Chapter 233: Decoration

“Comrade, why don’t I see you and Comrade Han Hongzhen reporting to the trading group together?” The representative of Shimen Textile Factory No. 1 was named Li, and he was the leader of this commodity group. When he heard Xie Hushan introduce himself, he glanced at the ID card Xie Hushan showed and asked with some confusion.

He had already met Han Hongzhen. That girl was a tough one. During the trading group’s meeting, she confronted the leader three times in a row, making the leader so angry that he slammed the table. No one knew where she got the courage from.

Xie Hushan held a Zhonghua cigarette in his mouth, looked at the shelves of other stores, and said:

“Why report that I came here at my own expense? I am the leader of the production brigade. I am here to guide the work of our brigade’s enterprises. I am not here as a representative to participate in the exhibition. This is a self-funded trip for the brigade, and I am not taking advantage of the country.”

Seeing that guy’s eyes looking around didn’t look like a good person, Yang Liming hurried over to greet others politely and introduced himself to ease the atmosphere. After all, they were all companies from Zhili Province and they were from the same hometown. Especially since he was working in the government, after a few words, he had established some relationships with the exhibitors from several units.

Yang Liming was in charge of the chat while Xie Hushan looked around the small exhibition room. Not to mention that foreign businessmen had no interest, the ordinary people of Zhongping were too lazy to come to such a place when visiting the cooperative. The exhibition room, the size of a one-and-a-half-story house, was crammed with a bunch of old-fashioned angle iron shelves, half-wage tables of varying sizes served as counters, and a few chairs were piled up. Even if there were foreign businessmen with poor eyesight who wanted to come in and choose goods, there was no place to step.

Seeing the team leader from the provincial capital Shimen chatting happily with Yang Limin, Xie Hushan walked over to join the chat after walking around:
“Team Leader Li, we have to clean up this exhibition room. It looks even more shabby than a rural supply and marketing cooperative. If foreigners come in and see it, wouldn’t that be a disgrace to the country?”

To be honest, when Xie Hushan first introduced himself as the team leader of the production brigade, Team Leader Li almost couldn’t hold back his laughter and laughed out loud. What kind of production team leader came out of nowhere, came to Yangcheng pretending to be a leader, and even guided the work of the brigade’s subordinate enterprises? The more inexperienced the rural people are, the more they dare to brag.

But when Yang Liming came over, handed him a cigarette and started chatting, Team Leader Li immediately hid his previous disdain. The young man with glasses spoke in a steady manner, introducing himself as the secretary of the Youth League Committee of the commune, the second secretary of the Zhongping Brigade, and the director of the Zhongping Light Industrial Processing Factory. Further inquiries revealed that the offset printing factory earned more than 200,000 yuan for the brigade last year by selling calendars in just half a year, not counting the brigade’s other steel industry.

No wonder the female comrade sent by others dared to slam the table in front of the leader.

Hearing Xie Hushan’s interruption, Team Leader Li chuckled twice while holding a cigarette:
“Captain Xie, Secretary Yang has seen it all. You are doing such a big business, but you still don’t understand this? To put it bluntly, we, the provincial joint venture exhibitors, are just dowry girls. The country provides the stage for the show, and the money we sell goes into the pockets of the provinces. Can the ministries and commissions give us a good face? It’s good enough to give us a place to set up a stall. If you go to the foreign trade department, how many factories from all over the country have no quotas, ship products at their own expense, and set up stalls on the street? I have seen it. A stall with a big butt and ten yuan a day in management fees may not even have foreigners walking on the street.”

“We are here to broaden our horizons and see how foreigners do business. Let’s take our time. At the trade delegation meeting, our provincial leaders have already given instructions. We don’t seek to achieve anything, but we do seek to avoid mistakes. We need to accumulate more experience so that when we really reach the stage of greater openness, we won’t be blind and groping in the dark.”

There are many enterprises in Zhili Province participating in the exhibition, but many of them are led by the trade companies of the ministries and commissions, such as coal, metal, ceramics and so on. Even without the Canton Fair, these enterprises have a lot of foreign trade business. In theory, there is no need for these enterprises that do not lack foreign trade business to grab booths at the Canton Fair, so as to increase the exposure of other potential enterprises. But don’t the ministries and commissions understand this problem? Doesn’t the province understand this?

These companies still play the leading role in the Canton Fair.

They say it is openness and that each province should develop its own economy, but if they really want to set down thorough rules, the top leaders will have to discuss it back and forth for at least a year or two.

After all, the leaders of the relevant ministries must have been thinking in their minds that if they were to let the provinces take charge, and the results they came up with were better than before, wouldn’t that mean they hadn’t done their job well?

“You are all big factories, eating public food, and you don’t care whether you can sell or not, anyway, you can’t lose the salary. We in Zhongping can’t do that. You are a regular army of the working class, and we are guerrillas who came here to grab quotas. This is our only chance. If we don’t seize it, we will have to go back and work as farmers.” Xie Hushan heard the concerns in Team Leader Li’s words and said with a smile: “How about we, Zhongping, pay for the renovation of the exhibition room? Team Leader Li, you have seen what the exhibition rooms of other ministries and enterprises look like, and what our room is like. If we don’t tidy it up, foreigners will think our room is a storage room.”

Team leader Li held a cigarette between his legs and smiled awkwardly: “This matter… As a team leader, I can’t make the decision. Should I go back to the guesthouse tonight and report to the leader of the trading group?”

“How can the team leaders have the time to take care of this kind of thing? You, Team Leader Li, should know more about this than I do. The team leaders are treated well by the organizers, and they are allowed to accompany foreign businessmen to visit scenic spots and watch performances every day. Except for attending the opening ceremony today, they are not given the opportunity to visit the exhibition halls of various provinces in person. Why? Isn’t it because they are afraid that the team leaders will see the problem of differential treatment on the spot?” Xie Hushan continued to incite Team Leader Li and others:
“We are all from Zhili Province. Why are we here? We are here to bring glory to Zhili Province and to earn foreign exchange for the country. Zhongping is willing to carry forward his style and tidy up the common exhibition room at his own expense. The team leader is not an enemy spy, so it is impossible for him to disagree.”

In fact, regardless of whether the other party agreed or not, Xie Hushan had already made up his mind to clean up the exhibition room, because business could not be discussed or products could not be displayed in this room. What’s more, he had other arrangements later. If other arrangements went on as usual and the exhibition room was not cleaned up, the organizer of the Canton Fair would be the one who would be embarrassed in the end.

“Comrade, how are you going to clean up? If we can do it ourselves, there’s no need to waste that money.” A middle-aged woman who was dressed very neatly and capablely listened to Xie Hushan and Team Leader Li talking for a long time, and now she came over and asked with some excitement.

Xie Hushan took out a photo from his pocket and handed it to the other party: “I plan to decorate our house according to the appearance in this photo.”

“Wow~ I guess this is what the rooms in a big hotel for foreign guests look like. It looks good, but how much money does it cost? Besides, in just one month, they renovated the room to look like a palace? They can’t even move out when they leave… Isn’t that a perfect bargain for these people… They look down on us, the people from the joint venture between the provinces?” The eldest sister took the photo, took a look at it, and exclaimed.

The photo shows an empty exhibition room. Not only are there no finished products, but there are no shelves or desks. There are plain-looking white walls on all four sides, a pillar with four mirrors in the middle, a sofa, a coffee table, and a few pots of green plants for decoration.

This is a design photo of a temporary booth for a clothing exhibition in Hong Kong Island. Xie Hushan had previously asked Han Laoer, Cao Tianbao and others to find a design company in Hong Kong Island that specializes in building temporary exhibition halls. As long as Team Leader Li and others have no objection today, they can send people over in the afternoon to start the decoration work overnight.

The photos look simple and elegant, but in fact they are just some last-minute looks. For example, it is impossible to lay marble on the floor, so they can only hastily lay a layer of carpet that looks slightly more upscale. The four-sided mirror dressing room in the middle is also built with plywood. As for the embellishments and lighting decorations, they are purely decorations.

“Big sister, look, if you design it according to the photo, you can hang commemorative photos of your factory on this wall, and then use two hangers to hang the products. The photos will allow foreigners to understand the long history of your factory…” Xie Hushan saw that a group of people were looking at the photos with shining eyes and nodding, and continued to fan the flames.

“Then I’ll send a telegram right away and ask our factory to print a few photos and send them over with the frames. We can’t send them… it’ll take too long to send them over directly!”

“I’ll send a telegram too. This room looks classy. At least it will make the foreigners look at us with a higher regard, and not treat us like bumpkins!”

A group of people were talking at once. Xie Hushan winked at Yang Limin and said, “You stay with them. Brother Bao will bring people here this afternoon. We need to follow up with the interview with Fourth Sister to finalize the whole thing.”

(End of this chapter)