by Sarah Haig

Sarah Haig has spent the past four years living in Beijing, China as HOPE’s Asia Associate Regional Director.  Her work supports HOPE’s programs in Afghanistan, China, India, and the Philippines.

For better or for worse, Beijing is my home and my community. I’m part of this city, part of the economy and landscape and web of urban interactions—from leaving my plastic bottles in a separate trash bag outside the dumpster so people don’t have to dig through nastiness for them, to having the vegetable lady give me free cilantro—that put me in mutually dependent relationship with an unexpected spectrum of neighbors.

In a funny reversal, I had the marvelous experience of depending on the expertise of a microentrepreneur who, though not one of HOPE’s clients, to me represented those we’re reaching out to here and around the world. I had a favorite pair of Mary Poppins-esque brown heels that needed doctoring, and finally I determined to throw myself back into a “Year One in China” situation—going to ask somebody to do something without any of the necessary vocabulary. So I took them to a small shack down the alley from my office building, a lean-to structure that has a key and a shoe painted on the wooden front door. The shoe repair man looked at my shoes carefully when I handed them over, said “my shoes are broken,” and pointed out the missing heel cap and uneven height. He expounded in great detail and unintelligible Chinese on the nature of the problem and solution, mimed cutting the other heel shorter to meet the height of the first, and then accepted my nod and “ok, you can do that, no problem” as a contract.

He invited me to sit on the narrow bench that took up the entire wall of the shed, which was no larger than two picnic tables. I shared the space with an oscillating fan mounted on the wall, a Christmas tree and bouquet of fake flowers hung by the window, a calendar that showed today’s date, his work chair, and tools and materials for the trade. As he shaved the first heel even, then pried off the cap of the second heel, cut it with a saw, and smoothed it off to match shoe 1, I noticed this man’s attention to detail. He had stapled strips of carpet to the door frame to block off the wind that would wheedle its way in. Instead of a knob, the inside of the door sprouted a car’s side-view mirror, which allowed the shoe repair man to see the entire street from his work chair. This precision was reflected in his work. This man had a tool for everything, and spared no detail in fixing my shoes: after the heels were even, he roughened the base with sand paper, pounded small slivers of a wooden dowel into the holes in the plastic heel, traced and cut the heel base’s shape out of rubber, shaved that down to exactness with a razor, glued the rubber to the heels, hammered tiny nails to secure the rubber, then used a third hammer to completely embed the nail head. I thought he was done, but then he held the shoes up, pronounced them dirty, and kept another customer waiting while he cleaned, polished, shined, and buffed the shoes until they were more beautiful than when I bought them. I was ecstatic, and eagerly paid his asking price—I can’t remember the last time I didn’t bargain—in my enthusiasm and utter gratefulness for a job well done.

I walked away with new shoes and a new appreciation of microfinance—not just as a means of bringing families out of poverty, but as a means of allowing individuals to share their skills with the community. This man had accessed capital from somewhere to start up his shop, and then with his profits he slowly purchased tools and machines that allowed him to expand his business and increase his profitability. He had a business, an expertise that others relied on, and he demonstrated his skill by wearing shined shoes that defied the grime of the city. He depended on me to bring my broken shoes, and I depended on him to shine what was scuffed and grind into balance what was uneven. I’m a different-skinned, curly haired, Mandarin-stumbling part of this economy. When I do my job with excellence, micro-entrepreneurs like this shoe repairman have the funding to make their skills and products available to the city community. And when he does his job well, my world-weary shoes are refreshed and I can walk in un-scuffed dignity.