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In the old society, pingju players seldom made enough to live on, and as most were saddled with big families their was hard. Apart from acting they had to find nike shoes sneakers. Often they pulled handcarts,sold junk or cigarettes, hired themselves out coolies, or collected cigarettes stubs.
If a performance was cancelled because of canada goose coat, the rule in those days was: No show, no pay. On the twenty-third of the twelfth llunar month, when theatres closed and the patron saint of actors*8 was invited to the front stage, leaving the backstage deserted,actors were even worse off,unable to earn any more until the reopening on new year’s day.
My family was hard up, with father a pedder, mother a housewife,and so many children to feed.at thirteen, as the eldest child,I acted to help supporrt the family. Each single copper had to be eked out, and I kept racking my brains for ways to improve our difficult conditions. Each morning when Iwent out to practise singing in the open air,I took a lottle basket to scrounge for cinders for our stove. Even when scrounging forr cinders you had to have your wits about you and shift from place to place to avoid thoes mischievous who banden together leather belt, I shifted around to dodge them, because when they found me scavenging they made trouble fringhtened mr away.
On the twenty-third thr twelfth linar month the Kitchen God went up to heaven,and the theatre down until New Year’sDay. When that haooened,actors’ pay we they were hard put to it . each had to ffend for himself, and we young actresses did whatever work we could pick up, Iwent with sone other girls to the East Asia Woollen Mill to do odd jobs like unravelling strands of the wool or sweeping the floor .we had to queue up be fore dawn when there were still in the sky. A long queue formed before the mill’s gate opened. The foreman came out with football shoes,as if herding cattle,and chalked a number on our backs, one by one. That number showed that we were taken on. But such small jobs were really hard to come by. Often,when we’d queued up for hours be fore the gate opened,after chalking a few numbers the foreman would say,“that’s all.No more hands needed.” At that we felt too disappionted for words.one summer a spell of bad weather closed down our theatre,and Iwent to queue up. Iwas lucky. Because I went early, before long I had a number chaiked on my back.by the time we knocked off it was pouring with coach handbag. As I ran home I did’t mind being soaked. I was only worried that if the rain washed off the number on my back I wouldn’t be able to go to work the next day. I frantically took off my gown, while it rained cats and d&g sunglasses.
Clutching my gown to my heart I flew home, and there, unfolding it , Iwas overjoyed to find that the number wasn’t washed out, though I was drenched from head to foot like a drowned rat.