Made takeout food in Hefei, Anhui

Originally, I ran a small shop in my rural hometown, did some welding, and repaired bicycles. After being relocated due to demolitions, I moved to the nearby town of Tongda to continue my business. Little did I know that this place was a newly developed "ghost town" with hardly any pedestrians on the streets, which meant the business was poor.

My daughter and son-in-law were running a snack and delivery service in Hefei. Later on, my wife went to join them, and together they franchised a Liangji Burrito King in Hefei. They asked me to come to Hefei to help them out. 

One of their stores was located on the North First Ring, and the other was near Mingjiao Temple on a pedestrian street.

The so-called stores on the pedestrian street were just shelters with a roof for rain protection, with no walls surrounding them. A single electrical wire hung from above to power the small 1.5 by 0.8 meters area, which costs 10,000 yuan in rent per month. Electricity was 1.6 yuan per kWh, and the water bill was not small either, with everyone sharing the cost. The landlord was a mystery, someone deep and impenetrable.

Every night, my wife and others had to carry the snack-making equipment back to their rental home, which was more than ten miles away, and bring it back in the morning, which was very troublesome. My wife called many times, asking me to come to Hefei to weld a cabinet for them so that they could lock up their equipment and wouldn't have to carry it back and forth. 

I have severe motion sickness and didn't want to go to Hefei. It's crowded on the pedestrian street, and only after 1 a.m., when the neighbors closed up, could I do any welding work. So, with no welders to be found, I reluctantly brought a welding machine and went there.

My wife and the others set up their stall at 9 a.m. and didn't close until midnight. After returning to their rented home, they had to cook and do laundry, often not getting to sleep until 1 a.m., which was incredibly tough. 

My wife repeatedly asked me to shut down my welding operation in Tongda and join them in making burritos, working both the store and delivery. Knowing that I disliked staying up late, and fully aware of my wife's and daughter's formidable nature, I knew they would take their frustrations out on me over any small issue, so I never agreed.

Their skill in making burritos was astonishingly fast, absolutely jaw-dropping. Rolling the dough, adding vegetables, wrapping the burrito, and packaging it was done in one smooth sequence, the action is dazzling. Since the stall rent was so expensive and each burrito only cost a few yuan, only those with fast hands could survive.

Sometimes the store is not only crowded with customers, but also delivery riders come rushing, creating immense psychological pressure.

After just a few days, I witnessed two snack stall owners give up because they were operating at a loss. Some stall owners didn't even make enough to cover their stall rent, spending their days in sighs and groans.

I struck up a conversation with one of the stall owners and asked, "Why is the rent here so expensive? Who is the landlord?" 

The stall owner first cursed the landlord for being greedy, but then defended him, saying, "The landlord is someone from Zhengzhou. All of us here curse him for his greed, but you have to think about it too. For the landlord to acquire this location and develop these stalls, he must have had to pay a fortune to some mysterious figures. Those mysterious figures are the ones at the top of the food chain!"

There was one person selling stinky tofu who used a powerful fan to blow the smell onto the street, and had a TV continuously playing a program where they were interviewed by a TV station. It was very noisy, but their business was booming. On a good day, they could make over ten thousand yuan, a real miracle. However, such miracles were a rarity. Most of the stall owners were operating at a loss.

As a result, the ownership of these stalls frequently changed hands. As some stall owners put it, "The dead aren't carried out before the living come squeezing in".

There was a couple from Wuhu who rented a one-square-meter stall for 12,000 yuan a month, paying a year's rent in advance. They sold something called 'Taiwanese herbal jelly', but had no business. They often sat in silence, staring blankly, as if pondering the meaning of life.

Someone sold roasted pig trotters, and initially, the business was a hit, but later it died down. When I inquired about it, a girl said that at first, everyone was curious and tried the pig trotters, but now that they knew the taste, the interest waned. "Who can eat pig trotters every day? The stomach can't handle it".

There were three young men selling grilled squid, playing music very loudly. The space was so small that only one person could fit inside to do the grilling. The young man grilling the squid moved as if he was performing an intense dance, attracting many girls who took photos with their phones.

After a while, another would take his place, and the one who was replaced would sit exhausted against the opposite wall, panting like a dog after a mad dash. When called upon, he would not say anything, only gesturing with his hand. If you asked him again, he would ignore you, remaining silent like a wooden figure.

Once I drove an electric tricycle from Tongda Town to the Hefei Pedestrian Street. Along the way, relatives gave me a lot of strawberries. My wife gave many of them to two sisters who sell Wuhan bullfrogs in our neighborhood. At that time, strawberries were quite expensive, and I chided my wife for being too generous. However, to my surprise, those sisters later gave us a lot of grilled bullfrogs to eat.

Every time I visited, the stinky tofu auntie would serve me plenty of stinky tofu, which made me think my wife must have often given them her spring rolls to eat. The snack stall owners on the pedestrian street had good relationships with one another, often sharing their delicacies. Many of the vendors were operating at a loss, and the only good impression of the pedestrian street was this sense of community.

Once, there was a long queue on the pedestrian street as many people were lining up to buy something. My wife and the others told me to queue up as well, but it was too crowded, so I turned back. They were persistent and sent a simple-minded fellow to buy instead. He brought the items back amidst much fuss, but when we saw what he had bought, we were deeply disappointed—it turned out to be some kind of hand-torn bread on discount as part of a promotion.

After midnight, at 12 o'clock, a metal barrier would open, and suddenly, many people in thick cotton coats, riding electric tricycles, would swiftly enter the pedestrian street. It was a magnificent scene, resembling a battle from a movie. It turned out that these people were night market vendors allowed to set up stalls until 5 a.m.

Their actions were very quick, as soon as the tricycle stopped, the vendor would open the box at the back, which transformed into a shelf. In the blink of an eye, as if by magic, the stall was ready.

Beggars here had a high income, possibly making a hundred yuan an hour, but management was strict. If special duty officers found them, they were immediately shooed away.

If a snack stall owner left their goods by the roadside and the special duty officers saw it, they would first give a warning. If it wasn't moved, the goods would be confiscated immediately, with no room for negotiation.

Later on, perhaps due to the economic downturn, both my wife and daughter were running at a loss in their shops located at the North First Ring of Hefei and Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street. To cut costs, I had to return to Tongda Town to continue running the repair shop, occasionally going to Hefei to help them.

My son-in-law worked at the bank and would help out after work in the evenings. My daughter took care of the North First Ring shop by herself, and my wife looked after the Pedestrian Street shop on her own.

Once, my wife called to say the battery of their electric tricycle had been stolen by a thief. Since they didn't have a welded anti-theft device, this was already the fourth theft this year. She suffers from severe motion sickness, so she had no choice but to walk more than 20 miles daily from her residence to Huaihe Road. At midnight, she had to walk back to her home in the Lingquan Road Lingyu Garden, which was incredibly arduous and unbearable.

Theft in Hefei has become rampant, severely affecting the daily lives of the residents. The snack vendors on Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street said that each of them had had their electric vehicles and batteries stolen.

Since I also had severe motion sickness, I had no choice but to drive the electric tricycle, and it took nearly 3 hours to travel from Tongda Town in Lujiang County to Hefei. 

However, once I arrived in Hefei, my wife's electric tricycle was stolen again, rendering the battery I brought useless. They demanded to use my electric tricycle daily for transport, but I wanted to return to Tongda Town to continue my welding work. They absolutely refuse to agree.

But now, their snack stalls are not even making as much as the daily rent; they are essentially working for the landlord for free. My wife packs up her stall at midnight every day and after cooking and cleaning, it's 1 a.m. before she can sleep. This kind of business is simply torture.

I have advised them to close the two snack stalls and do something else, but they say the rent has been paid and is non-refundable. Even trying to sublet the place now is very difficult.

I said, when the lease is up, you should do something else, start a different business or get a job.

My wife and the others didn't make their stance clear, but she said that no matter how desperate the situation becomes, they will not return with me to live in the rural area of Tongda.

I find it hard to understand them. They work incredibly hard every day, lose money, spend their days making spring rolls at the stall, dodge the surging traffic on the roads, and they have no leisure time to enjoy themselves, no reprieve from the polluted air and the harsh noise. What's the point of living like this in a big city?

Once, my daughter said she wanted to eat buns. The bun shop was just across from the North First Ring Road, but crossing the road felt like an arduous task amidst the flood of traffic. Life in the big city was very awkward.

This trip left me with a bad impression of Hefei. Many people came over enthusiastically to greet me, but the stall owners on the pedestrian street told me they were all scammers.

On the pedestrian street, I saw a very young boy forcibly handing flowers to a young couple and then demanding tens of yuan. A young man casually gave him 10 yuan, but the flower boy said it wasn't enough. Clinging onto the couple's clothes, he refused to let go. Such a young child had learned to extort, showing such incredibly poor character. What is happening to our society?

At the intersection of Mengcheng Road and North First Ring, I saw a person wrapped in white cloth, lying rigidly with a woman beside him wailing loudly, saying her man had died and they had no money for his burial, hoping for charitable donations from the public. 

I was a bit shocked, but my wife and daughter disdainfully said it was fake, that they were acting to scam money. They had done it many times in other parts of Hefei, and it no longer surprised them.

I stayed in Hefei for a while and suggested to my wife to expand the variety of her spring rolls, lower the prices a bit, add some new twists, and improve the taste, hoping to enhance the business. But my wife and the others completely ignored my advice and instead turned against me, accusing me of being incompetent, unable to make money, and causing their hardship.

Later, against their vehement opposition, I forcefully returned to Tongda Town.

I find it hard to understand their mentality; it seemed like they were driven by a stubborn, unyielding spirit. But if no one in a family earns money, how can they live in the future?

After I left, due to severe losses, my wife had to close her shop on the pedestrian street, and my daughter had to shut down her shop on the North First Ring. They called me to help them move.

Once, while moving late into the night, we were exhausted to the bone. Many of the snack-making equipment couldn't even be given away in the city center. The landlord said that since a contract had been signed, we had to move everything out before dawn, no matter what.

We desperately hoped for a waste collector to appear. The equipment, bought for over 80,000 yuan, was now set to be given away for nothing, but in the city center, there were no waste collectors with large enough vehicles. We had no choice but to grit our teeth and move it ourselves.

My son-in-law and I took the snack-making equipment to a bamboo grove in a residential area, hiding much of it under the watchful eyes of the security guards. Once, when a guard approached and was about to discover us, I purposefully engaged him in conversation, drawing his attention away by asking, "Let me ask you something, that place over there…" and I led the guard away.

Later, I slowly transported the equipment back to our rural family home in Guohe Town, Lujiang County, using an electric tricycle, load by load. The entire moving process was as exhausting as a nightmare.

However, my daughter and wife still hadn't given up; they still wanted to run a snack and delivery business. In 2017, behind my back, they opened a porridge shop on the side of East Second Ring Road in Hefei. Under their strict orders, I had no choice but to transport the food preparation equipment from our rural home in Guohe Town, Lujiang County, to Hefei's East Second Ring using the electric tricycle. It took about a dozen trips and roughly a month to move all the equipment and household goods, and to get everything like water, electricity, and shelves installed.

The porridge shop on the East Second Ring had few walk-in customers, so we could only sell online and solely offer delivery.

Due to fierce competition, they operated 24 hours a day, often staying up all night and working at high intensity and a fast pace.

I asked them, "Why keep the business running 24 hours non-stop? Can't you rest for a few hours at night?"

They replied, "The money we make during the day and evening just covers the rent, electricity, water, and other expenses. The real earnings come from the money we make at night."

This online delivery required quick meal preparation; once an order came in, it had to be ready within minutes. Sometimes during meal times, orders would come in one after another, and delivery riders from Meituan and Ele.me would press us hard, which led to extreme mental stress.

A few days ago, they called me and said they needed to boost orders by significantly cutting prices for a while, to expand our influence and secure more orders in the future. This is a common tactic used when the delivery business is struggling or just starting.

Because the promotional sale increased order volumes and they were overwhelmed, they asked me to come and help.

I rode the electric tricycle from Tongda Town, Lujiang, to Hefei, and immediately started working in my daughter's porridge shop.

We worked during the day and the first half of the night; my son-in-law took the second half. At night, as soon as I lay down, my wife would yell, "There's an order!" making it impossible for me to sleep, and I would yawn all day long. During the day, I would drive the electric tricycle to the market to get supplies, often dozing off while driving. Frightened, I had to briefly close my eyes and then forcefully command myself to keep them open.

At night, my wife expressed her unhappiness about running the store with our daughter. She was scolded by our daughter like a child, and the days were unbearable. By the end of the year, she didn't even want to work anymore. Our daughter often verbally abused her and hit her a few days ago. My wife showed me the bruises on her body, which left me feeling very heavy-hearted.

The next evening, I said to my daughter, "Why do you berate and hit your mother? She doesn't want to work until the end of the year anymore. But if we leave, what will happen to this store?"

To my surprise, my daughter reacted angrily to my words. She didn't reflect on her behavior at all; instead, she blamed her mother and me, telling me to get lost and immediately go back to Tongda Town. I said, "It's already dark now, and it's very cold at night in winter. How can I endure the ride on the electric tricycle?"

"Are you leaving or not?" my daughter demanded, picking up something and smashing it forcefully on the wooden floor as if she were about to become violent. I had to drive away on the tricycle, only to be caught up by my wife, who said, "It's too cold at night, and with our daughter blocking the staircase, I didn't dare to get your clothes." My wife told me to stay on the street and not to go anywhere, waiting for my son-in-law to come back.

More than two hours later, my son-in-law returned and called me back.

That night, my wife wept bitterly, almost the whole night, and was adamant about returning to our old home in Tongda.

The next day, my wife and I started moving our things, preparing to go back to Tongda Town. My son-in-law begged desperately, "Normally, the store needs three people. It's very busy with just two. If you both leave, she [referring to my daughter] won't be able to manage alone and will have to close the store. We have been boosting orders and laying the foundation until now, just as the order volume was increasing and we were about to make a profit. If you leave, wouldn't all our hard work be in vain? Moreover, we have invested so much in this store; we really can't afford to take such a loss..."

My son-in-law worked at a bank and faced the immense pressure of a mortgage. He didn't dare quit his job to go into the delivery business because it's very unstable.

My wife said, "But staying here for one day feels more torturous than an entire year. She curses at me for no reason; it's like she's abusing me."

I said, "We're also very torn and conflicted inside. If we don't help manage the store, it can only close down, and we simply can't afford that loss. But staying here is excruciating. She keeps telling me to go away, and she even hit me last time. We are really in a difficult position; even the smartest person would be at a loss in this situation."

Our daughter had once suffered from schizophrenia. Fearing that the porridge shop's closure would trigger her mental disturbance. In the end, we decided to stay despite our deep internal conflicts and hesitations

Last time, I rushed from Tongda Town in Lujiang to Hefei on an electric tricycle. For some reason, my daughter cursed at me and told me to go home. I said the tricycle was charging and I would leave once it was charged. She insisted that I leave right then. I didn't agree, and suddenly she punched me in the head and scratched my face with her nails.

Sitting there, feeling extremely despondent, I did not react to being struck multiple times by my daughter until she lifted a large teacup. That's when I dodged and, having no other choice, I had to take refuge at a relative's house on my electric tricycle. When I left, I could hear my wife still calling out to my daughter to take orders. Poor wife, she probably didn't realize that our daughter was having an episode.

Our daughter is sick, and under the pressure of the mortgage, my wife, son-in-law, and daughter can't afford to think of much else but earning money.

In 2015, while working in Hefei, our daughter developed schizophrenia but got better after active treatment. Over the years, she found a boyfriend in Hefei, and last year they got married against our advice. She strongly insisted on buying a house in Hefei, and eventually, they got a mortgage. But my daughter constantly frets over the monthly mortgage payments of four or five thousand yuan.

The following year they had a baby. During childbirth, my daughter had a relapse. She caused an uproar at home, turning everything upside down, disrupting the peace and bringing immense pain and fear to the family.

Later, we admitted our daughter to the Hefei Fourth Hospital, where she was placed in a secure ward. The hospital did not allow family visits. My wife, longing to see our daughter, was denied by the nurse unequivocally. Overcome by her emotions, my wife collapsed and fainted from crying.

Her boyfriend used to run a snack business, and my wife was very much in favor of our family starting a snack business in Hefei. However, this line of work proved challenging, and over the years, my wife, daughter, and son-in-law faced repeated failures. Now, the son-in-law has taken up a job at a bank.

They had set up shops on the North First Ring of Hefei on the Hefei Pedestrian Street, but both failed. When setting up the shops, they had me move things with the electric tricycle. When the shops closed down, I had to move their belongings with the tricycle, back and forth, to the point of exhaustion.

Our daughter is beautiful, intelligent, and strong-willed; she was determined to make a name for herself in the big city of Hefei. Yet, now we face this outcome. The pace of life in the big city is fast, the pressure intense, and many living there aren't truly happy. People shouldn't force themselves to do what they cannot, that is my advice. Ordinary people without a solid economic foundation are dragged down by the weight of buying a house in the big city.

Her current temper might also be an aftereffect of schizophrenia, or it could be her inherent nature; we are not sure. When I was a child, my father was too strict with me, so I wanted to be more lenient with my child. Thus, I never laid a hand on my daughter, which perhaps led to her being spoiled and developing a capricious and obstinate character, often termed 'princess syndrome'.

I wasn't in Tongda Town for long when my daughter called me from Hefei, crying that her phone had been stolen. Then my wife called, saying that our daughter was shaking and breaking out in cold sweats upon losing her phone. I had a bad feeling about this because my daughter had previously suffered from schizophrenia, and I feared she might relapse from the stimulation.

I immediately rushed from Tongda Town in Lujiang to Hefei on my electric tricycle. It was evident that something was off with my daughter; she hurled abusive words at me. Yesterday, as I lay in bed upstairs trying to sleep, she came in and told me to go home. I told her the tricycle battery was charging and I would leave once it was charged. She insisted I had to leave right then. I didn't agree, and she suddenly punched me in the head and scratched my face.

Over these past few years, we have been constantly worried about our daughter's illness relapsing. Our daughter often picks quarrels and argues with us for no reason. When she's upset, my wife takes it out on me, verbally abusing me without cause. Once, we were so busy that we hadn't eaten anything by noon. Feeling extremely hungry, I saw some leftover porridge in the pot and wanted to eat some to tide me over. But my wife scolded me for my unseemly eating habits and even poured dirty water into the pot.

There was an incident when my daughter wouldn't let her mother call my son-in-law; she tried to take her mother's phone away. When her mother wouldn't let go, my daughter actually bit her mother's phone until it was ruined. 

Angered, her mother slapped her, and my daughter retaliated by picking up a large iron ladle to smash her mother's head. Fortunately, her mother dodged it. Watching this, my legs trembled.

It seems we must leave our daughter's porridge shop; if we stay, it might cost someone their life. 

My wife called her nephew, who came by car to take her to a relative's house.

As I got terribly motion sickness and had come to Hefei on an electric tricycle, I had no choice but to leave my daughter's porridge shop on it. 

As I was leaving, my daughter pitifully said, "Dad, are you and mom really leaving? I can't run the shop by myself, what should I do?" 

Tears instantly welled up in my eyes. "My daughter, we came here to help, but with your frequent quarrels and violence, how can we stay?"

Riding the electric tricycle to Baohedadao, it had gotten dark, and without a canopy on my tricycle, I was caught in a blizzard, soaking wet and frozen to the core, my hands numb with cold. Fortunately, my nephew had bought me a bicycle raincoat that shielded the front of my chest from the rain and snow.

Upon reaching the Mulan path of Feixi, the oncoming cars passed, and I was blinded, seeing nothing. My tricycle had no lights, and fearing I might tumble into a ditch, I was terrified and could only drive the tricycle slowly.

Around 8 in the evening, I returned to Tongda Town.

Not long after we left, our daughter had no choice but to close her congee shop on the East Second Ring. My son-in-law used a large truck to move the shop's equipment to our old rural home in Guohe Town. And with that, our dreams of running a takeout and snack business came to an abrupt end.

I felt a sense of relief, yet I sensed that my wife might actually enjoy this line of work, perhaps out of an unwillingness to admit defeat, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Last year, around December (2016 or 2017), she went to help out at a relative's congee takeout shop in Hefei for a while. Several of her relatives in Hefei were involved in the takeout business.

After she returned, my wife complained to me, saying that her relatives in Hefei make 500,000 yuan a year from takeout, and she blamed me for not joining them in their dedicated efforts. 

I replied, "I've never wanted to be involved in the takeout business. It's only a minority who make money from it. When people open their phones, they see thousands of takeout options, but everyone only looks at the first 8 or 9 recommended on the first page. How many are willing to scroll further? Moreover, with no barriers to entry, the competition in takeout is extremely fierce.

Your relative always appears first on the phone, their family of 5 or 6 people, working in perfect harmony, never arguing, working 24 hours a day without rest, never closing even during the Spring Festival, occasionally running promotions at a loss for a while. They've also worked desperately to get where they are; the money they've earned has come from hard work."

Later, my wife told me that her relative's daughter-in-law, due to long-term immense pressure, had developed schizophrenia and had just been admitted to The Fourth People's Hospital.

Previously, the wife from the Wukong Fried Rice takeout next door had trouble lighting the high-powered stove. When the gas accumulated too much and finally ignited, it exploded with a bang, burning her face and chest, and the immediate medical treatment cost tens of thousands of yuan.

Once, while my wife and daughter were in the shop, the high-powered stove backfired, setting the gas hose on fire. I was so scared that my legs went weak.