As soon as the eight o’clock television drama ended, my wife snapped off the screen. Our daughter came out of the kitchen carrying a cake with two small red candles burning on top.
“Happy birthday! Happy birthday!”
The mother and daughter clapped and sang. Their performance really did surprise me.
“Dad, make a wish.” Before I could speak, my daughter immediately added, “A wish is made in your heart. You can’t say it out loud.”
So I put my palms together, closed my eyes, and silently prayed: I hope there will be no more unemployment.
I blew out the candles and we cut the cake. After the cake on the paper plate had been scraped into my stomach, my daughter produced a brand-new light beige jacket.
“Dad, stop wearing that same old jacket all the time.”
My wife also handed me a pack of socks.
“Husband, try these and see if they fit.”
I felt almost overwhelmed by the attention.
“Hey, why bother? I’m old already. What birthday is there to celebrate?”
Holding the birthday gifts from my beloved daughter and wife, I kept saying gratefully, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
The next day I was looking for the pair of socks I usually wore. My wife came over.
“Wear the new socks. The old ones—I threw them away.”
There was nothing I could do but put on the snow-white socks with a blue band around the top. Was the material especially good, or was it my wife’s loving heart? In any case, they felt soft, warm, and elastic on my feet. I thought I had never worn such comfortable socks in my entire life.
I remembered life in the 1950s under the low-wage system. A pair of socks did not cost much, but in order to extend their life, when you bought new socks you would ask someone to add “sock soles.” That meant sewing two or three layers of cloth tightly together into a pad like a shoe insert, cutting open the bottom of the new sock, then sewing the sock to the pad. In this way, the socks lasted longer and you saved the cost of insoles. One pair could do the work of several. The socks were new, but on the feet they were not so soft. They felt a little like the martial-arts shoes worn by swordsmen in ancient times.
By the 1960s, ration coupons were in use. Each person received only twelve chi of cloth coupons per year. Socks could no longer be fitted with cloth soles. When they wore through, we patched them with scraps. During the life of one pair, first you patched the heel, then the toes, then the sole. You kept patching over patches and still hated to throw them away, because even buying a pair of socks required several cun of cloth coupons.
Clothing was the same. “Three years new, three years old, another three years patched and mended.” Our factory issued one set of protective work clothes each year, but workers kept patching the previous year’s work clothes so they could save the new set from the second or third year for their children.
In those days, nobody laughed at you for wearing old or torn clothes. Instead, worn clothing was considered a kind of beauty and torn clothing almost a kind of pride. Look at an older worker in faded work clothes and people assumed he had long seniority and plenty of experience. Look at a young person in new work clothes and people assumed he had just started working or was still an apprentice—“no hair above the mouth, no steadiness in the work.” So wearing old and worn clothes displayed maturity, experience, and skill.
It was a little like young men and women in America taking pride in jeans washed almost white—the older, the more beautiful; the more torn, the more fashionable; the bigger the hole exposing the backside, the sexier they considered it.
After coming to America, torn socks were no longer fashionable. Think about it: you enter someone’s home and take off your shoes, and there you are standing on a clean, plush carpet with your heel exposed and your toes peeking through the front of your socks. How embarrassing. Better to go barefoot with your natural feet than to wear a pair of socks like two broken boats.
“Wife!” I put on the new socks and pulled on my sneakers. “Thank you!”
I strode out the door feeling that even my steps were lighter than usual.