Thirty Years of Turbulence - Chinese Enterprises

作者：admin  点击次数：17  发布时间：2025-10-31

In order to generate more income, candy bars often contain some needle, thread, makeup, and wooden combs that women need. This group of 'sugar tapping gang' has about ten thousand people and has been around for a hundred years, becoming a 'natural' rural vendor in central Zhejiang. Around 1978, spontaneous rural markets emerged in the eastern part of Yiwu County, including Twenty Three Li Township and Futian Township. More than ten pairs of goods were set up there, selling various types of needles, thread heads, homemade chicken feather dusters, board brushes, and more. Two years later, these peddlers entered the town of Choucheng in the county town. When a burden was placed, two or three immediately emerged nearby, and then more. The small stalls meandered along, and the shouting gradually turned into a sound, soon reaching over two hundred stalls. The local county government did not know how to manage and dispose of these "sugar tapping gangs", so it issued a "Temporary License for Trading Chicken Hair and Fat for Sugar tapping in Small Department Stores", which can be regarded as tacitly approving the existence of these vendors.

▲ Treasury bonds issued in 1983

By the end of 1982, the county had unknowingly issued 7000 "temporary permits", and there were over 300 vendors in Choucheng Town, trading goods far beyond the scope of "chicken feathers and fertilizer" regulations. Someone started writing letters to the province, reporting in shock that 'Yiwu has a small hotbed of capitalism'. At that time, Xie Gaohua, who was serving as the county party secretary, faced enormous pressure.