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Family Story: self-employed pen-repairer becomes national model worker

2009-08-31 15:05 BJT

Figure: Zhang Guangyi (80 years old)

Members of the family: four members including wife, son, daughter-in-law and Zhang

Family profile: old Beijingers that live in Dongsi, Dongcheng District

self-employed pen-repairer
My business license was issued in 1999. The photo
on the left was taken when I was about 30 years
old. Though I looked like a young man at that
time, I had already repaired pens for over 10
years. The photo on the right was taken more
recently. Already an old man rather than a
young man, I have sat in this small shop in
Dongsi repairing pens for 62 years.

A small pen-repair shop, which is located at No. 102, Dongsi South Street, is sandwiched among a row of fashion shops.

Push the door open and you will see an old-fashioned wall calendar, Yongjiu branded bicycle, a green wall and a radio on a wooden table, as though it were a Beijing home from the past.

The small shop has been open for 62 years, and the shopkeeper is Zhang Guangyi who was the first self-employed entrepreneur in Beijing. Dwarfed by others in the past but now awarded Beijing’s and China’s model worker award and elected as a deputy to the NPC, the previously “non-collective business entrepreneur” has now become an “excellent builder of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

self-employed pen-repairer
I took few photos, because I spent most of my time
in repairing pens. This picture was taken by a
friend who came to me and asked me to repair a pen,
and it shows how I worked every day.