In 1931, my father-in-law was 12 years old and lived in a
village in Shandong Province, China, near the city of Yantai. Because of a constant lack of food, he left
home and walked 440 miles to Beijing, in a bad pair of shoes, in search of
work. We assume that he hitched rides on
horse drawn wagons whenever possible. Along the way, he begged for food at
people’s houses.
According to Google Maps, to walk from Yantai to Beijing
would take 6 days, but that would mean walking 73 miles a day. I don’t know if it is possible to walk at
that rate for an entire week. Perhaps he stopped to work for food along the
way.
In Beijing, he found work as an apprentice in a restaurant. He was not paid. For food, he had to eat
the leftover food from customers. After
the restaurant closed at night, they pushed the restaurant tables together and
slept on top of the tables. It was only
after apprentices learned skills that they began to be paid and then only very
little.
