Era: Beginning from the Modu Translation Studio

Chapter 394: A crucial step in determining life and death

May 1980, 5, the night when the three-day advertising festival came to an end.

Just across the street from New York's Chinatown is a community with a strong European style - Little Italy.

As the name suggests, the people who live here are immigrants from Italy.

In a 7-11 convenience store located at the corner of "Little Italy", 50-year-old Ying Ruocheng and Cao Yu were standing in front of the wine rack with frowns on their faces.

"That's how America is,"

Cao Yu looked at the crystal clear wine bottles on the shelf and said: "Don't underestimate it because it's fruit wine. It's not cheap at all."

"This is too expensive,"

For Ying Ruocheng, who was going abroad for the first time, seeing was believing: "How about we go back to Chinatown and take a look?"

"Forget it," Cao Yu's eyes retreated again and again, "Let's just have a bottle of beer to satisfy our cravings."

During the honeymoon period between China and the United States, the bilateral relationship can be described by these two words. You can imagine how good it was.

Although it still does not recognize China as its ally, the United States has officially adjusted its export level to China from "Y" to "P" (friendly non-ally country) in early 1980.

Restrictions have been lifted on more than 400 non-lethal military technologies, including air defense radars, transport helicopters, communications equipment, radar jammers, etc.

Three years later, the United States will continue to increase its exports to China from "P" to "V", which will be on par with its Western European allies.

Restrictions on lethal military technologies such as anti-tank, anti-submarine, and air defense will also be lifted.

Therefore, in the first few years of reform and opening up, the exchange activities between Chinese and foreign technology, Chinese and foreign culture... were extremely frequent.

This month, in addition to Admiral Liu, who was invited to visit the United States in two days to visit the "Kitty Hawk" and "Raider" aircraft carriers.

There is also a visiting group of Chinese dramatists who came to New York at the invitation of Columbia University in the United States.

At this moment, the head of the visiting delegation, Cao Yu, was leading his translator Ying Ruocheng to Chinatown to have a bite to eat under the cover of night.

Unexpectedly, the scene of packed Chinese restaurants forced them out of the alley.

There was no choice, so the two wine lovers had to walk into the convenience store at the corner of the street.

In the 80s, before being acquired by Japan, 7-11 was a popular convenience store chain that could be found everywhere in New York.

Coincidentally, this 7-11 located at the intersection of Chinatown is also a small store frequented by Huang Yongyu and Wang Shixiang.

Faced with such a store where all goods are within easy reach, the two old comrades felt both fresh and happy.

"Hey, what would you two like to eat today?"

The uncle standing at the cashier counter looked like one of our own: "Hot dogs or hamburgers?"

"Give me some of each,"

Huang Yongyu, who was away from home, liked this barrier-free communication: "You take your time to prepare first, I'll go see what the old man likes."

"Don't worry," the cashier said as he worked briskly, "Please take a look."

Huang Yongyu turned his head back, waved his hand, and walked towards the freezer.

He didn't realize at this time that the two sentences between him and the clerk had made Cao Yu and Ying Ruocheng open their eyes wide at the same time.

"I knew you would stay here. Remember to get a strawberry ice cream for Sisi." Huang Yongyu looked at Wang Shixiang who was standing in front of the freezer.

"I'm holding it."

For Wang Shixiang, who can eat 5 or 6 KFC sundaes in one meal, New York supermarkets are like a little paradise:

"Xiao Jiang's chocolate, Si Si's strawberry, Xiao Zhang's cream..."

At the end of the shelf nearby, Cao Yu and Ying Ruocheng, who received a daily subsidy of only one dollar each, looked stupidly at their old friend in front of them.

"My chocolate, my strawberry,"

Wang Shixiang put more and more ice cream in his basket: "And my cream flavor..."

"Alright, alright," Huang Yongyu reached out and took a few bags of beef jerky: "Pick a few. There's no ice in the room we live in now... huh?"

Huang Yongyu was startled by the casual glance: "Captain Cao?"

Cao Yu: "Huang Yongyu!"

"Why are you here?"

"I still want to ask you."

"I'm going to New York to have fun!"

"You..." Cao Yu's expression was still as if he was dreaming: "Come here to play?"

At this time, Huang Yongyu returned to the topic and pointed at Wang Shixiang with a smile: "Let me introduce you, Comrade Wang Shixiang. Like me, he is also a consultant for the New York Advertising Festival competition team."

"Hello," Cao Yu and Ying Ruocheng both came over:

"At the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Culture organized a delegation of Chinese drama representatives. I was the head of the delegation and Comrade Ying Ruocheng was the translator."

Compared to the previous life, we only met a few times at Shen Congwen's house.

In this life, Huang Yongyu and Cao Yu, because of Jiangshan's intervention, visited the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang together.

"I heard that you went to England," Huang Yongyu said. "Now, why are you in America again?"

"I've been to Switzerland, France, and the UK," Cao Yu said with a smile. "The US was the last stop, and also the one where I stayed the longest."

Huang Yongyu and Wang Shixiang were envious of this. But what made Cao Yu and Ying Ruocheng even more envious was the other party's consumption level: "What is the subsidy standard for your overseas study?"

Huang Yongyu: “One dollar a day.”

"One dollar a day too?" Cao Yu looked at the other person's shopping basket in disbelief: "How can you two be willing to spend like this?"

“We don’t have to spend money on these things…”

Huang Yongyu suddenly thought of something and changed the subject in time: "It's not convenient to talk here, do you want to come over to my place and sit for a while?"

Cao Yu: "Do you live nearby?"

"Turn left after you get out of the door and it's right here," Huang Yongyu pointed outside. "Have you ever been to Little Italy? It's a very stylish place."

……

The "Little Italy" community is not only separated from Chinatown by one street.

It was also the only place in New York in the 6s and 70s that was willing to sell properties to Chinese people.

For a long time, the residents of these two areas have been living in peace.

After the inspection team from the Tourism Bureau left, Jiang Shan led the team members to stay in a hotel in "Little Italy".

Compared to the hustle and bustle of New York City, the Italian community with its strong European style gave them a wonderful feeling of being in a country within a country.

When Cao Yu and Ying Ruocheng followed Huang Yongyu and Wang Shixiang into "Little Italy", they immediately became unable to move:
“It turns out there is such a great place in New York…”

……

In a small hotel in "Little Italy", in the only guest room that can make international long-distance calls, several Chinese people were sitting around.

After getting Lu Xuzhang's nod of agreement to "compete for L'Oreal advertising", Jiang Shan breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the phone again.

"Who should we call next?" He looked at Wang Fulin: "The department leader or the TV station?"

"You decide," said old comrade Wang Fulin, who always kept his composure, "We have to notify them anyway."

"Okay," Jiang Shan handed the phone over directly: "You go first."

If Jiang Shan and his team had not been waiting for confirmation of the inventory quantity of New York bicycles, they would have sent the news of the award back to China long ago.

But according to Huang Hua's suggestion, they waited for two more days.

Unexpectedly, after all this waiting, we received the good news that “bicycle advertising” became a case study in the Advertising Festival.

……

Around nine o'clock in the morning, in a conference room with a banner hanging on it that read "No matter how difficult it is, you must take the first step."

Deputy Director Lu of the Light Industry Bureau, who is in charge of the bicycle factories, is discussing the next countermeasures with several factory leaders of the Phoenix and Forever Bicycle Factories.

"We understand that in addition to the 5000 bicycles sent to the United States this year,"

Director of Phoenix Factory: “The bicycle sales in Italy are not optimistic either.”

"If I remember correctly," Deputy Director Lu said, "Italy has 10,000 vehicles, right?"

"Yes."

"As of last week," said the head of Forever Bicycles, "our factory has completed all its production tasks for export bicycles."

"So do we Phoenix."

"Got it," Deputy Director Lu sighed.

Recently, the contract plan for exporting 30,000 bicycles has been making him uneasy.

"No matter how difficult it is, you have to take the first step, haha,"

Deputy Director Lu looked at the slogan in the conference room and chuckled, "I remember this slogan was already hanging here when we held a meeting here last year."

"yes,"

The leaders of the two factories looked at the banner with yellow characters on a red background:
"At that time, we had just completed the contract signing with the US side."

“I didn’t expect that soon after that, I received a proposal from the US to postpone the implementation of the second phase of the transaction.”

"Originally, I thought about doing some publicity to make up for it. If we can sell a few more, it will make us look better." Deputy Director Lu shook his head.

"Now it seems that the bicycles of our great bicycle kingdom...are really going to be shut out."

"Alas," said the director of the Yongjiu Factory, "I really can't accept this!"

"What can we do if we are unwilling to accept this?" said the leader of Phoenix Factory:

"There are only two months left until August. Even if we spend a lot of money on advertising, it won't make much sense."

"Ugh."

“No matter how difficult it is, we have to take the first step,” Deputy Director Lu said with a wry smile, “Unfortunately, it’s over before we even take the first step.”

Thinking about the original ambition to "attack the European and American markets", all the leaders in the room could only sigh.

Just at this moment, there was a knock on the door of the conference room.

The next second, before the door lock was even opened, the phone on the conference table rang.

Look at the commotion. Even the big red slogan "No matter how difficult it is, you must take the first step" started to shake...

(End of this chapter)