"What do you think?" Lin Chaoyang asked.

"Don't you and my sister know a lot of celebrities in Xiangjiang? Can we invite a few celebrities to the clothing city's anniversary next year?" Lin Chaoyang glanced at Du Feng in surprise, not expecting that he would come up with such an idea.

Mainland celebrities can't satisfy you now, right? You have to invite celebrities from Hong Kong. "It's a good idea, but it's too unrealistic."

"Why?" Du Feng was puzzled.

In the 1980s, it is true that the reputations of many Hong Kong and Taiwan stars were introduced to China, but their works were not very popular. The domestic trend of chasing Hong Kong and Taiwan stars only started in the late 1980s.

Speaking of the Hong Kong and Taiwan stars who had the greatest influence on the mainland in the early to mid-1980s, singers were more influential than movie stars, and their works were more familiar to people. For example, Teresa Teng, Luo Dayou, Feng Feifei...

But the problem is that many people may have heard their songs but may not have met them in person, so it is difficult for these people to create a sensation.

And you may not be able to hire them even if you spend money. Even if you can hire them, the cost will be much more than hiring movie stars from the mainland like Liu Xiaoqing and others, which is not cost-effective at all. Du Feng wanted to make a big splash.

But it ignores the actual operability.

"Don't even think about Hong Kong and Taiwan celebrities in the past two years. Just focus on the Spring Festival Gala and invite whoever is popular.

In recent years, the Spring Festival Gala has always invited unknown singers from Hong Kong and Taiwan. You can contact them, and the effect will definitely be no worse than inviting those real Hong Kong and Taiwan stars. "Lin Chaoyang remembered that Fei Xiang was going to appear on the Spring Festival Gala a few months later, so he invited him

Isn’t it much more cost-effective than traveling thousands of miles to hire those celebrities?

The effect was absolutely sensational, and the young ladies and young wives present were probably so excited that they fainted.

After Lin Chaoyang's persuasion, Du Feng gave up the idea of ​​inviting celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan, "Okay, then I will invite people from the Spring Festival Gala." After lunch, Lin Erchun rarely came back early one day, and Du Feng saw

He was furious and couldn't help but ask:

"Uncle, you came back early today!"

"Haha, today's house exchange meeting. The government has made some kind of computer to change houses. It's much faster than before."

As mentioned in the previous article, house exchange is a last resort used by Yanjing residents to solve the inconvenience of going to work or school or to improve housing conditions. It is usually a voluntary negotiation between the two parties. In order to facilitate the citizens, Yanjing City started to implement house exchange as early as the 1950s.

It began to organize house exchanges among residents, and in 1956, a allocation department was established in the Housing Management Bureau as a full-time agency for house exchanges.

By the 1980s, the population of Yanjing continued to grow and the housing shortage further intensified. The Housing Authority began to hold house exchange meetings at the Working People's Cultural Palace in 1982. Dongcheng, Xicheng, Xuanwu, Chongwen, Haidian, Chaoyang, Fengtai, and Shijingshan districts

Residents and businesses can exchange houses through the house exchange meeting.

The holding of the house exchange meeting was warmly welcomed by the citizens of Yanjing. Nowadays, housing prices seem to be inexpensive, but for the vast majority of working-class people, they are still out of reach.

On the other hand, the supply of commercial housing is pitiful, everyone only has one house, and the property rights of many houses are still public. It is difficult to have the opportunity to change houses. In 1982, the first house exchange meeting was held, and more than 100,000 residents participated in it.

75,000 people, including 1,368 households.

By last year, this number soared to 3,151 households. And this is only a small part of the annual house changes in Yanjing. Last year, more than 37,000 households in Yanjing changed houses. This matter had nothing to do with Lin Erchun.

, he went to see the excitement during the housing exchange conference the year before last and discovered the business opportunity.

Changing houses, going to work, going to school, and living in a spacious place are just for these three things.

However, the proportion of residents who participate in the house exchange meeting every year and can be exchanged is very low, and they have real needs for housing improvement. These people are all Lin Erchun's potential rental customers. A house exchange meeting is enough for Lin Erchun and his

The people down there have been busy for half a month.

Comrade Lao Lin is no longer the mere commander he once was. He has several serious old men and women under his command. Du Feng chatted with Lin Erchun for a while and complimented: "You are really good at making money!"

"Hey, if you don't make money, just find something to do for yourself."

Lin Erchun spoke modestly, but could not hide the pride in his eyes.

After lunch, Du Feng was about to say goodbye when Lin Chaoyang suddenly remembered and said, "By the way, your sister asked you to buy more black windbreakers." "Black windbreakers? What are you doing with those things?"

"You'll know in two months."

There is a time lag between the mainland's pirated video tapes and Hong Kong's. Many videos will only reach the mainland in three to four months if they are fast, and half a year if they are slow. With the popularity of "A Better Tomorrow", this speed may be much earlier.

After a few days, the autumn wind gradually became bleak, and winter in Yanjing was coming soon.

Liang Zuo suddenly ran to Lin Chaoyang's house and said that he would invite him to a class reunion, and Lin Chaoyang happily went.

After getting married, Liang Zuo lived in a large courtyard in Xianxin Hutong, Dongcheng. Before entering the alley, he had to pass through a public toilet. Even in winter, the smell was not good. This is also the norm in most alleys in Yanjing today.

After entering the house, Li Tong had just arrived. Liang Zuo talked to the two of them for a while, then got up and went to the toilet outside. At this time, Wang Xiaoping came and brought a familiar face that he had not seen for a long time.

"Xiao Cha!" Li Tong shouted excitedly.

Everyone said hello to each other. Liang Zuo came back. When he saw Cha Jianying, he wanted to shake hands. Wang Xiaoping knocked his hand off in disgust. "Didn't you just go to the toilet?"

"Then let's follow the habits of American emperors."

Liang Zuo smiled and hugged Zha Jianying.

After a while, two or three more people came to Liang Zuo's family, and finally they were all together.

Lin Chaoyang heard everyone chatting and found out that the main purpose of today's gathering was to welcome Cha Jianying back to China.

Lin Chaoyang and Cha Jianying were not very familiar with each other when they were at Yanda University. When they met, the two just said hello politely, but Cha Jianying looked at him twice. Cha Jianying went to the United States to study in 1981, and has been studying in the United States ever since.

It's been five years.

During this period, she first obtained a master's degree in English from the University of South Carolina, and then studied comparative literature at Columbia University and obtained her second master's degree. After graduating this year, she applied for a job at the New York Times. She came back this time because

The New York Times decided to send her back to work in the Yanjing office.

When we talk about work, we inevitably talk about salary. When everyone heard that Cha Jianying said her salary was 1,800 US dollars, everyone was stunned. 1,800 US dollars, converted into RMB, is 6,000 RMB!

"Xiao Cha, you made the right move by studying abroad. One year's salary is enough for us to earn in a lifetime." Wang Xiaoping's tone was full of envy.

Among the class of ’77 in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Yanda, not many people decided to study abroad when they graduated. After all, self-funded study abroad had just begun at that time. Many people were unsure about studying abroad in a foreign country.

In the past two years, there have been more and more students studying abroad, whether at their own expense or at public expense. Even people like Wang Xiaoping and others who have been working for several years are a little ready to make a move, not to mention the successful example of Zha Jianying.

Wearing a layer of "turtle" status, Cha Jianying became the center of attention at this party.

She chatted with everyone about her various experiences of studying and living in the United States in the past few years, and everyone who listened was full of envy. "You should really go to the United States to see it if you have the opportunity. It is really different from China."

Zha Jianying's words revealed a bit of superiority, but she was still restrained.

Considering the economic gap and social development between China and the United States in the 1980s, it is normal for her to have this sense of superiority.

"It's not as easy as you say! You were the only ones who decided to study abroad at the beginning. Now everyone is getting married and having children. It's even more impossible." Wang Xiaoping said.

Liang Zuo smiled and said: "Xiaoping, you might as well just call my name."

"You are not the only one who gets married and has children."

"Who else is there? Li Tong, my master...forget it, my master is not included. He can leave the country anytime he wants and has settled in Xiangjiang."

Lin Chaoyang said quickly: "It's okay, don't spread rumors about me. I'm just a guest in Xiangjiang, and I'm not sitting here with you now?" "What about my wife?" Liang Zuo asked him.

"She has no job, so she has no choice but to go to sea to do business."

Wang Xiaoping joked: "We also want this kind of opportunity to go to sea without any choice."

While several people were telling jokes to each other, Zha Jianying's eyes lingered on Lin Chaoyang with interest. She had stayed in the United States for several years, but her communication with the country had not been interrupted and she had always been in contact.

When she was corresponding with her classmates, she would occasionally talk about Lin Chaoyang. She knew that he had become more famous in recent years than before. What surprised her even more was that in June this year, she received a letter from Wang Xiaoping from China, saying

The film written by Lin Chaoyang won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Zha Jianying was very surprised when she got the news. She usually doesn't pay much attention to entertainment news, so she went to check it out and found out the award-winning information for "The Truman Show." She was a little surprised at that time.

Because when she studied abroad, none of Lin Chaoyang's works had been adapted and released. In her impression, Lin Chaoyang was just a writer. She didn't expect that a few years later, he would already win the grand prize at a foreign film festival.

What surprised Cha Jianying even more was that a few days later, she saw the movie poster of "The Truman Show" in front of a movie theater on the streets of New York. "The Truman Show" was going to be released in the United States?

Out of curiosity, Cha Jianying watched the film a few days before it was released. It was unexpectedly good-looking and unforgettable. At that time, Cha Jianying was still thinking, no wonder it won the first prize at the Yaona Film Festival.

Three awards.

A few days later, Cha Jianying discovered that many of her American classmates and even professors had watched the movie.

This phenomenon was completely beyond Xing Jianying's expectation. In her impression, Americans rarely have foreign movies, and Hong Kong movies only have a market in Chinatown.

Cha Jianying couldn't help but chat with the classmates around her, and realized that the screening scale of "The Truman Show" in the United States was not small, at least it was definitely larger than those Hong Kong kung fu movies that were only screened in Chinatown.

In the movie, Truman desperately wanted to escape from Taoyuan Island, and her pursuit of freedom was highly praised by her classmates. Only then did Cha Jianying realize that the popularity of "The Truman Show" in the United States was largely due to

The values ​​of this movie.

But Cha Jianying carefully recalled the plot of the movie and felt that Americans may have only seen the four words "pursuit of freedom" but not the absurdity and irony behind the movie.

Cha Jianying also specially asked her classmates to send her a copy of the original novel "The Truman Show". After reading the novel, she became more convinced of her feelings, and began to educate her classmates about the hidden meanings in the movies and novels.

.

Whenever someone questions her science popularization, Cha Jianying will say: "You know, the screenwriter of this movie and the original novel are my friends, and we were in the same classroom back then!"

At this time, those doubts will disappear immediately. Tried and true, she has been in the limelight several times, and she, who has always been a little transparent in school in the past few years. "When "The Truman Show" was released in the United States, I still

I went to read it and it was well written and photographed." Zha Jianying praised it.

Lin Chaoyang thanked him, but before he said anything, several people around him started asking questions. "Is The Truman Show still being released in the United States?"

In this era without the Internet, the dissemination of information had great limitations.

"Yeah, the box office was pretty good. I remember it was almost over 10 million US dollars." Cha Jianying said. Everyone was surprised when they heard this, "Ten million US dollars? Oh my god!"

Liang Zuo stared at Lin Chaoyang with bright eyes, "Master, how much did you share in the 10 million US dollars?"

Everyone's eyes also looked at Lin Chaoyang.
To be continued...