In the winter of 1998, the chimney at Hongqi Machine Factory went dark. Zhao Tiesheng, a Level Eight fitter, took his 3,200-yuan severance pay and pedaled his Forever-brand, 28-inch bicycle, whose only quiet part was the bell, into the muddy outskirts of the city.
He set up his bike-repair stall beside a garbage dump. His rivals were local thugs, his customers were vegetable sellers and migrant workers, and at home he had a sick wife and a young son. Every day, he counted out his pennies. But he had his hands, and a conscience that wouldn't bend.
Broken bikes needed fixing, and broken people did too. From masks during the SARS outbreak to demolition disputes, from internet-addicted teenagers to the cost of medicine for the seriously ill, the torrents of a changing era swept by, hurling grit and stones at every ordinary person. Zhao Tiesheng repaired bicycles and tricycles, rusted childhoods and a family on the verge of falling apart. With a single wrench, he tried to tighten the loose screws of this world.
This isn't a rags-to-riches legend. It's the story of a craftsman who spent thirty years on the anvil of fate, tempering, hammering, and reshaping himself and his life again and again, until an ordinary person's voice became an enduring echo of the times.
