Despite the hardships of their young lives, these young men still worked hard in school, and at home, to help out with the household finances, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
A fourth-grade boy, Chih in Changwha, his mother is a Vietnamese immigrant, also the only source of income in his home. Because of his mother’s culture and the language barrier, it’d become hard for her to find work here, and she can only pick up the duck eggs at a nearby farm, earning $12N.T.’s per basket, and she can only manage to get a little over thirty baskets a day, and although she’d worked year-round, but the hourly wages she’d earned wasn’t even $100N.T.s, making less than $20,000N.T.s per month.
But, even though they’re poorer, the boy had spirits, having been a recipient of scholarship money from Taiwan Fund for Children & Families, Chih said, that he hoped the foundation can give the money to someone who needed more than he does, “If I have more money, I’d, hoped to give some to the families in trouble too.”
Every morning at 4:30, Chih’s mother went to the duck coups to pick up the eggs, and returned home at about seven to make the breakfasts, took him to school, then, return to the duck coups to work some more, until the evenings. She works over ten hours a day, and bent her back many times, her health started flashing red lights, but for the two children she has at home who are still in school, she’d worked like this for over a decade, without a word of complaint.
In order to help out with the money, Chih would use his weekends, to herd the ducks, to pick up the eggs; in order to save the expenses, he’d saved the erasers that his fellow classmates had thrown out; he is an artist, and in order to save the money for the drawing papers, he’d stopped drawing at home too.
“If I have more money, I’d hoped to donate it to those who are more in need than I am”, Chih stated, because he saw a lot of other children taken care of by the Taiwan Fund for Children & Family who had parents who couldn’t even work, at least, he had enough resources to keep his stomach full, he’s satisfied, he’d wanted to become rich in the futures, to donate more money to help out many more families in need.
The fifth grader, Sheng was from a cross-generation family, since he was only two months old, he’d been left in the care of his grandparents, because there is a two-story leaking house, he couldn’t qualify for the low-income assistance from the government, and his home is supported by his grandfather who’d had a stroke, who’d delivered the recycled cardboard boxes, making about $3,000 to $5,000N.T.s a month. The clothes Sheng wore since he was growing up, the stationeries, the toys, were almost all used items that were donated to charity.
Although there was no extra money to buy the reading materials, he’d loved to go to the libraries in his spare time; without the money to buy the sporting equipment, he’d rolled up the papers, and used it as a bat for practice; he’d kept his grades up, and the scholarship money he’d received were used to buy the school supplies he’d needed, and he’d saved up the money remaining to use it as the money for his grandfather’s hospital treatments too. Sheng said, he wanted to become a police officer in the future, to protect his elderly grandparents, so they won’t have any worries.
So, these are stories, of how children are working hard, to rise up from their poverty stricken beginnings, and, as these two young people work as hard as they’re doing now, keep on dreaming big, they will one day, be someone who manages to help others in need, because they’d lived through their shares of hard times, they can empathize with others more, and become more driven to help others out too.
Life, the Obstacle Course 