Standing in Bartley Park in Manhattan, Zhou Zhen looked at the Statue of Liberty, which was almost indistinguishable from later generations, and then looked back at the skyscrapers that had also changed little.

This is the economic center of US imperialism, and it is also where he will live for three years.

Sitting on a bench in the park, Zhou Zhen looked at the materials stored for a long time, picked up the military bag, and carried a bag on his back, and walked to Chinatown on the Lower East Side.

It's like a gated community, and most of the Chinese here refuse to integrate into American society.

Zhou Zhen's capital preparations are invested in the futures market, and he naturally has to save money in the past few months.

When you don't have money, you can live in Chinatown and at least enjoy good food.

Of course, more importantly, he has a good cooking hand and can get a good job in Chinatown.

The Great Depression had not yet begun, and the economies of industrialized countries were severely affected by the rise in oil prices, and the economy began to decline.

In the park, many artists are performing their talents, the streets are bustling with people, except for cars and decorations, people's clothing seems to be relatively backward, and the Manhattan of this era is not much different from later generations.

Of course, if you look behind the glamour, the decay here is also very serious, especially after entering Chinatown, you can find that it is filthy everywhere, and the streets are full of small advertisements.

The people here all speak Cantonese and Hokkien, and Zhou Zhen didn't recognize his fellow villagers, but just observed a few big hotels.

There are mainly more Cantonese cuisines here, and Zhou Zhen will be the Lu cuisine of northern cuisine, and after observing a circle, he was a little disappointed.

No wonder the Chinese-speaking Wanwan people who immigrated here did not come here, but instead created another Chinatown in Flushing.

Still, he plans to make his home here, because it's not far from Wall Street.

Anyway, it's only been a few months, and it's not convenient to live in Flushing, and it's inconvenient to travel to and from Manhattan.

When he has the money, of course, he will not continue to live here, but will choose the Upper East Side or the suburbs as a temporary residence.

Zhou Zhen took a fancy to a three-story Taibaiju restaurant, and Zhou Zhen walked in.

Now it's not a meal, a woman in her forties glanced at Zhou Zhen with some confusion, and said in English: "Sorry, it's time to rest." ”

Zhou Zhen put down his bag and said in Chinese: "I'm not here to eat, but to apply for a chef." ”

The woman opened her mouth wide in surprise and couldn't help but say, "Your Chinese is so good." ”

"A Chinese chef taught me, he not only taught me to speak the Chinese language, but also taught me master-level cooking."

"Master level?"

Zhou Zhen nodded affirmatively. "That's why I want to ask you if you'd like to have a master-level chef."

She hesitated for a moment and said, "If you know about Huaxia, you should know that we specialize in Cantonese cuisine here." ”

She still speaks in English, but Zhou Zhen, a "foreign devil", has been speaking in Chinese, which is particularly strange.

Zhou Zhen glanced at an old man and a middle-aged man who walked over, and several waiters who cleaned up also watched curiously. "Would you like to try my handiwork?"

The old man asked, "What's the matter?" ”

The woman told him Zhou Zhen's appeal, and he turned his head and asked, "Do you know Lu Cai?" Do you still say that you are a master-level craft? ”

"You can test me. If I'm satisfied, let me stay, and if not, we'll talk about pay and working hours. ”

The old man also felt a little awkward. "You don't need to prove that you know Huaxia, you can communicate with us in English."

Zhou Zhen nodded, and he said again: "You are a retired soldier?" ”

"Yes, I just came back from Asia."

He looked at Zhou Zhen's face again, and said to the middle-aged man, "Then try it first." ”

The middle-aged man said, "You can put your luggage here first, and you don't have to worry about losing it." ”

Zhou Zhen put down his luggage, followed the middle-aged man to the back kitchen, and heard the conversation between the woman and the old man. "Dad, why did you agree? We are Cantonese food! ”

"Lu cuisine can also cook seafood, and it is the first of the eight major cuisines, and it pays the most attention to skills. And don't you think that an American chef knows more about American tastes? What's more, it can also be used as a means of propaganda......"

The back kitchen of this restaurant is very large, a three-story hotel, at least forty or fifty tables, and there are forty or fifty chefs, and the small space is not enough to stand.

The pot stove is not much different from later generations, and the pot stove burns diesel.

Zhou Zhen looked around the dishes and asked, "How many dishes do you need to make?" ”

"Four dishes, meat, vegetarian, seafood, soup, one each."

Zhou Zhen had a plan in his heart, chose sea cucumber, and prepared to make a sea cucumber with green onions; I chose a yam and prepared to make a yam with silk drawing; I also took the ingredients for hibiscus chicken slices and yellow croaker soup, and gathered the ingredients.

Subsequently, he did not rush to behave, but first familiarized himself with the location of various spices, and then began to solve the dishes.

Some of the cooks and assistant cooks on duty also gathered around at this time, but they all stood a few steps away, watching Zhou Zhen's performance.

As soon as the connoisseur makes a move, he will know if there is one.

Zhou Zhen went from dissolving dishes to stir-frying, they couldn't find the slightest fault, and they were experts at a glance.

After a while, the four dishes were ready, and Zhou Zhen put together the shape before saying: "Make a few dishes temporarily, that's the only way, you can prepare the ingredients first in the future, and some dishes will take several hours to really taste good." ”

The middle-aged man has been conquered by Zhou Zhen's craftsmanship, he is also a chef, so he naturally knows how good Zhou Zhen's performance is.

If he hadn't given the old man a taste first, he couldn't help but want to try it first.

He nodded to Zhou Zhen and instructed the other two cooks. "Lao Huang, Lao Lin, you take two more pairs of chopsticks and taste them together. Mr. ......"

Zhou Zhen said: "My family Travis Bickel. ”

"Mr. Bicker, my surname is Chen. Your craft is good, but it's up to my father to decide whether you're going or going. ”

"Understood."

The others didn't follow, and the two of them, plus the two chefs, came to the outside hall with the food.

The old man and several of them took turns to taste Zhou Zhen's dishes, and they were full of praise.

The old man Chen couldn't hold it anymore and asked, "Mr. Bickel, what is the salary you are looking forward to?" ”

Zhou Zhen said: "It costs 350 US dollars a week, including room and board, and it is a single room. We can sign a contract for three months first. ”

Old Man Chen said: "Three hundred and fifty is a bit high, and our chef here is only two hundred a week. ”

Zhou Zhen said: "I can help you bring two apprentices. ”

Others may take their craftsmanship very seriously, but Zhou Zhen will not, he didn't live on this in the first place, and now it's just an expedient measure for just arriving in this world.

The old man groaned for a while and said, "Three hundred." ”

Zhou Zhen pretended to hesitate for a moment before nodding. "I ask for one day off a week, and the time can be flexible."

"Okay."

has good cooking skills, not to mention that he still has more than 10,000 US dollars on his body, even if he doesn't have a penny, Zhou Zhen is not afraid of running out of food.

A little bit of performance, this Taibaiju was directly hired with a high salary.

At present, the average income of a middle-class American family is only 8,000 US dollars, and his annual salary of 300 US dollars a week is 15,000 yuan.

Of course, this is only relative to ordinary people, like some middle-class high-income earners, dentists, good lawyers, the income is still much higher than him.

Among the ordinary people in New York now, the highest income is taxi drivers, and in the United States in the 70s, just like in China in the 80s, taxi drivers are also high-income people.

In the original play, Travis drives a taxi and earns three hundred to three hundred and five a week, so he has repeatedly said that he doesn't know where to spend his money and can't spend it.

But the taxi driver worked twelve hours, or more, and had to rent his own house and eat his own food, and he now had it all.

The restaurant originally had a dormitory, which was the upper three floors of a five-story apartment building, and there were still empty rooms in it, so Zhou Zhen was soon arranged for one.

Zhou Zhen bought some daily necessities and bedding first, and settled them that night.

Then, he went to the restaurant, found a lot of old newspapers, spent ten minutes, copied them all, pretended not to be interested, and began to go back and analyze them carefully.

This look reveals several things that are different from the real history.

For example, the name of the biggest gang leader in New York is Michael Corleone, which is the famous "The Godfather".

And in an old newspaper, he also noticed a piece of information, that is, Rambo was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Except for the insertion of some film and television dramas, the rest of the world is not much different from the original world.

For example, two months ago, at Watkins Glenn in Five Finger Lakes in upstate New York, a hippie concert called SummerJam was attended by 600,000 people.

It was also another major rock concert after Woodstock and a famous event for the Beat Generation.

In terms of economy and politics, there is not much difference, which also means that Zhou Zhen plans to rely on futures to turn over and become a rich man, which is still very promising.

Mr. Chen thought that Zhou Zhen came to apply because he was penniless, and in this era, the Chinese were still a bullied group, and there were almost no white people who were willing to work for the Chinese.

So he still thought that he gave Zhou Zhen a week's salary and asked him to buy daily necessities.

Zhou Zhen came to Citibank the next day, opened an account in their investment banking department, and kept only $60 of the $16,560 and transferred everything else.

Zhou Zhen has never invested in futures, but now he has all the knowledge of futures investment, so he acts like an expert.

With a margin of $16,500, at a margin ratio of 5%, you can operate 330,000 futures contracts.

However, it is generally not possible to invest all of them, because it is necessary to prevent fluctuations and make additional investments.

Therefore, he set aside $1,500 in reserve funds and used $15,000 to operate 300,000 short-term three-month contracts for oil futures.

If, according to historical development, the price of oil has risen fourfold, Zhou Zhen can use this fifteen thousand dollars to earn 1.2 million.

Two years ago, gold was still exchanged with the US dollar, 35 US dollars for an ounce of gold, almost a US dollar, and one gram of gold was bought.

In the past two years, the Bretton Woods system collapsed, the dollar began to depreciate, and an ounce of gold only rose to a few tens of dollars.

Therefore, the millionaires of this era are not the middle class, but the real rich.