ABSTRACT

Life in the village became harder with each passing year. I was a farmer, but, funny, although I worked in the fields all the year round I had to buy more and more grain from the market to maintain the family. By the time Lujiang's younger brother was three or four, my wife and I had doubled our efforts many times. I really made good use of each minute of each twenty-four-hour day, yet we still could barely feed our family. In order to earn a little essential cash, we were forced to risk the market week after week. I knew I had to be very careful, but it had also been reported openly at a village general meeting that the main purpose of the market clampdown was to stop illegal operations by smugglers. A smuggler bought things cheaply here, then sold them at a higher price there. He secretly bought grain coupons, oil coupons, cloth coupons, and meat coupons, then resold them for a profit. This was illegal. But anything produced at home by ourselves was supposed to be within the market law.