong in the future."

"Brother Cheng, are you leaving tomorrow night? Can't you stay a few more days?" Shen Li also got up from the bed and sat next to Jiang Cheng and said.

"I can only stay here for two days, there are some things I can't tell you." Jiang Cheng responded.

"Brother Cheng, are you afraid that your sister-in-law will find out? That's why you can only stay here for two days. All capable men in Hong Kong have concubines." Shen Li said.

Jiang Cheng smiled helplessly. He was not afraid of Der. His wife was in China. It was just that Zhou Lingying was pregnant and gave birth to a child for him in China. He could not get over this moral barrier. Otherwise, let alone Shen Li, there were foreign girls in the prosperous areas of Hong Kong.

Poisoned by later films, Jiang Cheng wanted to become dirty in terms of men and women, and some dance troupes could surpass him.

Ignoring Shen Li's words, Jiang Cheng got up and went out of the room to call Ali to get up quickly. However, Shen Li also got up and wanted to go out with Jiang Cheng.

In Xiangjiang's vegetable market, there are stalls similar to stone piers in the city center, which are relatively standardized. But where Jiang Cheng lives, the place where people buy vegetables and meat is an old street.

If you have seen the 007 Pork Prince segment in Stephen Chow's movie, you will know that the pork stall is just a stall made of wood and iron sheets. All parts of pork are hung on iron hooks, and people can cut whatever part they want.

Unlike in China, you are not allowed to choose meat at will. Because everyone wants fat meat instead of lean meat, how can you choose? You have to have a combination of fat and lean meat, otherwise you will not be sold meat even if you have a meat ticket.

In Hong Kong, both fat and lean meat are popular. Some people who have just come to Hong Kong like to buy fat meat, but Hong Kong locals have long preferred lean meat.

One reason is that many people have better living conditions and no longer lack oil and water. Another reason is that they are influenced by Westerners and know that fatty meat has a high fat content and eating too much will make you fat, which does not meet the requirements of a healthy diet.

In addition, as cooking methods become more and more diverse, lean meat can play an important role in many cooking methods such as stir-frying and making soup, while fat meat has relatively few cooking methods and is mainly used for oil refining, etc. This also makes the market demand for lean meat greater than that for fat meat, and the price is naturally higher.

Anyway, in Hong Kong, all kinds of meat sell well, and meat with bones is not cheap when used to make soup.

Another point is that Hong Kong's economy has been in a high-speed growth stage. The average wage is rising almost every year, and the number of people smuggled here is the largest, especially in the New Territories, so meat is very easy to sell.

Jiang Cheng asked Ali to push the bicycle and put two pigs on the back seat. Each pig weighed more than 180 kilograms, and two weighed 367 kilograms, which was nothing for a bicycle.

The quality of bicycles these days is very good. A domestic 28-bar bicycle can easily carry 500 kilograms.

Push it to the market and ask the pork sellers directly if they want pork. If not, they will sell it cheaply on the spot, affecting his business. Although there are people collecting management fees in the market, they will not let people sell here casually. But Jiang Cheng didn't believe it. He only sold for one day, and he would not be allowed to sell for three or even five days of management fees.

The butcher was not afraid of trouble. He put the butcher knife on the chopping board and started to discuss with Jiang Cheng and others how to sell the pig. Selling meat is also for making money. If someone gives pork lower than the wholesale price, it is completely possible to make money in a friendly way.

The wholesale price of pork is now 6 yuan per kilogram. The average price of some good and bad parts is 8 yuan per kilogram. You can earn 150 to 180 yuan from a pig, excluding stall fees, management fees, sanitation fees and other miscellaneous expenses. 100 yuan a day is still a good income.

But with cheap pork, even if it's one dollar cheaper per kilogram, he can still earn an extra hundred or so a day.

There is no reason not to make money, but one market cannot consume so much pork in a day.

When the price was negotiated to five dollars, the pork seller finally made a move and asked for one and a half pigs.

This time, he earned more than 700 yuan. While there was still time, Jiang Cheng immediately asked Ali to go back and take the other two pigs to other markets.

I won't sell the extra half of the pig, I'll keep it for myself, and give some meat to the small shop at the intersection where I rent. I'll borrow a part of the freezer to store it.

The pork sellers could tell the quality of the pork, whether it was fresh or sick, so the other two pigs were sold to other pork sellers in the market soon.

The total amount was 1,600 yuan, and there was still more than half a pig. However, the pork business was not very interesting to Jiang Cheng. He sold it at a price lower than the wholesale price of Hong Kong pork, mainly to get some Hong Kong currency.

But Jiang Cheng had to pay more than 800 yuan to buy four pigs at the reclamation farm. According to the official exchange rate, it would actually cost 1,700 to 1,800 Hong Kong dollars.

The most Jiang Cheng did was just use the pork to convert some currency, and he didn't get much more meat.

With the money, the three of them had a delicious meal at a tea restaurant. The second place they went was to sell their watches at a pawnshop, which was the fastest way to make money.

When you get to the pawnshop, they still don't care about the origin of your stuff. In Hong Kong, where the black and white collude, there are many things of unknown origin, and the pawnshop only takes care of receiving and shipping.

There are people who specialize in appraising watches in the pawnshop. Jiang Cheng himself didn't know when Captain Zhang and his team received the watch he brought, what specifications it had, and when it was produced.

The prices given after the appraisal of the two Rolex watches disappointed Jiang Cheng, as he had always thought Rolex watches were valuable. I remember in the movie Shan Ji sold his Rolex watch for 50,000 yuan and went to Taiwan to live with his cousin.

But now the price of a watch is one thousand one, and this is because the watch is well preserved and looks quite new.

Because a watch like this would have cost about 350 US dollars a few years ago. According to the exchange rate between Hong Kong dollars and US dollars, it would be about 1,900 US dollars.

But that's the price at the watch shop. After deducting the depreciation, 1,100 is pretty good.

The Omega watch that Jiang Cheng took out gave him a surprise.

Rolex watches actually have very expensive and very cheap ones. But the cheapest Omega watch costs more than 1,500 US dollars. Many watches are even priced in pounds, and many watches cost thousands of pounds.

An ordinary Omega watch costs about 10,000 yuan in Hong Kong, while a good one costs tens of thousands.

Unfortunately, Jiang Cheng only brought a steel case watch, which was about 10,000 yuan. But he calculated the depreciation and the operating costs of the pawnshop.

One watch only gave Jiang Cheng 6,500 yuan, two watches would only give him 13,000 yuan. Adding two Rolex watches, the total was 15,200 yuan.

It can be said that Jiang Cheng became rich overnight, but in Hong Kong, even at that time, one could not afford a small house of 20 square meters.

However, this money is enough for Jiang Cheng to rent another house and a small cold storage to start the production plan of fish balls and shrimp balls. He rented another house mainly because there were too many women standing at the door of the place where he lived now.

Another thing is that she lives near Aunt Shen Li. Fortunately, Ali didn't leave this time, otherwise she might have been caught and taken back if she was alone.

(End of this chapter)