Dialogue "the hardest Chinese in the flow": come to Beijing to find a son, and work odd jobs in the early morning to subsidize the family

Reporter/Zhao Xiang

On January 18, a person with a positive nucleic acid test was found in Chaoyang District, Beijing, and after further examination and expert consultation, he was diagnosed as an asymptomatic infected person with the new crown virus.

On January 19, at the 269th press conference on the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic held in Beijing, Yang Beibei, deputy mayor of Chaoyang District, introduced that the asymptomatic infected person lived in No. 558, Shigezhuang Village, Pingfang Township, Chaoyang District, mainly engaged in the handling of decoration materials. The activity trajectory of the asymptomatic infected person shows that in the 18 days from January 1 to January 18, his work scope covered Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, Shunyi and other districts, and he worked in more than 20 different locations, and many days worked in the early morning. Some netizens called him "the hardest Chinese in the flow".

The asymptomatic infected person, Yue Mou, was born in 1978. He told China News Weekly that he had been working as a crew member of a fishing boat in Weihai, Shandong Province, and on August 12, 2020, his eldest son went missing, and because his son had worked as a cook in Beijing, he came to Beijing to look for it. Before that, in order to find his son, he had already traveled to Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Tianjin and other places. Everywhere he went, while looking for his son, he would work odd jobs to make ends meet.

The village chief of Yue's hometown in Henan told China News Weekly that Yue's family conditions were "relatively average." In his hometown, Yue's father was paralyzed in bed, and his mother had recently broken his arm; his wife and younger son are currently in Weihai, Shandong, with a meager income and his youngest son still in junior high school. As a result, his life was stressful.

Yue's wife told China News Weekly that her husband went out to find children, she took care of her young son in Weihai, and her main job was to dry kelp for people, and she could earn 100 yuan a day.

Yue mou said that these days in Beijing, he mainly contacted the decoration contractor boss through some WeChat groups that received odd jobs, and the jobs he received were carrying sandbags, cement or carrying construction waste to designated garbage stations. Because beijing restricts the passage of construction vehicles during the day, he leaves in the early morning, usually after dawn when it is completed. In order to save money, he lived in a room of about 10 square meters in Shigezhuang, renting 700 yuan per month. A Fellow villager in Henan told China News Weekly that Shi Gezhuang had lived in many of their fellow villagers, most of whom were engaged in construction waste handling, "all of whom worked in the early hours of the morning, very hard and tired."

The following is a conversation between China News Weekly and Yue on the evening of January 19.

China News Weekly: Where are you now? How is it going?

Yue Mou: I was treated at Beijing Ditan Hospital, and I had blood tests, urine tests, and nucleic acid tests yesterday (January 18) and today (January 19) morning, all of which were positive and unchanged.

A few days ago my body temperature was 36.8 ° C, today (January 19) afternoon is 37.8 ° C to 38 ° C, high fever, headache is uncomfortable, took some medicine at night, now the temperature is down, not so high, a little headache.

China News Weekly: Where do you live in Beijing?

Yue Mou: The south gate of Shigezhuang, a small room rented for 700 yuan, about 10 square meters. rural environment. As long as you don't leak rain, you can sleep.

China News Weekly: What do you usually do?

Yue Mou: I have a WeChat group of recruitment platform, there are many bosses, they will send demand, such as hundreds of bags of sand, cement need to carry, I will ask the price, if it is suitable to do, they will come to Shigezhuang to pick me up; or I send the phone number to the group, they will find me if they have work.

Generally a bag of cement or sand, not going upstairs is 1 piece, if you go upstairs, add money, such as the 3rd floor, a bag is 3 pieces, the 4th floor, a bag of 4 pieces. A bag of sand 60 pounds, a bag of cement 100 pounds. Or that kind of construction waste, I move the car, clean it, and finally send it to the garbage station that collects the construction waste.

Sometimes, if I do a good job, I and the boss add a WeChat, and then find me when there is work; if it is not good, it is face-to-face payment, no longer contact. I've worked for more than 20 bosses recently.

Sometimes it can't be done when it rains, and it can't be done when it comes to checking.

China News Weekly: Why do you work at night?

Yue Mou: They all go to do these odd jobs in the second half of the night. Because the pulling of building materials, construction waste to use large trucks, during the day the large trucks are not allowed to enter the city, if you enter the city to deduct points, fines, can only enter the city after eleven o'clock at night.

Go at eleven o'clock in the evening, come back at 4:30 the next morning, and have some work during the day.

All the work is manual work, and you can earn 200 yuan to 300 yuan at a time. Sleep in the morning during the day, sleep for four or five hours, and then go out at noon to find work, so that you can earn more.

Usually after the work, the boss will send me back to Shi Gezhuang, he manages breakfast, give me 10 yuan, I can buy buns and a bowl of porridge, at noon I will eat at home under the noodles.

China News Weekly: What did you do in the past?

Yue Mou: I am from Henan, I have lived in Weihai for more than ten years, and I can earn 50,000 yuan a year as a crew member on a boat. I came to Beijing to look for my son.

China News Weekly: When did you come to Beijing?

Yue Mou: In the spring of 2021, I worked odd jobs in Beijing, worked until September 1, Weihai was able to go to sea, worked in Weihai for two months, rested during the fishing holiday, and on November 19, I returned to Beijing to continue odd jobs. After 15 days in Beijing, my mother broke her arm, my father was paralyzed, and neither of them took care of them, so I went back to my hometown, served them for half a month, and returned to Beijing.

Counting down, this time I stayed in Beijing for more than 40 days, I ran all over the East Fifth Ring Road and South Fifth Ring Road in Beijing, and earned more than 10,000 yuan.

China News Weekly: Why work so hard?

Yue Mou: I belong to the horse, born in 1978. I'm going to raise my youngest son, who is 12 years old and in sixth grade. My daughter-in-law watches the children, dries kelp for people, and earns 10,000 yuan a year. My dad was paralyzed, my mom broke her arm, and it cost more than 10,000 to treat her, and they couldn't take care of themselves. I'm the only one who can go out and work.

My family can't afford to raise it without more than ten thousand yuan a month. I raise a family of six by myself. Give my parents about 2,000 yuan a month. My dad is 76 years old, my mom is 66 years old, they are not low-income households, they have heart disease, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and it costs a lot of money to take medicine.

China News Weekly: Looking at your circulation, on January 17, you went to the post office to mail a letter, what letter was sent?

Yue Mou: Petition letter. My family lives in Chengshan Town, Rongcheng City, Weihai, Shandong Province, and my eldest son works in a food factory 50 kilometers from home. On August 12, 2020, he said that he had a stomach upset and was going to go home to find his mother, and the director of the food factory sent him to the bus station, and then he was lost, and suddenly disappeared and did not get into the car. I was still fishing in the sea, but on the 15th of the same month, I rushed home to find my children. I called the police at the local police station, wanting them to locate my son's mobile phone, adjust the monitoring to find someone, they said that this is an adult, do not give the location of the mobile phone, two or three days later, my son's mobile phone will be out of power and shut down; as for the monitoring, they said that they only manage the car, regardless of people, do not give the adjustment. It took three months for the case to be filed.

Later, I went to the Weihai Municipal Public Security Bureau, and the Weihai Municipal Public Security Bureau pushed the case back to the Rongcheng Municipal Public Security Bureau. I went to the Shandong Provincial Public Security Department and then to Beijing. I think that in the days when my son was lost, if I had been located, I would have found it. There is no hope now. At that time, my wife cried at the door of the police station for two days, and they ignored it, and the director was still very difficult to hear.

China News Weekly: Where have you been looking for children?

Yue Mou: Tianjin, Henan Anyang, Hebei Hengshui, Shandong Tai'an, Weihai, Jinan, Rushan, etc., went to more than ten cities, without any information. When I got to the place, I slept at the ATM machine at the bank, and it was hot and there were many mosquitoes. Without money, I worked locally, earned enough money, and went to other cities.

I've been to aid stations everywhere. One of the aid station managers looked at me pitifully and gave me a box of instant noodles and mineral water.

Originally, my son worked in Beijing's East Fifth Ring Road and worked as a help cook, so I came to Beijing. I inquired around in restaurants and small restaurants in Beijing, asking if there was this person who was working as a help cook, and now I have asked dozens of people.

I suspect he hasn't gone far, and the police said he didn't take a train or a car, and presumably he was still in Rongcheng City.

I also went to the hospital morgue to inquire. On October 12, 2021, they saw me petitioning, saying that a body was my son and asked me to go to the Second Hospital of Rongcheng City to identify the body. I saw the man, his face unclear, very fat, round face. My son is 1.74 meters tall and very thin with a long face. I don't think it's my son. I said I wanted to test the bones of the corpse, and they didn't want to. At first, he said that it would take dozens of days to go to the Weihai City Public Security Bureau for experiments, and then he said that the doctor was on a business trip, and after half a month, he called me and said you don't bother me, don't add a burden to me.

When my daughter-in-law heard that she was dead, she couldn't stop crying. I didn't believe it was my son.

When the dead body was first discovered, I asked the police station, and they said it wasn't my son. As soon as I petitioned, they said it was my son in order to close the case.

My son was 19 when he lost it, and he is 21 years old this year. He did not go to school until the second year of junior high school, very introverted, not very clever, very loyal and down-to-earth. I think he was tricked.

China News Weekly: On January 18, you took a train from Beijing South Railway Station to Weihai, did you want to go home?

Yue Mou: I worked for a year, my son could not be found, the epidemic was also tense, I wanted to go back. On January 17, I sent a letter, did nucleic acid in the afternoon, and took the 1085 train from Beijing to Weihai the next morning. Before the car started, it stopped. The CDC found that I had an abnormality in nucleic acid, called me, said I could not go, I took my luggage off the car, waited, and later transferred to Ditan Hospital for isolation treatment.

Now, the ticket I bought for 414 yuan has not been refunded. A staff member of the Beijing Chaoyang District Center for Disease Control and Prevention wanted to give me money, and I said I couldn't ask for your money. In the past two days, my mobile phone has stopped, and the CDC has charged me 150 yuan for phone bills. They're all fine.

I don't feel pity either. I just work hard, I don't steal or rob, rely on my own strength, rely on my own hands, earn some money, earn money to find children. It's for life, for taking care of this home.

I looked for children and spent tens of thousands of dollars so far. Part-time work is a casual job, and when you earn money, you find children, and when you have no money, you work part-time. I worked hard to get my child back. I worked harder, even if I put my life in it, I still had to get the child back.

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