After graduating in 1999, Hu Anyan worked part-time in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Shanghai, Beijing and other places, comic book editor, convenience store clerk, bicycle salesman, logistics picker, courier... In 20 years, he changed 19 jobs.
In 2020, Hu Anyan, who had been unemployed for several months, published essays online, and one of them, "My Year of Working Night Shifts in Debang", exploded. Taking this as an opportunity, his non-fiction work "I Deliver Express in Beijing" was officially published in March this year. Through this book, those who wander on the margins are brought into the public eye. But in Hu Anyan's view, these records have nothing to do with the bottom or suffering, but only witness to a person's ups and downs and the life he has experienced. "It's all just a means of making a living." "I hope to establish myself through writing. ”
one
"I was always overwhelmed again and again and then forced to flee."
Mr. Hu, 44, now lives in Chengdu. In the 60-square-meter cottage he and his wife rent, in addition to boxes of books, they also have a cat. The house is exceptionally tidy and gives an orderly feel. Perhaps this is the projection of his current state - "peace and self-consistency," Juan said with a smile, "to put it another vulgar way, it is to reconcile with life." ”
Before the "reconciliation", his life experience, like his interpretation of Chekhov's novels, "was a huge question mark that left people without belonging".
Born in Guangzhou, Hu Anyan studied home appliance maintenance and college advertising, "but I studied Yeda." And his early jobs, such as hotel waitress, clothing store and gas station clerk, and fast-food chain delivery clerk, inevitably collided with night school hours.
He struggled to maintain a balance between study and work, and even once caused dissatisfaction among colleagues because of his hard work, because it invisibly raised the "standard" of everyone's work. Despite this hard work, it's something like "a few more chairs."
He was uneasy about the frequent entanglements and calculations related to interests among his colleagues. "I don't like to talk to people about benefits and conditions."
He thought that after graduating from college, he would not have to deal with people frequently if he found a job with the right major. He entered a Guangzhou comic club and then a comic information magazine, and the results were almost all crude pirated and cheap humor. He and a few passionate friends decided to leave their jobs and go north to live a "wandering" life.
In 2004, Mr. Hu moved to Beijing and landed a ninth job at a printing shop. His friends, who came with him, insisted on living an idealistic life, believing that "work is the enslavement of man by the social machine," and persuaded him to quit his job. He obeyed. In order to save expenses, he also moved from Tongzhou to the more remote Yanjiao, and everyone shared the rent for only 500 yuan per month. But financial distress was a real problem after all, and eventually, he returned to his hometown.
However, the experience in Beijing made him get used to introspection. The "naïve" friends, their rebellion and pursuit, "was an enlightenment for me to realize that such a way of life still exists in the world."
After a few months at home, he went to work as an editor in an audio-visual equipment journal, and then started a car magazine with his colleagues. After his father fell ill, he took care of him at home for several months before returning to the anime industry. The company's operating model forced them to "wash their manuscripts" frequently, and he felt that he was "too incompetent" and that "even if he plunged into the torrent of filth, the economic situation was still moonshine".
His girlfriend at the time was very dissatisfied with him, and in order to make money, he and a classmate went to Vietnam to investigate business opportunities, but there was too much uncertainty, so he had to retreat to Nanning to cooperate in opening a women's clothing store.
In addition to the various difficult customers, what frustrated him even more was the competitors on the same floor. Later, his girlfriend broke up with him, which made him feel a "relief", but at the same time enveloped him with a dazed sense of loss.
After two years in Nanning, he and his classmates broke up and went home.
He was exactly 30 years old. In the face of old friends who are financially free, there will still be a "sense of inferiority" in their hearts. 10 years of part-time work experience also deepened his fear of crowds. So, Ju Anyan began to write. He took famous artists as his teacher, imitated exercises, took diligent notes, and mixed in literary forums for two years. But the meagre pay made it difficult to make ends meet, so he continued to work.
In the next few years, he first worked as an online store selling clothes in Guangzhou, then moved to Xiaguan, Yunnan to work as a shopping mall security guard and bakery apprentice, went to Shanghai to work as a night clerk in convenience stores, bicycle shop sales, went to Dali to open snack shops, street stalls, and made marinated flavors, and finally returned to Guangdong to work as a night shift picker in Deppon Logistics.
"Almost all the work was futile repetition for me," Mr. Hu said, "I didn't know how to improve myself, and I was always overwhelmed again and again and then forced to flee." ”
two
"You're the most serious courier I've ever met."
In 2018, for the sake of his current wife, Hu Anyan came to Beijing again. Unlike the last time he was full of enthusiasm, on the first day he returned to Beijing, he began to look for a job. The recruitment website recommended him to SF Express.
As the "Haidilao of the express delivery industry", SF has a good reputation, but Hu Anyan, who is in it, is deeply tired.
Some rules set by the site supervisor, such as requiring employees to take the initiative to help with garbage when delivering items, the latter will be caught out to "show the public" if the positive number is ranked, and there will be a regular meeting after work at night to grasp discipline... All these make Hu Anyan, who is extremely "social fear", uncomfortable.
Until July of that year, he contracted viral pneumonia and had no health insurance for hourly workers. This made him have the idea of leaving, and before the "Double 7" was coming, he transferred to Pinjun Express.
Relatively speaking, "each courier of Pinjun is more equal and does not interfere with each other, although newcomers also have to start from the poor area, but the opportunity to adjust is more and fairer". But at work, there are still all kinds of accidents. He has been stolen thousands of yuan worth of couriers, and has repeatedly paid for customers' own mistakes out of his own pocket, such as customers filling in the wrong address but trying to blame the courier, a few back and forth, time-consuming, and sometimes unreasonable complaints.
"But delivering deliveries has never humiliated me." Hu Anyan said, "Most of the people I meet in my work respect me. He explained that some of the experiences in the book, whether for business or narrative, inevitably have to write about some frictions, but the overall experience of this job is still good.
He calculated that the average monthly salary of Beijing couriers was 7000,26 yuan, and the monthly work was calculated according to 270 days, and the daily salary was 9 yuan. After removing the fixed time costs of unloading, sorting and loading, the remaining delivery is about 30 hours a day, so the output is 2 yuan per hour. And an average of 4 yuan for a shipment is equivalent to him sending a shipment every <> minutes. In this case, whether eating or going to the toilet, it is "too luxurious." ”
Still, he doesn't think the express industry is exploitative or exploitative. "Essentially, the job is your choice, and the salary is relatively good."
During his time at Pinjun, he lived a relaxed life and no longer "saw himself as a delivery machine that paid 30 yuan an hour."
Later, Pinjun was dissolved, the business was transferred to SF, and at the end of 2019, Hu Anyan also ended his work in Beijing. Before leaving, he sent a circle of friends, telling customers that he would no longer deliver express delivery, and many customers left messages to like him for their efforts. One of the comments said: "You are the most serious courier I have ever met. ”
"He didn't exaggerate." He wrote in the book that there was no need for the client to flatter against his will, and this sentence was also a self-summary of his last job so far.
three
He expanded his various work experiences into a book
Ju Anyan is his pen name. "Hu" means "why" in classical Chinese, and "An" and "Yan" are interrogative pronouns. He used this pseudonym to express his inner unease.
This "unease" turned into motivation for him to restart writing in 2020. In the first person, he writes about his experience as a night shift picker at Deppon Logistics. Unexpectedly, this article accidentally exploded, receiving more than 3700,4 retweets and tens of thousands of likes on Douban. In April of that year, two editors at the literary agency Copy Production contacted Hu and asked him to write a manuscript and encourage him to try nonfiction writing.
"When opportunities arise, I'm going to deliver on them." Hu Anyan admits that the feedback from the outside world has given him a sense of seeing the light after walking in the dark for many years. To that end, he tried to get involved in nonfiction writing, salvaging something worth writing from his long part-time work experience.
At the editor's suggestion, he wrote about his experience delivering couriers in Beijing. The article was originally titled "Delivery", and later published in Yoku 2103 under the title "I Send Express Mail in Beijing". As feedback from all walks of life increased, the editor of Purui Culture approached Hu Anyan, hoping that he could expand his various work experiences into a book. Soon, he finished the manuscript.
In recent years, Chen Nianxi, Fan Yusu, Wang Jibing and other "part-time writers" have emerged, and Hu Anyan is the latest member of this collective. Some people refer to their writing as "bottom-level writing." Hu Anyan disagreed with this statement.
"I never wrote with the so-called 'bottom consciousness', and I didn't write from the perspective of 'bottom concern'." "I write about personal experiences, not the current situation or situation of the group or class to which I belong," he stressed. What he wanted to clarify was that from start to finish, he was simply writing "how to accept and establish oneself" and was as objective as possible, avoiding teaching others. "I feel more and more that many ordinary and timeless moments in my life are more decisive than the aspects of reality that are troubled by life."
Once his work as a means of livelihood receded, Hu devoted himself to writing. "I'm writing a novel." He said with an almost mysterious sense of happiness.
In Ju Anyan, you can feel a rare sobriety. Although he loves to write, he does not demean "part-time work" because of this.
"A person, his worth or dignity has less to do with his external achievements, but depends on what kind of person he is in essence." Hu Anyan said, "As long as you do it seriously, sincerely, and sincerely, your value will not be lower than that of a writer." I never thought that publishing or publishing a work was something greater, more noble, more valuable, and more successful than delivering a courier. ”
Text/Li Ruifeng