A Man Had Only $657N.T.s Left in His Bank Account, Didn’t Know His Own Son’s Address, Took His Grandson Out in the Rain, to Receive the Vouchers of the Foods…the Social Workers Had Found Grandpa Chu

Another story, from the other side of the white picket fence, from the Newspapers, translated…

On the rainy streets on Kaohsiung on the afternoon of the thirteenth, there was a pair of grandfather-grandson in their raincoats, waiting in the rain, for the free meals to be given out, the young grandchild had started, wailing in the rain, the footage was posted online, and it’d sparked the public’s interests.  The social workers looked and found this pair of grandfather and grandson.  The elderly man said, “We’d had our hard times!”, although there was only $657 N.T. left in his savings account, but this elderly man is very optimistic, his biggest wish is to raise his own grandson, he’d not dared to want more.

a photo of the living conditions, photo courtesy of UDN.com…

Grandpa Chu, his wife, and grandson lived in a steel shack inside a banana plantation in Bridgefront District, there were recycling materials, stacked all around their residence, there’s not even a piece of furniture in their living space.

The nearby neighbors told, that Grandpa Chu used to sell fried oyster cakes at the night markets, but his adopted son managed to squander away ALL his earnings, that, was when the household economics went downhill, but Grandpa Chu gritted his teeth, and started shouldering up the household economics himself.

Grandpa Chu said, that he and his family are living in poverty, and other than the $4,000N.T. of elderly assistance, he’d relied on setting up the fried oyster cakes stand at the night markets on Friday and Saturday nights, and each time he is able to earn $500N.T. to $1,000N.T.s.

The social worker of the Social Services Department of Kaohsiung City took the photos from online, and managed to find this family, and after understanding their economic difficulties, other than giving them a year’s worth of food vouchers, the Social Services Department also contacted the resources banks, the charitable foundations to help this family out.

The assistant director of the social services department in Kaohsiung, Yeh said that yesterday at noon, the social workers caught up with Grandpa Chu, the family was surprised to see the social workers, they had NO idea that someone captured the photo of the grandfather and grandson waiting for food out in the rain; the two-year-old grandson was the younger of the adopted son, the adopted son and his wife both worked away from home, and the elderly didn’t know their physical address, just told that they’d not sent money home recently, plus that it’d rained a lot lately, he couldn’t open his food stand, that, was why he was there, to get the leftover foods.

So, in this world, there are those, who are living, BELOW the poverty lines like this, and, because someone captured the awful footage of this elderly man with his young grandchild, to get the leftovers, that, is why their stories got known, and, imagine how many MORE stories like this are out there, that are not reported???  And, what, can we all do about it???