From huanti road to wu30 Road, have you ever seen such a tin cart?
Important information will be pasted on it with colorful printed text, and the rest of the blank space is advertising.
There are all kinds of tools and parts in the four cars… Different sizes, old and new, full.
The contracting business of such a tin cart includes but is not limited to repairing bicycles or electric vehicles, inflation, temporary charging stations, and keys… We usually call it a garage.
The car repair shop is measured by “car” rather than “home” because all the tools for making money are in the car. It is a work that can be pushed and a life that can be lived according to circumstances.
The four-wheeled repair shop walked through the roads of Suzhou City, and finally came across No. 18 huanti road and took root.
A car repair shop and a red iron door have become embellishments in the white walls of huanti road since then. Inside the door is life and outside the door is work. From dawn to dusk and sunset, the stars change time flies, and it will be more than ten years.
Master Wang, 55, comes from Yancheng. In his twenties, he came to Suzhou. He first worked as a city cleaner in the environmental sanitation bureau and then learned the craft of repairing cars. Since then, he has been a car repairman for more than 20 years, up to now.
As time goes by, the skill of repairing cars has accumulated more and more deeply.
Sometimes you can see the problems of the car at a glance. You can remove a nail and change a core at one go. Bicycles and electric vehicles don’t care about any problems. As long as they pass Master Wang’s hand, it’s not a problem!
For example, when the brake line of the customer’s electric car is broken, it is pulled out, stretched, and plugged. In the blink of an eye, the brake line is replaced, and the old electric car is on the road again.
The master didn’t understand the maintenance of his hands. Because of his long-term contact with tires, parts, and lubricants, Master Wang’s hands were traces left by years of car repair.
These hands are not very clean, but this man is simple and hardworking.
Accumulated over time, in addition to the increasingly exquisite craftsmanship, there is also a growing sophistication and human feelings.
I’ve been here for such a long time. The stadium opposite and the cleaners on huanti road are full of people I know. Sometimes no one comes, and the repair shop just drives to visit the door.
The staff of the stadium has known each other for more than ten years. Sometimes when they don’t have money, they first give it on credit, and it’s no problem to give it again in a week.
The cardboard boxes temporarily stored for the cleaners are still piled in the yard. In return, Master Wang can always drink free wine.
Compared with the past, the current car repair business is far from good. It’s very good to earn 100 yuan a day, but master Wang doesn’t feel too sorry for the current situation.
“You still have to eat without repairing the car.”
In a word, his open-minded state of mind was revealed.
Open the red iron door, where he enjoys a simple life after his car repair work.
Inside the red iron door, there are ordinary people.
The house renovated last year has taken on a new look. Next to it is a clothes hanger built with sewer pipes, which is simple and simple.
In addition to repairing the car, the master is proud of the corner of his own garden where he raises flowers and grass. This place is planted with peanuts, cabbage, and so on.
There is also a basin of lotus. Although it has reached the end of summer, the lotus leaves are still graceful and covered.
Eels are raised in the small pool to drill holes in the soil for oxygen; Next to it is a water tank with some water plants for feeding eels.
Turn another corner to find the “antiques” in this courtyard. Bajiaogong well, one of the ten famous wells in the ancient city of Suzhou. According to the rope marks near the well, the well has a history of at least 200 years.
It has to be said that Master Wang’s small yard is full of the wisdom of life.
But the master smiled shyly, “they are all things without money.”
Car repair is a business that doesn’t make money. In the past, it could earn three or four hundred yuan a day. Now it’s only thirty or forty a day. I’m not even satisfied with the money for cigarettes and alcohol.
There are few vehicles and pedestrians on this road. More often, Master Wang just sits on the recliner in front of the door and fans his fan, spending day after day.
Most of the old customers in the impression no longer come, and the elderly don’t ride much, while the emergence of private cars, subways, and shared bicycles make there fewer bicycles and electric vehicles on the road.
Moreover, we now believe more in the warranty business of specialty stores, and the roadside repair shops are even more neglected.
But master Wang was not as depressed as he thought.
“There is no such thing as retirement. Stop if you don’t let it.”
From the time I learned to repair the car in my twenties to now, I haven’t changed my career on the way, and I’m ready to repair it until I’m old. Master Wang’s mentality has always been very stable. He frankly accepted the fact that the industry is dying.
There is no shortage of food, but after a lifetime, I have to eat the bowl of rice for car repair.
In the future, they may be required to close down due to urban planning, but every day still exists. For a car repairman like them, even if only one car is repaired, it is a meaningful day.
“Let it be…”
Master finally said so.
Car repairmen are one of countless disappearing ordinary occupations. It is difficult to find them on the streets today. The car repairmen who have persisted for ten or twenty years seem to have entered a lonely world.
Persistence is because of love. Love has become life, enjoy life and treat loneliness smoothly. It is an advanced form of love.
In the beginning, the enthusiasm for learning art did not disappear in the passage of time but moistened things silently penetrated into every day as a “repairman”.
Communication with the car makes the technology more skilled, the communication with people makes the distance closer, and the mentality flattens with the precipitation of the years.
Even if one day, the car repair shop is gone, as long as you knock at the door in the old place, the master who is teasing fish must be able to help solve your vehicle failure.
As long as you remember them, the mechanic won’t disappear.