I used to deal fruit, whole sale, selling tangerines, oranges, apples, anything you name, to Canton, Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, and other big cities. Now I'm a contractor, supervising a team of over sixty workers to build retaining walls along the riverbanks. See the large orange hill to your right? That's mine. I've been working at it for nine months. We pave it with concrete hexagons, and then drill twenty-meter-long steel cables into the hill to nail them. We hope this will hold the city on the hill. We hope. Money is good, always good when it comes from the government. But it carries a big weight. If the city falls, so goes my head. No one would be able to save my ass, not even my son, a general in Canton. Here, take this, just introduced from Florida, the belly-button orange. It's really sweet. You'll love it, I guarantee.
- Mr. Chen, a contractor from Badong, Three Gorges |
