Thirty Years of Turbulence - Chinese Enterprises

作者：admin  点击次数：4  发布时间：2025-06-16

Farewell to the Romantic Era in 1980





I cannot resist the wall,

Only the desire to resist.



The first thing I must resist is:

My compromise on the wall,

And the insecurity towards this world.

——Shu Ting: "The Wall", 1980



In the first spring of the 1980s, the north and south of the country were blessed with favorable weather, and there was an uncontrollable joy throughout the country. 24-year-old Beijing poet Gu Cheng published his famous work "A Generation of People" in the poetry magazine "Star". The entire poem is very short, only two lines, but like an atomic bomb, it ignited the emotions that have been accumulated for a whole generation: "The night gave me black eyes/But I use them to search for light." This is an indescribable emotional expression, and the awakening of personal consciousness is fully revealed in these two lines of poetry. Everyone seems to be starting to realize that this will be an unsettled beginning.

In order to make the people of the whole country enjoy the first Spring Festival in the 1980s, the Ministry of Commerce issued a special notice on January 18, requiring major cities to open up pork supply. In the previous year, the national pig inventory increased by 8 million heads, and the average gross weight of each pig increased by 12 kilograms. The notice requires that it is best for all regions to "purchase, slaughter, and sell pigs on site". A few days later, the State Council issued a document allowing "seasonal price differences for eggs", which means that the country has been trying to use price leverage to coordinate the market. Such notices and documents will be tirelessly distributed for more than ten years, and no one finds them abrupt. The country has always been like a nanny, carefully taking care of the people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation.