Chapter Forty-Six: Making Use of the Useless

At that time, the scrap recycling stations would take almost anything: ordinary wastepaper, scrap iron, copper, plastic, old clothes, worn-out shoes, broken bottles, and glass. They even accepted things like hair, batteries, and used toothpaste tubes. When Hong Tao was a child, he remembered his parents would roll up the empty toothpaste tubes into small coils and save them. Once they'd accumulated enough, they'd take them with the rest of the household refuse to the recycling station and exchange them for a few coins. Toothpaste tubes back then were made of aluminum, whereas those in later years would be made of plastic.

Hong Tao's reason for frequenting the recycling station wasn't really the scrap metal or broken odds and ends, but rather the wastepaper. He'd heard, watching television in later years, several renowned collectors recall how their collecting journeys had begun at the recycling stations. Inspired, he wanted to give it a try himself. After all, it cost him nothing—he could sift through the piles at his leisure, and maybe, if luck favored him, he might stumble upon a hidden gem or two that could make his fortune in the future. It was the perfect pastime for idle hands.

Did Hong Tao know anything about antique collecting? Not in the slightest. He couldn't tell a piece of porcelain from last week from one made in the Western Zhou period. But that was hardly an obstacle: there wasn't any porcelain to be found here anyway, mostly just discarded books and papers. All he needed to do was look for anything that resembled old calligraphy or paintings. Even if he got it wrong, he could always keep the items at home and wait for an opportunity to have them authenticated. Better that than seeing them pulped for paper.

Aside from these old books and paintings, Hong Tao had his eye on one other thing: semiconductor components. Sometimes, people brought broken radios to sell at the station. The casing would be considered waste plastic, and the circuit boards and components inside counted as miscellaneous scraps—worth next to nothing.

But in Hong Tao’s eyes, these were rare treasures. Even though the radios were broken, or sometimes smashed beyond recognition, most of the components inside were still usable. He didn't know anything about antiques or calligraphy, but he did have a basic understanding of radio electronics. In junior high, he'd been quite interested in radio, even studying it with a teacher friend of his father's. His skills were ordinary, but he could cobble together a regenerative four-tube radio, and his proudest achievement was building a six-tube, three-band receiver that could pick up stations from Taiwan and the Voice of America late at night. He even used it once to secretly listen to "enemy stations" by the lakeside with a girl from his class.

As mentioned before, in those days, household appliances were limited to radios and flashlights. Listening to the radio was the sole entertainment for a family. The elderly listened to model operas, parents to the news, older siblings to storytelling programs, and children to Grandpa Sun Jingxiu’s “Little Trumpet Is Broadcasting Now!”

Compared to bicycles and sewing machines, there was a slightly better supply of watches and radios. The former two were daily necessities; the latter two were more for leisure, and you could get by without them, albeit with a bit more boredom. But even so, they were far from being readily available—industrial coupons were still required.

If Hong Tao could build radios to sell, it might be a profitable business, with even higher margins than bicycles. But he really didn't have the ability. The biggest hurdle was the parts—there was no Zhongguancun, no Ping'anli electronics market. Basic resistors and capacitors could still be found, but transistors used in amplification circuits were hard to come by, especially silicon transistors—those were extremely rare.

Transistors were the heart of radios. In later years, they would be replaced by integrated circuits, but before the 1990s, all radios and televisions relied on them for rectification, filtering, and amplification. At that time, China's electronics industry was still in its infancy, and most devices used germanium transistors. These had high leakage, poor thermal stability, and low gain, resulting in noisy circuits—not nearly as good as silicon transistors.

Still, germanium transistors weren’t without merit. Their performance at low voltages was excellent, making for a more resonant sound in low-frequency amplification circuits. Even into the 1990s, some audiophiles went out of their way to find germanium transistors for low-frequency amplification, using silicon ones for mid- and high-frequency stages, specifically for that distinctive electronic timbre. But only true enthusiasts could hear the difference; to most people, all amplifiers sounded the same, except that silicon circuits seemed a bit brighter.

Hong Tao wasn't adept with germanium transistors—by the time he learned about radios, silicon transistors were already dominant. With a conduction voltage of 0.65V for silicon versus 0.3V for germanium, mixing the two was generally avoided as it required additional voltage regulation—too much trouble.

But now, Hong Tao had no way of purchasing the right silicon transistors, so he had to salvage them from old radios. Besides, the more hands-on the DIY project, the more fun it was. Buying everything ready-made and just assembling the parts didn’t capture the true spirit of DIY, nor did it help him improve his skills or gain experience.

Beyond the fun, Hong Tao also wanted to build a high-performance radio for himself, so he could listen to enemy stations in his spare time. Not for the political propaganda, of course, but at least he could hear some foreign music, which was certainly more pleasant than listening to model operas all day.

To this end, he'd done some preparation. Anyone dabbling in radio needed the right tools, and a soldering iron was indispensable. He'd already found a few in the scrap metal pile—broken, but by piecing them together and buying a new heating element, he could get one working again.

Solder, rosin, and tweezers were easy to find—his parents’ workplaces had plenty, and he could take some home to last a long time. Needle-nose pliers and a steel file were trickier; he’d have to buy those new. The most troublesome item was a multimeter. Without it, he couldn’t test many components or circuits after assembly. This was beyond his ability to build himself—he lacked both the technical know-how and the precision instruments necessary—so he’d have to buy one.

The electromechanical counter at the Beixin Bridge Department Store sold them. Hong Tao had lingered there several times, unable to bring himself to make the purchase. A Shanghai Fourth Instrument Factory MF30 multimeter cost over fifty yuan—the price of a bicycle, or more than a month’s wages for a worker. It wasn’t that Hong Tao couldn’t afford it; he simply couldn’t explain it to his parents. He couldn’t very well say he’d borrowed a brand-new multimeter—no one would believe that.

He couldn’t buy a new one, but he couldn’t do without, so what to do? There was another way: buy a used one. But where? At the commission shop, of course. Just south of the Beixin Bridge Department Store, across the intersection and a hundred meters down the east side of the street, there was a commission shop that sold everything under the sun. Why was it called a commission shop? It was a bit like a pawn shop, hardly seen in the twenty-first century, but before the 1990s, they were still fairly common.

A commission shop, as the name suggests, sold goods not owned by the shop itself, but entrusted there by others. As long as the items had proper documentation, almost anything could be sold—anything from complete furniture sets to a single earring. There were two main ways to consign items for sale.

The first was the shop buying your item outright; you no longer cared how much they resold it for.

The second was for you and the clerk to agree on a price after evaluation, then leave the item for sale. If it sold, you paid a fee to the shop; if not, you could renegotiate the price.

Usually, people only brought valuable or bulk items here; otherwise, the commission fee would eat up any potential profit, and no one would bother. Hong Tao had circled the electromechanical counter at Beixin Bridge several times and still couldn’t bring himself to part with his cash. So, with his little tagalong Jin Yue in tow, he wheeled the small bamboo cart and set off again for the commission shop, hoping for a stroke of luck.

Why hope for luck? Because sometimes, real bargains turned up here—perhaps a family in urgent need of money had to sell something valuable, or someone didn’t know the true worth of an item and put it up for sale. But such opportunities weren’t everyday occurrences, and you weren’t the only treasure hunter. Whether you stumbled on a find depended entirely on fate.

Hong Tao came by every few days. He used to wander in empty-handed, but once had spotted a forty-year-old, five-matchstick-head men’s watch (a Rolex), with a stainless steel band, still in good shape, for only seventy yuan. But he was too young and penniless to dare ask the clerk to take it out for him, so he could only peer through the glass, and before long a middle-aged man bought it.

These days, he had money to spend, but the good finds had eluded him. He’d only seen two decent fur coats, but he knew nothing about furs and dared not take the risk. Even if he did, he couldn’t explain such a purchase to his parents, nor did anyone at home have use for them. He couldn’t very well have his mother wear a fur coat while riding her bicycle to work—it would be a laughingstock. Besides, such items were hard to store—susceptible to damp, dryness, and moths. Without a large house and dedicated wardrobe, they’d be wasted, and after a few years, nothing would be left but a patchy, ruined coat.

“Stay in the cart and eat your ice cream! I’ll be right back—I’m just going in to buy something. Don’t move around!” Hong Tao parked the bamboo cart at the entrance of the commission shop, settled Jin Yue inside, then found a small brick to chock the wheel before heading in.

There weren’t many people inside today—Hong Tao made two. The other was an old man carrying a battered black schoolbag, wandering from counter to counter, clearly another treasure hunter. The two shop clerks glanced up as someone entered, then returned to their conversation, barely interested.