"Our family's third son is just a clueless good-for-nothing! He won't even take the job the neighborhood office arranged, just eating and sleeping all day long."
"That kid Dongzi, so grown up and still so immature. A job is hard to come by these days!"
"Exactly! Other families are practically fighting over work, and Dongzi has a job but refuses to do it. I'm worried sick—what are we going to do?"
Li Xiangdong lay on the kang, hearing the chatter in the courtyard. He groggily opened his eyes.
Looking around, the furniture was new but styled in an outdated way, strikingly familiar. A wave of dizziness hit him—this was his home from decades ago, wasn't it?
That voice scolding him as a good-for-nothing was all too familiar—his own mother!
Reborn just from a nap?
As memories flooded back, he felt no panic, only anticipation.
He grabbed the oversized shorts by the bed, got off the kang, slipped his size 43 feet into old cloth shoes, and hurried to the calendar on the wall.
July 10, 1979.
He walked to a mirror with a revolutionary design, staring at his youthful reflection: short, trendy parted hair, bright eyes, handsome face, and a tall 180cm frame—a fine young man by anyone's standards.
His mother was still in the courtyard, eagerly gossiping with neighbors.
Li Xiangdong pushed open the door and stood at the threshold, silently staring at them.
"Dongzi's awake?"
"Oh, it's about time for lunch. Li's wife, we'll head back now."
The two neighbor aunties, unnerved by his gaze, felt the awkward atmosphere, muttered a few words, and scurried out of the courtyard.
Now, only a middle-aged woman with short, ear-length hair stood in the courtyard—Li Xiangdong's mother.
Hands on her hips, she glared at him. "What's that look? Don't like hearing a few words? Then get yourself together and report to the neighborhood office!"
"You've been back in the city for over a month, but you won't take the job they arranged, just loafing around all day."
"With so many returned educated youths, you should be grateful to have a job to support the family. You can't afford to be picky!"
In Li Xiangdong's eyes, his mother transformed from an elderly, cane-wielding figure to this fiery woman scolding him. He felt a pang of emotion, but her relentless nagging made his head spin.
Thinking of the job the neighborhood office offered, he retorted, "I'm not going to pop popcorn! That's a job for someone my dad's age."
Freshly reborn, he didn't want to argue with his mother. He turned, closed the door, and grabbed a white tank top from the kang, slipping it on. The tank top, a reward from his father's workplace, bore the words "Outstanding Worker, Beijing Jianguomen Street Coal Shop Award."
The Li family was a three-generation coal family.
Li Xiangdong's grandfather, Old Man Li, worked at a coal factory near the neighborhood office before liberation, skilled at making coal briquettes. After public-private partnerships turned private coal factories into state-run coal shops, staffing shortages led Old Man Li to arrange for Li's father to join, father and son working together.
When Old Man Li retired, Li Xiangdong's eldest brother took over. Thankfully, honeycomb coal became widespread in Beijing, making the work less grueling than briquette-making.
Li's second brother worked as a boiler operator at a bathhouse under the neighborhood office, tending the boilers.
Dressed, Li Xiangdong stepped out of the west wing and saw his eldest and second sisters-in-law pulling his reluctant mother into the main house.
He strode to the front house, closest to the alley's main water and sewage pipes. To save money during installation, the water tank was built here. He turned on the faucet, rinsed off, and wiped down with a tattered towel hanging nearby.
Glancing at his family's courtyard house, it was just as he remembered.
This single-entry courtyard, over 300 square meters, had its gate at the southeast corner. Beyond the gate, the east wing's gable faced a decorative screen wall with a carved "fortune" character.
A few steps left led to the main courtyard, paved with bluestone tiles, flanked by a jujube tree and a pomegranate tree. A bitter-water well in the northeast corner was covered with a thick wooden board and heavy bluestones to prevent the kids from falling in.
"That old man was something else," Li Xiangdong muttered.
The Li family's ability to settle in Beijing with urban household registration was all thanks to his grandfather, Old Man Li.
In late 1948, before Beijing's peaceful liberation, unlike those fleeing the city, Old Man Li sold his fields and house, packed up, and moved into the city with his wife and young Li's father. During the chaos, he bought the main house and its connected east and west ear rooms at a low price.
After liberation, other neighbors moved in—some buying private properties, others assigned housing by the neighborhood office or work units. As Beijing's housing grew tight, the east and west wings were divided into two rooms each, housing four families, and the front house took two more. Including the Lis, the courtyard held seven households.
Over twenty years, through private deals, housing allocations from Li's father and brothers' jobs, and "housing exchange meetings" with neighbors, Old Man Li maneuvered until only the Li family remained in the courtyard.
The main house and ear rooms were redivided into three rooms, with the middle as a living room where the family ate. Old Man Li and his wife took the east room, Li's parents the west.
Li Xiangdong's two brothers each got an east wing room. He lived in one west wing room, while the other housed his brothers' two young daughters.
The front house, poorly lit, had its makeshift coal sheds and storage rooms dismantled by Old Man Li. Now, the family's coal briquettes and miscellany were stored there.
After the 1992 Southern Tour speech, reform swept the nation, and with the overseas migration boom, courtyard house prices soared. The Li family faced a dilemma: a big tree must branch out.
With the money from selling the courtyard, Li Xiangdong bought only a 100-square-meter commercial apartment. Jealous of others' business success, he squandered the rest in failed ventures within two years.
Others went public; he went broke…
"What are you standing there for? I called you, and you didn't answer! Hurry up and eat!"
Lost in thought, Li Xiangdong hadn't noticed his mother approaching again. Her voice rose, her temper flaring.
'Smack, smack!'
She slapped his back hard.
"Ow! Mother, you're too rough! I'm your own son!"
Li Xiangdong jumped from the pain.
"I'm hitting my own son!"
Seeing her raise her hand again, he bolted, shouting, "Go eat first, I'm hitting the bathroom!"