Chen Xia returned to 1988 and opened her eyes to a home stripped bare. Her parents were both dead, and she had a baby brother who still needed to be fed. The good news was that although she had no golden finger, her mind held three decades’ worth of recipes and business know-how. The bad news was that you needed ration coupons just to buy a pound of meat. Where was she supposed to get the money to make her mark? Staring at the empty rice jar, Chen Xia gritted her teeth, climbed onto her battered old bicycle, and carved out a way to survive amid the tides of the times. She started with a steaming wonton stall on the street, then opened a hand-grabbed pancake shop that took the whole city by storm, followed by a flagship malatang restaurant that drew lines around the block. Her motto was simple: “I’ll make sure everyone in the country gets to eat my cooking!”
At first, the neighbors said a young unmarried woman ought to find herself a steady job instead of running a street stall. “What a waste of her life!” But within a few years, Chen Xia’s snack shops had spread across the city, making a fortune every day. Even veteran chefs from state-run restaurants came to learn from her. The people who had once laughed at her now lined up to ask for jobs at her shops.
“Boss Chen, do you think my knife skills are good enough to help out at your shop?”
“Sister Chen, my nephew is great at math. He can help you with the accounts, and he won’t even need a salary!”
Chen Xia smiled as she watched the long line outside and her staff bustling about inside. Who says you need a golden finger to turn your life around? With her own two hands, a sharp mind, and a love of good food, she could still make her mark in this sweeping era of the 1980s! As for that cool-faced young man who was always showing up at her shop for a free meal and offering her “constructive suggestions”… well,
