The Five Brothers' Dream

After the Autumn Trade Fair, Ma Yide truly began to enter the world of foreign trade.
Although the Provincial Chemical Construction Import and Export Company was a small company, it still had several fixed lines of business. After the name cards, sample requests, and inquiry faxes left behind at the trade fair had been gathered and sorted one by one, the foreign trade section sent people to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to contact factories, verify specifications, and secure sources of goods. Ma Yide was young, diligent on his feet, and had studied foreign trade, so Section Chief Lu took him on three trips to Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
The first trip to Zhejiang was to inspect tung oil and castor oil.
When the train passed Qiantang, the autumn water lay smooth as white silk, and the fields of Jiangnan spread out beyond the window. Rice waves shone golden. Mulberry trees stood in rows. Far away, villages with white walls and black-tiled roofs were hidden in light mist. Ma Yide sat beside the train window and saw women washing vegetables at a riverside landing, while a black-awning boat slowly rowed past. Suddenly, he thought of the old stories of Jiangnan his father had told him. The roots of the family’s ancestral trade in silk and tea had once been in this region as well. Now he had returned as a foreign trade clerk, holding in his hands not the family account books, but a letter of introduction from his work unit, product specification sheets, and railway consignment forms. A complicated feeling inevitably rose in his heart.
Those small factories in Jiangsu and Zhejiang were mostly hidden along the riverbanks of townships and villages.
The factory buildings were not large: red-brick walls, asbestos-tile roofs, and at the gate a factory sign with black characters on a white background. Most of the bosses were shrewd and capable. They wore old suits or jackets, held cigarettes in their hands, and always said, “The price is negotiable, and you can rest assured about the quality.”
They took Ma Yide to look at warehouses, oil drums, packaging, and inspection reports. At first, Ma Yide still carried the seriousness learned from books, checking acid value, moisture, impurities, and packaging weight one item at a time. Only later did he slowly understand that real business did not exist only on paper. It was also at the dinner table, in the teacup, in a factory director’s casual sentence, and in the hesitant look of an accountant.
The second trip to Jiangsu was to inspect resin and industrial wax.
All along the way, fine rain fell without stopping. Rivers and waterways crossed one another, and the air in the factory district had a slightly pungent smell. The owner of a private factory invited them to dinner. On the table were baijiu, river shrimp, braised pork, and several seasonal dishes. Raising his cup, the boss smiled and said, “Mr. Ma is young and promising. In the future, the province’s chemical exports may well depend on your generation.”
Ma Yide held his wine cup and smiled modestly, yet something stirred in his heart.
Young and promising.
He had heard those four words too rarely.
And he longed to hear them too much.
The third trip was to the area near Ningbo, to watch over the packaging of a batch of export additives. During those days, the sea wind was very strong. In the warehouse, cartons were piled like small hills, and workers pasted English shipping marks onto the boxes one by one. Standing to the side, Ma Yide suddenly felt that this scene was more real than the exhibition booth at the Canton Fair. Goods came out of township factories, passed through inspection, packaging, loading, and customs declaration, and finally crossed the ocean to become a cold, hard entry of foreign exchange income in the European and American markets. Each box of goods was like a tiny screw, fastening itself into the enormous machine that had begun to turn after reform and opening.
After two or three months of running back and forth, he did learn many things.
But once the busy period passed, the company suddenly became idle again.
After all, the Provincial Chemical Construction Company was not a great exporter like provincial machinery, provincial silk, or provincial light industry. Those companies had orders all year round. As soon as the Canton Fair ended, contracts were already lined up for the following year. Their salesmen ran daily to factories, ports, and banks, while commissions and bonuses flowed in like water.
Chemical Construction was different.
Its product categories were narrow. Its customers were few. The value of the goods was not large. Once several orders were settled, the office became quiet.
In the morning, one brewed a cup of tea and looked through a few faxes.
In the afternoon, one organized files and flipped through product catalogues.
The telephone rang only now and then, and most of the time it was either a factory asking about payment or a customer requesting samples.
Ma Yide sat at his desk, listening to the electric fan at the end of the corridor turning with a creak, creak, creak. In his heart, that familiar uneasiness slowly rose again.
Idleness is what wears down the young most.
When one is busy, one can still press all one’s thoughts into the work at hand. But once a person becomes idle, his eyes cannot help looking into the distance. Ma Yide saw people from the Provincial Silk Company going in and out of hotels, laughing and talking with foreign merchants. He saw someone from the Provincial Light Industry Company flash past the street corner on a newly bought motorcycle. He also heard that a salesman from Provincial Machinery had received a year-end bonus equal to several years of his own wages.
Those pieces of news were like tiny sparks falling onto embers in his heart that had not yet gone out. With the slightest breath, they reddened again.
He warned himself: Do not be impatient.
The rotten water from that railcar of Hami melons had not yet dried. His debt to Third Uncle was still written in the account book. His father’s words about the money account and the heart account still sounded in his ears. Yet another voice in his heart said: Can I sit behind this little desk for the rest of my life? With a monthly wage of less than five hundred yuan, waiting for a year-end bonus of ten or twenty thousand, it will take years just to clear the debt. If I want to accomplish something, how long must I wait?
After work, he often walked along the Pearl River.
The nights of Canton were growing brighter and brighter. Neon lights reflected on the river surface. In the distance, new buildings rose one after another. Small cars were parked outside restaurants, and private bosses and foreign merchants laughed and talked in private dining rooms. In the air there was the smell of fish, gasoline, river water, and also the smell of money in motion.
Ma Yide looked at those lights, and in his heart it was as though two men were arguing.
One said: You have already fallen once. Work honestly. Learn the rules. Build connections. Repay the debt slowly.
The other said: The age will not wait for anyone. By the time you have slowly learned, others will already have earned all the money. You studied foreign trade, you know English, you have run through Jiangsu and Zhejiang, you have seen factories, and you have seen foreign merchants. Why should you not do something larger?
He thought of what Lee Hong had said on the Yellow Mountain:
“Do not let one railcar of rotten melons define your entire life.”
Sometimes this sentence sounded like comfort.
Sometimes it sounded like urging.
Ma Yide began taking notes again.
This time, he no longer wrote crude words such as “tenfold profit.” Instead, he wrote down directories of Jiangsu and Zhejiang factories, product costs, export channels, Hong Kong middlemen, payment methods, transportation risks, customs procedures, tax rebate policies. Gradually he came to understand that true large business was not a matter of stumbling upon a momentary price difference. It was to weave information, sources of goods, capital, channels, and credit into one net. Whoever could stand at the most crucial opening of that net would have the chance to take the largest bite.
Yet he also understood that at this moment he was still only a small foreign trade clerk.
He had no capital, no independent export rights, no sufficient relationships, and had not even repaid his third uncle’s money. If he rashly leapt out again, it would not be courage, but stupidity.
And so his thoughts pulled at him day after day.
On one side was stability; on the other, ambition.
On one side, the old wound had not yet healed; on the other, a new dream had already been born.
At times, Ma Yide hated himself for being unwilling to stay content. At other times, he was grateful that he had not been completely crushed by failure.
One evening, he was the last person to leave the office. The sunset entered through the slats of the venetian blinds and fell upon the English product catalogues and calculator on his desk. As he tidied his papers, he suddenly saw in the drawer the old iron abacus his father had given him.
He took the abacus out and lightly flicked it.
Pa.
The crisp sound was especially distinct in the empty office.
Ma Yide looked at those few black and shining abacus beads and said softly to himself:
“This time, I must first calculate the accounts until dawn, and only then set out on the road.”
Outside the window, the sounds of Canton’s traffic gradually rose. In the dusk, ten thousand lamps were beginning to shine. The young heart was still unwilling to be ordinary, yet it no longer easily believed in dazzling illusions. True ambition, through failure, illness, work, and waiting, was learning silence little by little, and little by little becoming sharp.