IOUs Cause Big Trouble
I have often heard stories about people not being paid their wages and borrowers not returning money. Since I was young, I have had some personal experiences with IOUs and unpaid debts. During the Cultural Revolution, my family got into a lot of trouble because of some IOUs left behind by my grandfather, and my father encountered some stories that were hard to believe.
In the late 1940s, just a few years before the establishment of New China, my grandfather supported our family by working as a painter. At that time, a Li family ancestral hall was being constructed in our small town, and my grandfather and a few apprentices participated in the construction project. The construction cost of the ancestral hall was not sufficient, and the contractor, Boss Wu, owed my grandfather his wages. He wrote several IOUs to my grandfather. Over the years, the amount accumulated was quite substantial, possibly a significant sum at that time. I heard that an ordinary worker could earn at most a few dan of grain after working hard for a year. My mother often mentioned that Boss Wu, who was in charge of the ancestral hall construction, made a lot of money, while my grandfather worked for several years without earning much and only received a few worthless IOUs.
Soon after, New China was established, but Boss Wu still hadn’t paid my grandfather the wages owed from those IOUs. After my grandfather passed away in 1956, my grandmother carefully preserved those IOUs, hoping that one day Boss Wu would have a change of heart and repay the hard-earned money he owed to my grandfather.
During the Cultural Revolution, the “rebel faction” and “Red Guards” went around “raiding homes”, searching for gold, silver, jewelry, antique books and other valuable things, and the situation was very tense. My father knew that my grandmother had kept these IOUs, and he felt that they should be in order and could not afford to burn them. After all, this is the foreman arrears of wages, and, Wu boss is the local famous “industrial and commercial and landlord”. Unexpectedly, after a few days, several people from the “Revolutionary Committee” of my father’s unit came to our house to “fuck the family” and searched our house, but found nothing valuable. They found the IOUs in the cabinet and took them away.
My father had survived all the previous political movements and had not been shocked. After the appearance of these IOUs, he began to have bad luck for more than ten years, and the IOUs were described by the “Revolutionary Committee” as “capitalist” “accounts of change”. He was “criticized” and labeled as a “class heterophile and handicraft capitalist”, and was “paraded through the streets”, suffering many injuries. Then he was sent to the “May 7 cadre school” for several years, and later he lost his job, and was “dissuaded” from work at the age of fifty. I will never forget the big trouble caused to my father by the IOUs, which turned black and white.
Some people say, “Money lent is like water poured.” Sometimes, lending money to others can be an embarrassing situation. You generously lend money, but the person doesn’t repay you. Even if you ask for it, you may not get it back, and it can instead create a big trouble for yourself.
When I was a child, my father lent some money to two of his colleagues, probably around a few dozen yuan. In those days, everyone was poor, and a few dozen yuan was a significant amount. In our small town, many people earned only 30 to 50 yuan as their monthly salary. When asking my father for money, his colleagues claimed to have urgent family matters and needed the money for emergencies, assuring him that they would repay it quickly. My father trusted them and immediately lent them the money. However, his colleagues didn’t keep their promise and never returned the money. My father was an honest and kind-hearted person, and he felt embarrassed to bring up the matter of repayment to his colleagues due to saving face. His colleagues pretended to be clueless and never mentioned anything about repaying the debt, dragging it on for one or two years.
When my father received his monthly salary, my mother would sometimes ask about the repayment from his colleagues and urge him to get the money back. They would even argue about it. My mother felt that my father was too naive, as she herself didn’t have enough money to spare, so how could he casually lend money to others? If they borrow money and don’t repay it, you should go and demand it back. My father would say that his colleagues felt embarrassed to ask for money, and he couldn’t refuse them when they approached him for a loan. The money was already lent out, and my father couldn’t do much about it. He would always console my mother, saying that they would repay him soon. However, their arguments never resulted in a resolution.
One time, my mother said, “If you feel embarrassed to ask them, then I’ll go to their homes and demand the money myself.” My father couldn’t stop her either. Although my mother talked tough, she was actually a kind-hearted person and not someone who would confront others easily. She didn’t have the courage to go alone to the colleagues’ homes to ask for the money. So, she asked me to accompany her and give her courage.
My father had lent money to two colleagues. My mother and I first went to Mr. Yu’s house. Mr. Yu and his wife were both my father’s colleagues, and they lived in the company dormitory. Their financial situation seemed better than ours. My mother brought up the matter of repayment to Mr. Yu, but he was unhappy and had a bad attitude. He confidently told my mother that he didn’t have the money now, but he would repay it later. Seeing Mr. Yu’s stern expression, it seemed as if we shouldn’t have come to ask for the money. My mother felt extremely aggrieved and didn’t dare to say much, fearing to offend them. We quickly left their house.
My mother and I went to the home of Mr. Gu, another colleague. Mr. Gu had three children, and his wife didn’t have a job. Both his wife and the children looked very thin and weak. They stood at the door, watching us from a distance. My mother explained the purpose of our visit to Mr. Gu, who seemed a little embarrassed. He said he didn’t have any money at the moment, but he would repay it in the future. My mother didn’t know what else to say, and I stood silently by her side, not daring to utter a word. Soon, we left their house. On the way back home, my mother said, “Their family is in such difficult circumstances. How can they have money to repay?”
When we returned home, my father told my mother, “I told you not to ask them. They will repay the money in the future.” My mother knew it would be difficult to get the money back, so she rarely brought up the matter again.
Not long after, the Cultural Revolution began. Many of my father’s colleagues were sent to different places, and my father started facing repercussions. He was sent to a “May Seventh Cadre School” for many years. The issues of borrowing money from colleagues like Mr. Yu and Mr. Gu were never resolved. After my father passed away, my mother would sometimes mention these two colleagues, saying that they “borrowed money from your father and never returned it, how disgraceful,” and that they had no credibility. She often told me, “Once you lend money, you won’t get it back. Don’t lend money to others, and don’t borrow money from others either.”
