Da Ge and Ma Li had been married since 1962. Their wedding banquet had consisted of very tasty steamed millet balls and an assortment of foraged greens, with precisely 3 shots of baijiu per guest.  They both wore their best (and only) Mao suits. Hers was a lovely shade of grey. She was radiant in her long, black pig-tails.  Everyone at Machine Tool Factory Number 8 couldn’t stop talking about it for weeks!

Now, for their 50th anniversary, Da Ge wanted to do something special. He carefully saved a few jiao every day from his meagre veterans’ pension and treated her to a five course lunch at a sidewalk restaurant on Yongjia lu where all the taxi drivers stopped to eat because it was the only place they could park legally.  This meant they could take a taxi home instead of walking the 8 blocks on arthritic legs. He had saved the 14 kuai for that too.

She was very touched.