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December '99 Issue 73 |
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December '99 Issue 73 |
| CONTENTS
Temple Preservers Precious Pictures
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Stepping Out
He made cotton shoes for Mao Zedong and former premier Zhou Enlai. But Peng Jizeng, 79, didn't measure their feet. "The boss of the shop went to do that," Peng recalls. "He didn't even know how to make shoes."
Peng's clients are more humble these days, but now he is his own boss. On October 16, he became perhaps Beijing's oldest resident to xia hai (take the plunge) into business, opening a little shop in a hutong just behind Qianmen. No space is wasted. One wall is crammed to the ceiling with wooden lasts. The finished articles line the opposite side of the 10 square-meter room. Li Jixian, 74, sits at a workbench squeezed into one corner, heating a cutting implement over a low gas flame. The smell of leather suffuses everything. Peng is taken aback by our request for an interview. "I have no culture," he protests, meaning that he is illiterate, but his reticence quickly gives way to an easy-natured garrulous flow. Squatting on a short stool, he says although he retired officially 19 years ago, his skills have kept him in demand ever since. "There was no sign on my house, but people always found me," he said. Peng reckons he can make any kind of shoe to fit any shape --and size --of foot. Hungry for work
"At home there was nothing to eat," he says. "In the shoe store, I got food and lodging, and 'shopping money' at Spring Festival to buy new clothes." He was one of 12 apprentices. Apprenticeships lasted until the owner decided you were good enough to graduate to being a paid worker. In Peng's case, this took two years. To start with, he received 3.5 yuan a month, enough to buy a bag of corn big enough to feed his family --which included a younger brother and sister --for a month. Peng remained in Beijing after the Japanese invaded in 1937, but a rice shortage four years later persuaded him to move to Zhangjiakou. There he worked at Yirong, the city's biggest department store, as a semi-independent shoemaker --until the defeat of Japan. "The owner of the department store was afraid he would be criticized as a big capitalist by the Communist 8th Route Army, which was set to enter the city," says Peng. To make sure he was on the side of the angels, the boss signed the store over to collective ownership by its employees. As Peng didn't count as a proper employee, he got no share. Zhangjiakou was the Japanese army's military base for the area, and so there were stores of food, clothing and equipment held in the city. Peng recalls how in the two days between the Japanese surrender and the arrival of the 8th Route Army, the locals looted the Japanese warehouses. "The stuff they took could reach so high," he says, and gestures toward the ceiling. "I didn't loot anything. I was afraid of being killed -- the Japanese were retreating, but if they saw you looting, they might shoot you." Peng says the 8th Route Army troops lived up to the Communists' reputation for discipline. "They came in quietly and stayed in local people's homes. They were very polite, carried water and swept the floors for people. They carried off all the Japanese supplies into the mountains. It took them a year and a half."
The trouble with youth A middle-aged woman enters the shop looking for soft-soled shoes. Peng only has hard soles. After she leaves, he points out the shoes she rejected, saying they are the only ones of their kind in Beijing --if others have similar goods, their quality is not up to scratch. Peng thinks craftsmanship is in decline. "Young people have no skills," he complains. "Since liberation they have had a good life. They have enough to eat, so they don't want to learn." After the department store went collective, Peng struck out on his own. He ran a small shoe business until politics took command. The San Wu Fan ('Three Antis and Five Antis') campaigns during 1951 and 1953 launched a drive to "socialize" private enterprise, much as the old department store boss had done. Peng resisted. By 1958, his shoe shop was the only private business of any kind left in Zhangjiakou.
The price he paid for getting around the San Wu Fan was that he was obliged to keep his business very small. Small meant boring, he says. "I didn't want to work like that. I wanted to go back to Beijing and play." Back home, he took a job in the famous Neiliansheng Shoe Store on Dashilan'r, where he stayed until retirement at 60 in 1980. "In Zhangjiakou when I had my own business, I was free, but I had to worry," he recalls. Back in Beijing he wanted others to do the worrying for him. He wasn't interested in making money. He was motivated by pride in his craft.
"I was proud of my work. I thought I could do it better than others. At the Dashilan'r shop, I didn't have to think about anything else." His work was so valued the shop pestered him to continue providing his services even after 1980. He did so for about a year, then made many shoes for the Beijing Film Factory over a three-year period. His Mongolian boots --a specialty learned in Zhangjiakou --were particularly in demand for historical epics. What he really wanted to do was have another shop of his own. At 79, the cares of business do not weigh so heavily. His employees Li Jixian and Yao Wenhua, 58, are retired comrades from the Beijing shoe factory. Making big money is not on anyone's mind. The old craftsmen are there to enjoy their skills while they can. Peng's shop is in the first east-west alley south of Qianmen Quanjude Peking Duck Restaurant. It is on the south side of the street, just a few yards from the alley that leads north to the restaurant. Opening hours are 8.30 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. Beijing This Month contends Peng is Beijing's oldest start-up entrepreneur. Call Andy McEwen at 6715-2373 if you know better. |
Cover Story
Peng was born to peasant parents in the village of Tieying Houshayu in
Chaoyang district, close to where Capital Airport is now. He became a shoemaking
apprentice in 1934 at the age of 14. His master was Li Zenglin, whose shop was at 11A
Gaomian Hutong, not far from where Peng's own store now stands. 
