Handle with care
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Life in the underpass
The underpass is cool and drafty in the summer but cold and windy in the winter. So Zhang and other peddlers then move to other locations that are relatively warmer when temperatures drop.
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Main: Ruirui, an 8-year-old china doll from Zhejiang Province, lies in bed with his bone x-ray pictures scattered all over his blanket. |
On a mild and sunny September afternoon, Zhang sat on a small blue striped blanket made by his wife, absorbing in creating a 20-inch long, half-finished paper cutting of a tiger chasing a butterfly, ignoring all the noises and curious stares from passersby.
It takes usually three days for Zhang to finish a paper cutting of that size, which are sold for 10 yuan each.
Cui, slim, sweet-voiced and with bobbed hair and dressed in a neat white shirt and pink slippers, stood beside Zhang, crying out, "Paper cuttings, paper cuttings! Five yuan each! Buy it as a gift or put it on your window glass."
Dozens of pedestrians stopped to carefully examine their work, with two or three children playing with a paper cutting of a Chinese fairy and another two onlookers reading a newspaper that has the couple's story.
Two people stopped at the red donation box placed in front of the paper cuttings, dropped in 10-yuan notes and hurried away.
"Thank you! Thank you! Hope you make a fortune," Cui said whenever someone dropped money into the box.
On busy days, the couple can make 300 yuan a day, but on slow days, only 90 yuan. And on days preceding large state occasions such as National Day or the meeting of the National People's Congress, even the normally tolerant chengguan force Zhang and Cui out of the underpass.
But the couple also has supporters who occasionally make trips to the underpass for paper-cuttings after they read the couple's story in newspapers or saw them on TV.
"I read about them in newspapers and I felt so bad about the little girl. So I occasionally drop by to buy their paper-cuttings, which always give me a festive feeling," said Zhu Yiping, a subway commuter.
The couple opened a bank account for their daughter's medical treatment.
"I deposit 1,000 yuan each month into the account whether the business is good or not. It's going to be a bottomless money pit for us to treat the disease," Cui, said.
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