We began to receive salaries from Aug. 1970 and lived on them without any other extra income. In those days, there was no way to earn additional money, we had not any thought to do it, behaved in a fit and proper way and our lives just jogged along from day to day. From 1982 on, I began to try submitting some pieces of writing for publications, almost three years without any sign of success. In Section 21, I sighed with feeling: “The contribution road is so far that I would search it from the paradise to the hell wholeheartedly.” My first manuscript did not appear on a small English paper of Shanxi Province until 1985, and since then I began to have small amount of contribution income, when my two sons said that enough money earned to buy fried dough twist and deep-fried dough sticks every morning. Although the amount of contribution income was small, it was almost equal to half of my salary, satisfying us somewhat. Naturally, the economic effects of the success in the submission of my articles could not be considered, the most significance was that I opened the door to my doing research.
After living and working in the city of Xuzhou, we began to do some teaching outside the campus, received some extra money, from ¥5 a period to ¥50 a period before our retirement, adding to our income from time to time. Section 60 narrated the first book published with the cooperation between Shihua Li and me, and later several books came into being. We gained contribution fee and copyright royalties, in addition to selling our own books. As a result, our income was substantially increased. However, selling books had to be stopped ending in a failure, and with the number of our books sold by the publishing houses decreasing, our royalties went down, and our income was decreasing continuously.
With income deduced, we spent money not as boldly as before, and lived not as happily as before. A person who is high-minded should have comfortable income, otherwise he or she cannot live marvelously. After the retirement in 2005, I began to probe into other means to increase our income.
A young lady, who used to be a student of ZMS, a classmate of Li Song, now also lived in Fenghuayuan and was studying for a doctor’s degree in the CUMT. She advocated the investment into the project of New Wisdom Website, saying that it would be listed on NASDAQ in New York, just as Baidu created an American myth of China’s concept stocks, with its stock price increased 354% on the initial day. As a result, one night all the employees of Baidu owning original stocks, including doormen, became millionaires.
Spreading from mouth to mouth, the news that New Wisdom Website would also be listed on NASDAQ spread around, a lot of people were busy to send money to buy its original stocks. When you bought stocks, you could get some cash back on a percentage. A lot of people scrambled to buy as many as they could, in case that he or she would gain less than others in the future. We invested altogether about ¥100,000, cash back about ¥20,000. On Sept 18. 2007, the New Wisdom Website organized new investors to travel to Thailand free of charge. Later it was said that the Website completed its merger with Success Resources Global Limited in Singapore, which was listed in Australian Stock Exchange---ASX. The price of the stocks was too low and all of us had to admit that we were completely deceived. We lost about ¥70,000. Section 54 has already recorded and narrated.
In 2011, we had been exploring the higher interest of lending money, in order to offset the pressure of the inflation. At that time, the advertising and promotion about high-interest fund-raising were seen everywhere. A lot of residents in Fenghuayuan chose Dingyi Investment Group, which was the sponsor of Spring Festival Gala on Xuzhou TV, promoting it again and again on TV. The Dingyi Group was selected as a trustworthy unit, and the city party secretary and the mayor interviewed the 23-year-old boss of the Group. When you invested in it, you could get a receipt for a loan (IOU: I owe you), whose yearly interest is 24%, protected by the law. On May 29 of 2011, we lent ¥50,000, and every month ¥1,000 interest cash would enter our account. On Nov 29, we continued to lend it for another 6 months and at the same time before we left for America we lent another ¥50,000, altogether we invested in ¥100,000.
On March 21, 2012, when we were in America, we got to know online that the 23-year old boss of Dingyi Investment Group fled away. 10,000 creditors in Xuzhou demonstrated, waved slogans and chanted. The government set out police and succeeded in catching the young boss. However, it was sure that all those who invested in the Group suffered a lot. I counted that we got ¥13,000 interest money, the general loss was ¥87,000.
Our third mean to manage money matters is to lend cash through a middleman to a debtor, who mortgages their house as a guarantee, i.e. private lending. The borrower finds a middleman, saying that he or she wants to borrow money by mortgaging their house, showing the house ownership certificate and deciding the yearly interest rate. Maybe this middleman does not know any money lender and has to contact another middleman, who knows money lenders. The middlemen lead the lender to have a look at the mortgage house, assess its price and decide the amount of money the lender is willing to lend, usually not exceeding 60% of the assessed price. If the borrower and lender agree, the middlemen bring both the lender and borrower to the notarial office to make a public notarization, and the notarial fee is paid by the borrower. After that, three parties go to the office of the property registry to make the mortgage registration, and the fee is also paid by the borrower. The procedures completed, the lender sends money to the borrower, who pays the agency fee, and the first three months’ interest to the lender. Later the debtor pays the interest to the creditor once three months until the debt is paid off and the mortgage is released.
On July 6, 2011, we lent the first sum of ¥160,000 to Mr. Meng and Ms. Yang. Later we got to know that the money was not used by themselves, but Yang’s sister and her husband instead. During the first year, the interest was paid normally and later they could neither pay the principal on schedule, nor send the interest in time. Two years passing, the debtor did not pay the interest any longer, and I could not contact them by telephone. Furthermore, Ms. Yang was seriously ill in hospital and died in a not very long time, causing the case to become vaguer. We had to have the law on the debtor. We began to collect complete evidences and went to Yunlong Court to set up a case on Aug. 6, 2013. The executive judge sealed up Mr. Meng’s bank account and on 16 of Nov. I got ¥16,800 from the court. The judge helped to demand the payment and I got another amount of ¥5,000, but far away from the principal ¥160,000. I went to the court once in a while and asked the judge to sell the debtor’s house at auction. The auction procedure did not start until March of 2015.
The auction procedure started. First, decided the evaluation company by rolling numbers in a machine, which sent an employee to go to the mortgaged house with a staff of the court. The debtor did not cooperate and they could not enter the house, which did not stop the evaluation work. Taking photos, and measuring went on without stop. The next step was to advertise the auction on Xuzhou Morning Paper and the auction procedure began officially on Taobao Website. During the schedule time, there was no buyer and the second auction started, with the price decreased to 80%. I looked at it online, discovering that there was a buyer to quote a price and another bidder quote a higher price until one bidder quitted, and the transaction price was decided, setting me at ease. Finally, the account calculation day came on Aug. 13 of 2015, I made interest concession ¥10,000, and received ¥174200. The case lied in the court for two years and was concluded in the end. It was four years plus 38 days since we lent the money to the Meng’s, with twists and turns, threatening but not dangerous, indicating the mortgage money loan was guaranteed by the law.
Since then on we have chosen the mortgage lending as the main mean to increase our income. Our broker, Ms. Suzhen Li, has been improving and extending her service, providing traffic means, urging the debtor to pay us interests, helping the debtors to sell their houses, and seeking the person who can borrow funds in advance to release the mortgage, etc. Once the creditor decides to have the law on the debtor, she takes an active part in it and communicates with the judge, trying to speed the case, so that she has won our belief. Once the principal comes to the creditors’ account, she knows at the same time and helps to lend it to another borrower, so that she can get the agency fees at the same time.
There is no smooth road in the world and the one to increase our income has many bends and curves. We have found a channel with the legal guarantee, compensated and forgotten the two failures in the past, making our income more than ever before. The number of channels to increase income is hundreds and thousands, a lot of successful people have made money filling all the containers and we are unable to keep pace with them. We do not belong to those following a stereotype routine. We have enough money to spend, become generous, without calculating and unwilling to make the smallest sacrifice, and are not afraid when some money is lost somewhere or sometime. We can do boldly what we like, making our lives more wonderful.
Among our debtors, some do big businesses and borrow a million yuan more. The middlemen need to contact several lenders. These bosses usually have special accountants, who send us interests on schedule. Some debtors do small businesses, most of whom are trustworthy. When they have difficulties in circulating their capital, they could not pay the interests and the principal on time. As creditors, we should have the sympathy for them, persist in not saying unpleasant words and even reduce the interest rate, not concerned for the clauses in the contract. We should be honest and kind, and persist in the principle. However, when meeting someone who avoids paying his or her interest and debt and is not polite, we never give up using the law. Kind horses are ridden by horsemen and the weak are bullied by the evil. If we are most perfectly fulfilled both in love and duty, we cannot receive the result, we had to prosecute the debtor to the court.
The Mortgage lending has made us familiar with some social phenomena, learned some law knowledge, had chances to communicate with a lot of people, and added some color to our lives, which is an important part of our senior life.
Nov. 7, 2018 in Xuzhou
Proofreading on Jan 5 2019 in Xuzhou
Uploading on Aug. 11 2023 in Xuzhou
