Dirt, dirt, everywhere. It was the only wealth and greatest natural resource for the local community, and there was not much else besides it. The locals had learned to exploit their surroundings and make the most of what they had. Inside the mud huts there were dirt floors. Their beds were made of baked dirt. The large clay beds were cool in the summer and in the winter a fire could be made underneath to keep the sleepers warm. Clay pots and containers of all possible sizes and shapes were used in every household to hold grain, water, sorghum wine, and odds and ends. The oversized kitchen stove was made of clay, usually in the shape of a large triangle, built to fit into a corner. It devoured anything that could burn, including dried twigs, stems, and leaves left from the last harvest, along with a generous helping of dried animal dung collected by the children to help meet the household’s need for fuel.

  Life there was literally “down to earth,” focusing only on absolute necessities. It was like winding a clock backwards for a century. There was no such thing as “garbage” or “waste.” Everything was used until nothing was left. After a harvest, the grain was threshed by hand and shared by people and animals alike. The skeletal remains of the harvest were fed either to animals or into the mouth of the stove to cook the family meals. Any meager surplus was used to trade for rare commodities such as salt, sugar, matches, soap, yarn, or fabric.

  Each family raised only a few sickly cattle since grain production was limited by the lack of water. It almost never rained. The only form of precipitation was the winter snow, and the only water source was the temperamental Ruo Shui (“Weak River”).

  Throughout history, when farmers had a good harvest, they prayed to Buddha and made generous offerings to him as a humble gesture of thanks, using only the very best food reaped from a hard year’s work. When they did not have a good harvest, which was often the case, they somehow always managed to survive with the little they had, on top of what they had saved when they could. They were people who possessed nothing but tenacity. They were incapable of questioning the heavens or complaining when life dealt them a setback.

  The chronic shortage of water left a deep imprint on the region’s culture. For generations, people got by with taking only three baths during their lives: They bathed when they were born, when they got married, and when they died. Bathing became a ceremonial ritual instead of a hygienic requirement. Strange as it may have sounded to Yan and all the other city folk when they found this out, the locals took the matter seriously. Here, water was more precious than gold and was not to be taken for granted. Like all her colleagues, Yan had to go to a pump station every day with buckets and basins to fetch her daily ration of water. Once the ration card was stamped, she had no more water to use until the next day.

  In the dormitories, everyone soon learned how to recycle water. In the ladies’ section, each room was just large enough to fit four single beds for four young women, who called each other “sisters.” Yan was the second oldest of the four, and got the title “Er Jie”—“Sister Number Two.” After Yan finished her morning sponge bath, she saved the water under her bed to be used later for washing her intimate wear, socks, and handkerchiefs. In spite of such harsh conditions, she still felt certain personal habits should not be compromised. She then saved the same water to wash her chamber pot, before it was dumped into the mud, attracting clouds of bugs, birds, and the occasional stray dog looking for a drink.

  By pooling their resources, the four sisters even occasionally managed to secure the luxury of a bath. Creating a bath was always a secret mission. They would bar the door, draw the curtains, and place a large shallow basin in the middle of the room. They would each pull out a precious hidden bucket of water and pour them, one by one, into the basin. And then, three of them would leave the room, leaving one lucky girl to splash, giggle and sing by herself. With the basin and a few inches of water, she felt like a princess at the most luxurious spa.

  Life was very hard, and she missed her family terribly, as Yan freely admitted to her father in postcards whenever she had money for stamps. Ho De was not much of a writer, but once a month, Yan received a package of varying size and weight. She was always amazed by her father’s thoughtfulness and ingenuity. He put a lot of effort into every package and turned each one into a magic box. Yan pulled out surprise after surprise, as if the package were bottomless. Knowing her situation, Ho De mostly sent food: a few dried sausages, a small bag of cured shredded pork, pickles, cookies, biscuits, and candies. Even small envelopes of sugar and salt were placed carefully in between towels, socks, thread, sewing needles, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. In Shanghai, such everyday items would be trivial, but here they were received with awe and appreciation. Though his letters contained few words, Yan knew that Ho De tried very hard to help her. After all, he and Chon Gao could barely survive themselves on his meager pay. She began looking forward to her monthly package, as much for the love it held as for the vital supplies it carried over a distance of six thousand li. Life in China’s Wild West was harsh, but it was made even tougher by the imposition of Chinese military routine on the civilian volunteers. Men and women lived in separate row houses wired with loudspeakers that punctuated their daily routine with startling, sudden loud announcements, news, and revolutionary music. The officials in charge decided there were to be just two meals a day—a hardship for city-soft youngsters who had gotten used to enjoying rice porridge and egg breakfasts, bountiful noon meals with pork, fish, and vegetables, and evening banquets. Newcomers had to follow the customs of the locals to show respect, since they were to settle there and become part of the community. For generations, the people had eaten two meals a day—a late breakfast and dinner—to have enough food to last for the entire year. As employees of the government, the new arrivals were ordered to share the same hardships as the locals to understand their needs. Anyone caught cooking or eating extra food risked severe punishment, a cut in pay, or extra working hours.

  Meals were provided only at the company canteen, and they were made in the local style: noodles, cabbage, chili peppers, and steamed buns made from coarsely ground cornmeal or barley flour were the day-to-day fare. Fish was out of the question because Zhang Ye was too far away from the water. Meat and poultry were scarce since there was barely enough grain for people, much less animals. About once a week, a few shreds of pork or chicken could be found in a vegetable dish, served with cornmeal gruel and baked oatmeal pancakes as thick as bricks, and almost as hard.

  To comfort their always-growling stomachs, private stashes of food came in handy. The morsels Ho De took from his own mouth helped Yan to sneak a bite when she was tortured by hunger.

  In spite of the strict rules and regulations, more and more violations occurred for cooking forbidden food. Hunger overpowered politics. When punishment failed to stop the “deviate cooking behavior,” the rules were gradually eased. Soon, little charcoal stoves appeared in front of every dormitory room. Everyone spent every penny they could spare to buy whatever extra food they could get from the black market to make up for the missing meal. The local economy got quite a boost by selling food to the newcomers. The hottest topic in the dorm was where to get what special food at what cost, or who was making a secret stew with what unheard-of ingredients. In its own way, life there was getting more interesting by the day.

  Chapter II

  Oasis in the Desert

  For two thousand years, the tiny city of Zhang Ye sat patiently trapped in the hot, dusty, and impossibly remote corner of northwest China known as Gansu Province. By the 20th Century, it had been all but forgotten, but Zhang Ye once played a vital role in China’s history. The height of its fame came in the 13th Century when it was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road, linking East and West. Marco Polo passed through Zhang Ye on his way to see the great Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, as did the uncounted numbers of spice traders, whose returns to Europe with fragrant boxes of peppercorns, anise, and cloves sparked a craze that would eventually lead to Columbus’s discovery of the New World. It served as a “must” stop for every traveler on the way to Dunhuang—a major trade city and the most glittering cultural jewel in the crown of the ancient civilization along the Silk Road.

  Small as it was, Zhang Ye possessed every feature of a medieval Chinese city with fortified walls, a moat, watchtowers, and even a drum tower to warn the citizens of fire or—worse—invading armies. There were only four ways in and out of the city through the four protective armored gates called, simply enough, the North Gate, South Gate, East Gate and West Gate. Above each gate stood a watchtower from which mostly bored (and occasionally terrified) guards had, for hundreds of years, warily eyed the desert for the telltale yellow clouds of dust that signaled the coming of a Mongol attack. Even in the 1950s, all the city gates still closed at sundown, and reopened only with the rising sun, cutting the city off entirely from the outside world. Sunrise and sunset marked the beginning and end of a day.

  Whenever they could, farmers loaded produce, handicrafts, a few precious chickens or cuts of meat, or whatever they had to sell onto the family donkey—the most popular means of transportation. They walked across a drawbridge over the moat and entered the city through one of the gates. Then, they would set up a stand on their favorite street corner or at the Farmers’ Market and try to lure customers. With the money they made that day, they could then obtain things from stores in the city before they headed back home again. It was what farmers called a “market day”—an infrequent urban adventure.

  For most farmers, market days were rare. They had little to sell and a lot they needed. Often, they had to give up one precious thing in order to trade for another that was more important to them at the time. When a farmer’s wife was expecting, for instance, he might have to sell his family’s only pig to pay for a midwife. In this way, one pink, wiggling armful was often traded for another.

  The people had become accustomed to poverty. Long ago, the city’s population had dwindled as the Silk Road ceased to be the chief link between China and the outside world. With the invention of the steamboat, railroads, automobiles, and of course airplanes, camels and donkeys lost their lead roles in transportation. Adventurous travelers and business people started to use different, more efficient ways to get to their destinations. Zhang Ye City was left out. It lingered and stayed the way it had been at the height of its glory days, mournfully waiting as people from all over the world passed it by using the sea and air to reach the great cities of the east. Modernization was a fatal blow to the Silk Road and the other cities along its winding path. Without outside trade and travelers, life became locked in the past. Eventually, the tiny city of Zhang Ye fell asleep in the numbness of everlasting antiquity, shrouded by a cover of dust and lost in its own decay.

  All the Chinese government’s efforts to revitalize the empty and barren West counted on revitalizing its cities’ historic importance in trade, and it was decided that nothing would demonstrate this more than creating a major shopping center as a trade magnet for the entire province. Thus, out of dust and dreams, was made the Zhang Ye Municipal Department Store, appearing like a mirage in the heart of the city. Trumpeted as the largest and most comprehensive trade emporium far and wide with sharp, knowledgeable employees like An Chu and Yan imported all the way from China’s famous coastal cities, the store was not just a store—it was the most important part of the city.

  The Municipal Department Store was an ambitious project. Located in an ancient imperial building with its own drum tower, which served as its warehouse, the department store offered the poor, blinking peasants a wealth of commercial choices not seen in six hundred years. The store boasted ten well-staffed divisions, showcasing textiles, jewelry, leather, cosmetics, housewares, foods and beverages, furniture, tools, and customer services. A novelty in the province, it generated excitement and was given a warm welcome at its grand opening. Wealthy tribal herdsmen and their families from as far away as the Gobi Desert traveled for days to get there and buy everything from needles and thread to earrings and silver teapots. Language barriers were transcended by hand gestures or a piece of paper and a pen, and these pantomime transactions ended with handshakes and smiles all around.

  Yan was assigned to the Housewares Department, which employed nine people from different cities and walks of life. Yan was the youngest of them all. With two waist-length pigtails, a slim body, high spirits, and a pair of bright eyes glinting behind scholarly spectacles, she looked younger than her age. Yan was well-liked, and nicknamed “Xiao Mei” (“Little Sister”) by her department, a name she hated. She did not want to be treated like the youngest, for with that came extra care, attention, advice, and help, which she did not want, especially from her manager, a single man in his early thirties whose last name was also Gu.

  At first, Yan did not work well under him. She found him rigid, bossy, critical, and uncommunicative. He assigned her unreasonable amounts of work. Sometimes, she had to work a shift and a half in order to finish her job. With little food, Yan was physically exhausted by the task of unpacking and separating thousands of fragile items a day from between the layers of straw inside large wooden shipping crates. And then she had to polish the items one by one and stockpile the floor merchandise. Often, she felt dizzy and drained of energy before the day was over.

  Nevertheless, she liked being a saleswoman, standing behind the counter and helping customers to pick out what they wanted. When a transaction went through, she wrote a duplicate receipt, rolled it up with the cash—the only means of payment at the time—and placed the wad in a small sack attached to a sliding clip on top of a metal “clothesline” leading to the cashier’s station. When Yan gave the clasp a mighty push, the stuffed pouch glided along the string and stopped right above the cashier, who emptied it, counted the cash against the invoice, stamped the receipt, put the carbon copy of the receipt with the change back into the sack, and sent it flying back to Yan. Then, Yan counted the change before presenting it with the receipt and the purchase to the customer.

  When business was slow, Yan and her colleagues had fun with the messenger sacks, passing around little treats, jokes, and messages. They had to play this game stealthily, for work regulations would not permit such childish behavior. It was risky but worth it. All the staff felt connected through this “metal spider web” close to the ceiling. It was their secret way of socializing at work and made for a bit of entertainment.

  Mr. Gu always felt a little awkward managing his group, especially the group of seven women that included Yan. He was used to working with men and knew how to lead them. But women were like another species. With men, it was always, “Yes, Comrade Gu,” and the task would be done. Whatever methods he used that worked successfully with men, however, seemed to have the opposite effects with women. He was puzzled by how many excuses women could produce when they did not want to obey his orders. He learned quickly that his orders were never received with a “yes” or “no,” but aggravating, tedious reasoning and explanations that he just did not have the time or patience to listen to. He often had to walk away before he lost control and exploded. He comforted himself by imagining that the women’s silence when he appeared at least showed respect, until one day, he went into the back room looking for some order slips and overheard two women sharing the latest hilarious story about “Grandpa” and “String Bean.” Gu listened in the dark, smiling when he realized “String Bean” was a tall, skinny worker from Nanjing and who was the only other man in the department. Then, it dawned on him who “Grandpa” was. Gu ran out of the room, angry and confused. The men, used to being in charge, found themselves exiled to insignificance by nothing more than merry peals of girlish laughter.

  Mr. Gu decided to alter his management style to regain control over his department. He forced himself to approach his alien subordinates and work with them more closely. He soon came to a realization that they were not as strange, silly, mean, and lazy a bunch as he had first assumed. As time went on, he learned to work with and eventually appreciate them, even if he couldn’t shake his mortifying nickname.

  It was during this period of time that he started to understand Yan. He admired her strength and sense of independence. He noticed that Yan was the only woman in the group who didn’t talk nonstop. As small as she was, she would clench her teeth to do any heavy task she was given without complaining, even if it would take her a lot more time and many attempts. Gu began to feel guilty that he had assigned her such labor-intensive work in the first place.

  As they got acquainted, they learned that both of them had been raised as Christians before religion was banned and that, in their hearts, they were still believers. It became their little secret. They were bound by the same beliefs, though in public he was a Communist Party member. He vowed to protect her. And since they shared the same family name, he allowed her to call him “brother.” From then on, they enjoyed a good relationship. Yan was very happy to have gained his friendship, and it greatly improved the quality of her work life.

  Chapter III

  Welfare Warehouse

  The department store occupied what must have been a very important building in ancient times, for it was adjacent to a drum tower. Drums were used to warn the people of approaching danger such as fire or war, and only the ruler of the city could order their use. In keeping with both structures’ importance in Zhang Ye, the building became the new center of commercial life, and the old drum tower was converted into the store’s giant warehouse. An Chu was put in charge of the inventory and everything that moved in and out of the tower to the store. He was a one-man crew for the whole warehouse and the only person in the whole huge enterprise given the power to hire local workers whenever big shipments arrived.