Huang Dake, the Old Man from the Hutong

Is Huang Dake a Beijinger? He was born at the old People's Hospital in Baitasi. His father moved from the countryside in Jingdong to the city, and his maternal grandmother's family were old Beijingers. His grandfather's eldest brother, his great-grandfather, served in the Northeastern Army and the puppet army, then became a deputy corps commander in the Nationalist Army. After Liberation, he worked at the General Staff Department and a military academy. He paid for five rooms in a courtyard house in a hutong for Huang Dake's father. Huang Dake lived there until his grandson Zhishan was old enough to start school, when he transferred the house to his son Degui. He and his wife then moved to a resettlement apartment in Shahe. Just as he was starting primary school and needed to grow, the difficult years came and there wasn't enough to eat. After graduating from primary school, he started middle school, only to find classes suspended, with no academic lessons. He spent ten years by the Heilongjiang border, then returned to the city and was assigned to work as a cashier at a major hospital. He married Zong Ziping, to whom he had been engaged since childhood. Later, he attended a correspondence university and earned an accounting certificate, became an accountant in the finance department, transferred to a government office, and became its spokesperson. Was the second half of his life smooth sailing?