commerce, guardians of public order and of household registration. Then there are the 'bound-feet vigilante aunties' with their 'keep order' armbands, who focus on things that 'don't look nice'. These range from serious matters, such as accusations that city folk are treating peasant labourers unfairly, and the rights and wrongs of a fight between husband and wife, to the more trivial – a man with inappropriately long hair, or a woman with an indecently short skirt. City folk say that the red-armbanded aunties look after stuff that the government and people's families ignore. No matter what rank the administrators are, so long as they have a sleeve badge, wear a uniform and can show their certificate, they are all 'supported' by the local stallholders who keep the local government or street committee going. Those who scrape along at the bottom of society are fleeced on a daily basis by one or other of these numerous administrative charges. But they still feel that they are living better than in the countryside. I sometimes think that their past lives must have been unimaginably hard.
The fifth kind are the dirt roads of the countryside, and the 'construction roads' of the cities. Twenty years of frenzied urban construction in China have given rise to many original ideas in the heads of those whose inspiration has been stifled for a century: why not install a 'zipper' in the ground so that you don't have to dig down to make repairs? Why not set up a crane so that new-builds which have been 'programmed out' can be lifted out of the ground and shifted to the countryside for the peasants to live in? Why not get an advance picture of what's in the minds of people who are going to be important officials in ten years, so that today's policymakers don't have to start all over again? So many ideas! And most of those who thought them up have trodden these 'construction roads', quite a few of which are made from metal grids. These are fine in dry weather – apart from being wobbly – but when it drizzles, they turn very greasy underfoot, just the thing to send you flying head over heels! The worst sort are made of a dozen or so planks of scrap wood, and before you walk on them you have to check there's no one at the other end. There is? In that case, make sure you know who's the heaviest, or you may be 'seesawed' into the mud on either side. And then there are roads made of bricks and stones, forcing you to 'skip'. Some of them simply take you over building rubble.
While our group was on the road doing interviews, we became thoroughly familiar with the five kinds of roads of modern China. Not only that, but these roads somehow came to embody in a very real way the
On 10 September, we took a taxi to a chaotic and jam-packed back street in the Zhongyang area of Zhengzhou city, to interview an intriguing woman who had turned her back on her village to come to this back street and make her living as a shoe-mender. By dint of twenty-eight years spent repairing shoes in all kinds of weather, Mrs Xie had managed to put her son and her daughter through the best universities in China.
As we drove, the female taxi driver said to us: 'I can hear you speaking a foreign language. Which kind of English are you speaking? Which English-speaking country are you from? What have you come to do in this dirty old street?'
We wanted to make sure she was not one of those Chinese taxi drivers whose 'alertness and vigilance' might lead to trouble from the local police, so we earnestly told her about educational charity work we were involved with. She was so moved by our description that she refused to charge us. We wrangled for some time before we could get her to accept the fare.
We went into the side street, past a store selling cigarettes and other sundries, a stall selling home-cooked flatbreads from a cooker, two carts with general household items, a fruit stall, and a cart selling cold dishes from a glass box mounted on it, before arriving at the shoe-mender's stall. This consisted of a crudely made cart topped with an old oil-paper umbrella. On the cart lay a collection of insoles, and an assortment of creams and folk remedies for foot problems, together with bits and pieces for repairing shoes, such as soles, heels, heel tips and so on. Her stock, while not large, was neatly arranged. A few customers waited by her stall, apparently queuing to have their shoes repaired. A man in his early forties sat opposite, and there was a middle-aged woman, and a girl in her teens.
Mrs Xie did not look much more than fifty. Her dry, wispy hair was tied into a ponytail and she wore a Western-style, mixed-fibre purple top over a pair of very cheap denims. On her feet were a pair of ill-fitting leather shoes – which I guessed were someone's cast-offs – and her arms were covered by a pair of flower-patterned oversleeves. Nothing she wore appeared to match, city-style, but she was clean and neat.
The friend who had set up the meeting for me went over to greet her: 'Big sister,' – country folk respectfully call women in the towns, big sister, and men, big brother, sometimes even when they are younger than them – 'I often come and get you to mend my shoes. But you have so many customers, do you remember me?'
MRS XIE: Of course I remember you. You never try and bargain my prices down. Your husband is in the army. You're a good person.
FRIEND: This is my friend Xinran, whom I've known for nearly thirty years.
XINRAN: Hello. I'm delighted to meet you.
MRS XIE: Hello. I've got a job in hand. Why don't you sit down?
XINRAN: Can you mend my shoes? They've come unglued inside at the bottom.
MRS XIE: I'll have a look. [Gives a quick glance.] Yes, I can, it's very simple. Wait till I've finished this pair, and I'll do them for you.
But the middle-aged woman customer sitting on a stool objected that she had been there first. And I quickly agreed.
MRS XIE [to the woman customer]: Don't worry, her shoes just need gluing. They'll only take a second to stick. Yours need new heel tips. She'll have to wait half an hour or more, and everyone's busy…
XINRAN: No, really, I'm happy to wait my turn. It gives me a chance to learn your craft and chat to you. My friend told me that you've scrimped and saved your shoe-mending money to send your children to university. You're amazing!
MRS XIE: Aren't all Chinese mothers like that?
XINRAN: When I came here looking for a shoe-mender, everyone said you were the best. They all sing your praises.
MRS XIE: They look after me. They look after poor people like us.
XINRAN: When did you start mending shoes here?
MRS XIE: In 1978.
XINRAN: Nearly thirty years! Where do you come from? Did you come alone or with your family?
MRS XIE: From Hubei. I came with my husband.
XINRAN: And your children?
MRS XIE: It was only my son then. He was just born. We left him at home, for the grandparents to bring up. We left to earn money.
XINRAN: Why did you leave?
MRS XIE: We were so hard up there. The land was truly poor and barren.
XINRAN: You have one son and one daughter?
MRS XIE: Yes.
XINRAN: Where are they at university?
MRS XIE: My son works, my daughter is at university.
XINRAN: Where does your son work?
