The Weight of Ten Thousand Dollars

I never imagined that the words "saving money" could cause such a stir because of my father.

My father turned 53 last year. He has spent half his life living in our small county town. His work isn't what people call "respectable"—mixing cement and hauling bricks on construction sites. Later, as he aged and his knees could no longer take the strain, he found a job as a security guard at a factory, earning 2,800 yuan a month. My mother works as a supermarket stocker, making just over 2,000. Together, they don't even bring home 5,000 yuan a month.

One evening last autumn, I got a call from my mother. Her voice was hushed. She said, "Your father went crazy in the family WeChat group today."

I hurried to check the group chat and scrolled up for a long time before I finally saw his message. It started with my cousin flaunting his new car—a joint-venture SUV worth over 200,000 yuan. He’d posted a photo, making sure the logo on the steering wheel was visible. Below it, relatives were lining up to leave likes and comments: "So successful," "Young and promising," "The pride of the Clan."

My father must have had a bit to drink. He followed up with a voice message. When converted to text, it read: "Having a car is good, but don't be too flashy. It’s better to keep some cash on hand for peace of mind. I’ve saved up 100,000 yuan now. It’s not much, but I don’t feel panicked."

The reaction in the group was—how should I put it?—like throwing a stone into a pool of stagnant water. There were no ripples, just the mud churning at the bottom.

My second uncle replied with a "Haha" emoji. My young aunt texted: "Brother, what can 100,000 yuan do in today's society? It wouldn't even buy you a toilet." My cousin was even more blunt, replying with a face-palm emoji: "Uncle, are you saving that 100,000 for my younger brother’s wedding? Even that’s not enough." A string of "Hahas" followed.

No one explicitly said, "You’re poor," but every word screamed it.

My father didn't reply again. I know he saw them. His phone screen has a crack running through it, but he hasn't been willing to replace it; he has to tilt it at an angle to read messages. That night, he probably put the phone face down on the coffee table and sat on the sofa smoking one cigarette after another.

I can actually picture the scene.

Our living room light is one of those old-fashioned circular fluorescent tubes; you have to twist the switch, and sometimes it flickers twice before catching. The sofa was bought ten years ago, the leather long since cracked, covered by my mother with a checkered mat. On the coffee table, there is always an enamel mug with "Labor is Most Glorious" printed on it, half the paint chipped away.

In that living room, my father was being mocked by a group of relatives in a WeChat group.

This wasn't the first time. Back when I was in high school, he used to pick me up on an old "28-inch" heavy-duty bicycle while other parents drove cars. A classmate once leaned out of a car window and shouted, "Hey, your dad came on a bicycle?" I felt so embarrassed then that I didn't speak to him the whole way home. He didn't say a word either, just kept pedaling, his back slightly hunched, his summer undershirt soaked through and clinging to his skin.

Later, when I went to university, he insisted on seeing me off at the station on the first day. He carried a backpack I had used for three years in high school, stuffed so full of snacks that the zipper wouldn't close, revealing the corner of a pack of ham sausages. While waiting, he kept nagging: "Call home when you get there," "Don't be stingy with your meals," "Tell us if you run out of money." Another parent waiting nearby asked him, "Brother, where did your kid get in?" He said the name of the school. The other person nodded and asked, "Tuition isn't cheap, right?" He replied, "It’s okay, about 6,000 a year." The other person just said, "Oh," and didn't follow up.

My father probably couldn't hear what was hidden in that "Oh." But I could. It meant: "You’re not ashamed to admit to such a small amount?"

But if you ask me how my father got that 100,000 yuan, I can do the math for you.

When he was at the construction site, his daily wage was 120 yuan. He never bought the 3-yuan bottles of iced tea sold on-site; he brought a large plastic bottle filled with plain boiled water. At lunch, when his coworkers went to small diners for set meals, he ate the steamed buns and salted duck eggs he brought from home—and sometimes there weren't even eggs, just homemade chili sauce.

Later, as a security guard, he made 2,800 a month with a 150-yuan night shift subsidy. On night shifts, he’d bring an electric rice cooker to make plain porridge with a packet of pickled vegetables. Once, when I visited him, I saw the inner pot of the cooker was all scratched up, half the non-stick coating gone. I told him to get a new one, but he said, "It works fine, it doesn't affect the porridge."

My mother told me something. One winter was exceptionally cold. My father was sitting in the guard room, which only had one small electric space heater. He was too frugal to leave it on, so he’d turn it on for a bit and then shut it off. In the middle of the night, when it got too cold, he’d wrap his military overcoat tight and sleep sitting in the chair. The next morning at the shift change, his legs would be so numb he almost fell over trying to stand.

He has never stepped foot in a barbershop in his life; when his hair gets long, he has my mother trim it with clippers. He’s never bought a piece of clothing costing more than 200 yuan. The padded jacket he’s wearing now is the one I bought him during my sophomore year of college—it’s five or six years old, the cuffs worn white, yet he still says, "This one is warm." His phone is four years old, the screen cracked, but he still uses it. I offered to buy him a new one, and he said, "As long as it takes calls, it's fine."

He isn't "poor" in spirit; he just breaks every cent in half to make it go further. He isn't a miser; he just knows how little he earns, so he doesn't dare waste a single penny.

That 100,000 yuan was scraped together, cent by cent, dollar by dollar, taken right out of his own mouth.

But in this era, it seems anyone who saves money is a fool. Open your phone and it’s everywhere: "Money is made through earning, not saving," "How can you have money if you don't spend it?", "Savers will never get rich." In short videos, twenty-somethings talk about million-dollar annual incomes, driving luxury cars, and eating at Michelin-starred restaurants. The comment sections are full of "This is the life," "So jealous," and "When will it be my turn?"

But the problem is, the vast majority of people in this world will never earn that kind of money in their lifetime. More people are like my father: earning a few thousand a month, supporting a family, paying for a child’s education, covering utilities, and handling the social obligations of "renqing"—the give-and-take of favors and gifts. You can't "earn" your way out of that; you can only save.

Yet, the word "frugality" seems to have become a mark of shame in this day and age.

If you haven't had Starbucks, if you haven't eaten Japanese cuisine, if you haven't been to the gym or used an iPhone, it’s as if you don't deserve to exist. If you dress "earthy," if your talk is old-fashioned, if you’re reluctant to spend, then you have a "poor person's mindset," you "lack vision," and you "deserve to be poor forever."

But my father saving that 100,000 yuan wasn't based on any "poor person's mindset"; it was based on real, solid endurance and self-discipline.

I’ve seen his fingers, worn raw by bricks on the construction site, the cement dust under his nails that no amount of washing could get out. I’ve seen him come home in the summer, his clothes covered in white salt stains from sweat, the skin on his back peeled off by the sun. I’ve seen him ride his motorcycle to work in winter, his face flushed red by the wind, his eyebrows covered in frost. I’ve seen him when his knees hurt, leaning against the wall to walk step by step, gritting his teeth without a word.

The people who sent "Haha" in the group chat haven't seen any of this. They only saw my father say, "I have 100,000 in savings," and thought it was funny. In their eyes, what is 100,000? Just enough for a designer bag, a trip abroad, or a few dozen fancy meals in the county.

But that 100,000 yuan was exchanged for my father's entire youth, his knees, his back, and every strand of hair that turned white.

At the end of last year, my mother was diagnosed with gallstones and needed surgery. Between the operation and the hospital stay, it cost over 30,000 yuan. My mother was heartbroken over the cost, constantly saying, "If only I’d treated it sooner, it wouldn't have been this expensive." My father sat by the hospital bed and said, "It’s okay. We have the money. Don't worry."

In that moment, I suddenly understood the meaning of those 100,000 yuan.

It isn't capital for showing off or confidence for competing with others. it is the ability to say, with dignity, "It’s okay, we have the money," when you or your family are in need.

It can't buy the respect of others or the likes of relatives, but it can buy peace of mind. It means when your mother needs surgery, you don't have to kneel before a doctor and say, "Can you operate first while I go try to scrounge up the money?" It means when your father's knees hurt, he can afford to buy a box of decent medicated patches. It means when you wake up in the middle of the night, you don't have to stare at the ceiling until dawn worrying about next month’s mortgage.

Coming home for Chinese New Year this year, the family group was lively again. My cousin complained that his company only gave a 20,000-yuan year-end bonus, calling them stingy and saying he was looking for a new job. My second uncle said business was bad this year and he’d lost over 100,000. My aunt said mortgage rates had gone up again and she could barely afford the monthly payments.

My father said nothing.

He just sat on the sofa, reading the news on that phone with the cracked screen. The tea in his enamel mug had gone cold, so he topped it off with hot water. My mother was in the kitchen making dumplings—pork and cabbage. She had gone specifically to the wet market to pick out the front-leg meat because it was two yuan cheaper than at the supermarket.

I sat next to him and suddenly remembered being a child, when he’d take me into town on his bicycle. Back then, the road from the village to the county seat was still dirt, full of potholes. He rode very slowly, afraid of jarring me. When we reached a small hill, he’d stand up to pedal, his back curved like a bow, gasping for breath. I sat on the back rack, hands gripping the springs underneath, feet dangling.

Back then, the sky was very blue, the poplars by the road were very tall, and the wind blew past my ears smelling of green grass and earth. As he pedaled, he’d tell me, "Sit tight now, don't wiggle."

I didn't understand then why he had to ride so far into town. I only found out later that eggs in the city were 0.2 yuan cheaper per pound than in the village. He rode fifteen kilometers, and the money he saved was enough to buy me a popsicle.

That popsicle was something he traded an hour of pedaling under the scorching sun to get. Back then, I only knew the popsicle was sweet; I didn't know how salty the sweat on his back was.

Saving money is never shameful. What is shameful are those who have little themselves yet mock others for saving. They laugh at the "littleness" of 100,000 yuan, but they cannot see the "weight" behind it.

It is a small mound of earth built up bit by bit by a man in his fifties, using his life, his body, his dignity, and countless days and nights of eating steamed buns and plain porridge. It isn't high, it isn't towering, and it isn't spectacular—but the wind cannot blow it over, and the rain cannot wash it away.

Because every grain of soil was bought with his life.

My father is 54 this year, still guarding the gate at that factory. He says he’ll work a few more years until he has 150,000, then he’ll quit for good and go back to the countryside with my mother. They’ll fix up the old house, plant some vegetables in the yard, and raise a few chickens.

I said, "Okay."

I didn't tell him, "You don't have to work so hard, I’ll take care of you." Because I know he wouldn't listen. He has his own rhythm, his own plan, and that one bit of security he’s been able to grasp in this life.

All I can do is be like him and save money properly.

Not to compete with anyone, not to shut anyone up, but just so that at some moment, I can be like him and calmly say those words—

"It’s okay. We have the money."