1979 Gold Age

Chapter 5: Going to the stalls

Early April.

Another morning.

After breakfast, Chen Qi put on a gray suit with a cotton shirt underneath and the same black cloth shoes with red soles. He was excited to go sell tea, while his parents looked like they were about to execute their own son at the military gate.

"You have a perfectly good job, yet you insist on ruining yourself."

"Do you think I don’t know what kind of person you are? Do you even have the face to call out to customers? You wouldn’t even know how to count the money if they paid you!"

Yu Xiuli wiped her tears and sniffled. Chen Qi was speechless:

"Mom, don’t make me sound like an i***t. I’m sharper than a monkey!"

"Just be careful. If you can’t handle it, let us know."

Chen Jianjun also gave a word of advice.

In the end, Yu Xiuli tried to put a cotton hat on him, but Chen Qi absolutely refused. That thing would mess with his looks—at best, he’d resemble Edison Chen; at worst, he’d look like Zhao Benshan.

Huang Zhanying had been waiting on the side the whole time. Compared to her, her parents didn’t seem to care at all.

Chen Qi waved goodbye, and Huang Zhanying silently followed behind. The contrast was striking—anyone who didn’t know would think the “turtle guy” had finally managed to offer an 800,000 yuan bride price and was about to get married.

The meeting point was at the Qianmen Arrow Tower.

It was only a few hundred meters away, so they walked there and arrived in about ten minutes.

This central axis of Beijing stretched from the Forbidden City, Tiananmen, the Monument to the People's Heroes, and the Memorial Hall. South of the Memorial Hall was Qianmen, and further south stood the Arrow Tower. From the flagpole in Tiananmen Square, it was just about 1.5 kilometers.

A prime location.

The Arrow Tower, built during the Ming Dynasty, stood 38 meters tall, a magnificent structure with a large arched gateway beneath it. In 1949, the People’s Liberation Army had marched into the city through this very gate.

"Huang Zhanying!"

"Chen Qi!"

At that moment, on the eastern side of the Arrow Tower, the eleven unemployed youths had already gathered and were busy under Aunt Wang’s direction. Seeing the two of them arrive, she called out:

"Come on, help set up the bowls and light the stove!"

"Got it!"

Without hesitation, Chen Qi rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

Setting up a tea stall didn’t take much. They pooled together 40 yuan to buy two large teapots, tea leaves, and 50 coarse porcelain bowls. The tables were borrowed, and the stove—well, they built it themselves.

That’s right. They built a stove right there at Qianmen.

That wasn’t even the boldest thing—people were selling radishes in Tiananmen Square, after all...

The tea was the cheapest kind—gaomo (tea dust), costing just 2 cents a bowl. That’s right, 2 cents. A bottle of Beibingyang soda cost 15 cents—considered a luxury. So how much should a large bowl of tea, vastly inferior in taste and prestige, be priced at? The obvious answer: dirt cheap.

Chen Qi looked busy but actually didn’t do much—Schrödinger’s work ethic.

"Phew, I’m exhausted!"

He dramatically wiped imaginary sweat and said,

"Aunt Wang, can I have a bowl to taste-test?"

"Go ahead! Our tea may be cheap, but it quenches thirst. Travelers looking for water don’t care about the taste—they just want something to drink. Here, you all must be tired too, have some first."

Aunt Wang was a capable woman. She poured a few bowls for everyone.

Chen Qi picked up the rough porcelain bowl, took a sip, and suddenly a memory was triggered—back in his past life, while working a job, he had once bought half a kilo of Biluochun tea on Taobao for ten yuan.

The taste? One word: Pleh! Pleh! Pleh!

"It’s all just tea dust and stems!"

The others didn’t seem to mind—they had been drinking this since childhood.

So, what exactly was gaomo?

Back in old Beijing, the poor couldn’t afford good tea but loved drinking it. Tea shops came up with a clever marketing trick—calling the leftover tea dust “premium tea dust”. This way, the poor could drink tea while maintaining their dignity.

Genius branding!

Even later, the famous Zhang Yiyuan tea shop in Dashilan still insisted on selling this kind of tea dust.

While they were busy setting up, a crowd had already gathered.

Qianmen had been a bustling area since the Qing Dynasty, packed with businesses and well-connected by transportation. It had bus stops, a coach station, and even a subway station (opened in 1971). A major foreign hotel, the Qianmen Hotel, stood nearby, with small cars parked in front—rare sights in Beijing at the time.

Beijing's population at the time was 8.97 million. With business travelers, overseas visitors, and Hong Kong, Macao, and overseas Chinese passing through, the foot traffic here was enormous.

The people, dressed in shades of gray, blue, or army green, gathered layer upon layer, looking as curious as NPCs in a video game—question marks practically floating over their heads. All it would take was stepping forward to trigger the “Drink a Large Bowl of Tea” quest.

As Huang Zhanying and the others snapped out of their daze, they found themselves facing this exact scene.

And then—they all chickened out.

"Aunt Wang, w-what do we do now?"

"Call out to customers!"

"We have a sign..."

"A sign alone won’t cut it! This is business—you need to shout to attract people!"

"Shout… shout… shout?"

All twelve of them, including Huang Zhanying, were just like modern-day naive college students—none of them had ever done this before, and their pride was holding them back.

Even in 2024, if you asked someone to set up a street stall and shout for customers, many wouldn’t be able to do it.

Aunt Wang was unfazed.

"Don’t count on me. I helped you once, but I can’t do it every time. You need to rely on yourselves."

"Hey, what are you guys selling?"

"Why aren’t you saying anything?"

The crowd picked up on their awkwardness. They weren’t hostile, nor were they particularly friendly—they were just there to watch the show and had started heckling.

Huang Zhanying glanced at Chen Qi. He was busy… counting ants.

She had no choice. Taking a deep breath, her face turned bright red, and her teeth chattered slightly as she forced out:

"B-Big bowl tea! Two cents a bowl!"

Boom!

Even though the sign already said “Big Bowl Tea, 2 Cents a Bowl”, and the crowd had mentally prepared, her shout still sent a shockwave through them.

That moment—this first call for customers—was as significant as China’s first bottle of Coca-Cola, the first TV commercial, the first poster featuring a swimsuit model showing her legs, the first disco dance, the first Teresa Teng song, and the first red dress.

Each was a tiny ripple in the sea of the people, slowly merging into the tide of reform.

Someone from the crowd stepped forward hesitantly:

"Comrade, which unit are you with?"

"Dashilan Production Service Cooperative."

"Do I need a ration ticket?"

"No tickets needed!"

A simple exchange confirmed their legitimacy.

The crowd murmured restlessly. The man who had asked, looking like a middle-aged cadre, hesitated for a moment before stepping forward. He had a thick Shandong accent and was carrying a briefcase.

"Give me three bowls!"

"Got it!"

Huang Zhanying hurriedly signaled to her teammates, who froze for a second before scrambling to pour the tea. The yellowish liquid filled the white-and-blue porcelain bowls, steam rising from them.

They were inexperienced—they should have pre-poured the tea and covered it to cool slightly so customers could drink it right away.

The man touched the bowl—too hot! He decided to chat while waiting for it to cool:

"We’ve been running around all day and couldn’t find a single sip of water. This tea stand is a great idea. We appreciate it."

And just like that, their business had begun.

4o