Man on the Street is a regular series where we talk to someone doing an everyday job, in order to gain insight into the lives of normal Chinese people.
A shabby four-wheeled barbecue protrudes from a sidewalk corner on Shatai Nan Lu. Chicken wings, green peppers, sauries, enoki mushrooms, Chinese sausages and more edible temptations are set out on square, plastic plates beside the grill. Smoke rises from the cooking food, wafting up to the street lamp and appearing denser in the glow of the yellow light.
Five wooden folding tables are spread out on the sidewalk beside this beacon, noticeable from a distance, which beckons to hungry late-night revelers. A stout, middle-aged man with a wet towel around his neck is deftly jiggling the skewers behind the grill, his chubby wife on standby to serve the comestibles while listing down newly ordered items in her notebook.
It is 10 minutes to midnight. There aren’t as many people eating out on a cold December night as there were during the mild weather two months ago. We pick out our skewers, put them in a plastic basket and hand it over to the wife who, upon taking over, hurriedly writes down the selections and sets them besides two other filled baskets.
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“Half an hour,” she says plainly, in response to a question about our wait time, as she finishes note-taking. The man is occupied with turning the skewers, brushing them with sauces from a line of pots and spraying the seasonings contained in water bottles. A young couple waits for their takeaway.
Sitting next to a table of six people cheerfully playing dice games, we drool in anticipation of the roasting skewers, which arrive 25 minutes later on oval, iron plates.
The couple cooking them generally call it a night around three o’clock in the morning, and it is at this hour that we return in hopes of prolonged conversation. By this time, most of the tables have been folded up and placed besides a stack of 20-something pink, plastic stools.
Zhang Guobin and his wife Cao Yumei are villagers from Shandong province (located between Shanghai and Beijing) who came to Guangzhou to start their barbecue business last September. They made the move on the advice of Cao’s sister, who has been running her own food stand in the city for a long time.
“We have around 10 orders every night, including the takeaways,” relates Cao. “During summer we do a bit better than in winter. And we won’t be able to do this when it is rainy or windy.
“And sometimes we need to pay the chengguan [urban management officials] to be allowed to run the business,” she adds, with a dissatisfied tone, speaking in a strong Shandong accent.
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Her spouse is toasting the last items for the night owls, but turns around when we begin probing into more personal matters to casually inquire about our occupation. “English magazine? We can’t read!” he chuckles.
Zhang rises around 11am to collect ingredients at the food market, bringing them home for Cao to wash and skewer, which takes her about four to five hours. At 10pm, they wheel out the stand, set out the tables and stools and spend an hour starting the fire.
The affable couple has three kids in their hometown. Like most children of China’s migrant workers, they are taken care of by grandparents, who are remunerated with a monthly sum of RMB2,000 from the couple. They rent a one-bedroom apartment at 1,300 kuai monthly in an urban village by an expressway and pay 500 kuai for water and electricity.
“China’s economy is booming, but we are still slaves of life,” Zhang complains, taking a drag on his cigarette and coughing.
“Pack up,” he bursts out suddenly, as he jumps up and walks to the stand.
A man shows up from nowhere asking for two skewers of green peppers. Zhang takes over the capsicums rapidly lanced by his wife, who then walks to two tables that remain out, wipes them and folds them up.
Once the last customer of the evening has been given his order, Zhang and Cao gather up two Styrofoam boxes containing leftover ingredients and a large-sized plastic bag holding sundries like wooden chopsticks and paper rolls, before disappearing into the night.
THE DIRTY DETAILS
Monthly salary: RMB4,000
Days per week: 7 (depending on the weather)
Hours per day: 10 (half preparation, half cooking)
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