From the Front Page Sections, translated…
It’d been, eleven years since the mayor of Kaohsiung was elected, she’d bloated on how, for the first time in 23 years, the city of Kaohsiung wasn’t in debt. But just yesterday, I’d heard the librarians from the local schools complained, that the government is slashing their budgets, with the money given being reduced greatly, he’d not know which papers to continue to subscribe, and which ones that he’d needed to discontinue the subscriptions for. I don’t know if it’s related, but, it’s hard, not to connect the issues together.
These past eleven years, Kaohsiung had, many improvements in the hardware, but, there were a lot of those public places that were started in building, but left unfinished. Like the Dome, Banana Pier, once they were, flooded with people, and, in a few short years, there’s, no more life to be found, and, back when the places were opened up, it’s, the highlights of the day, but, the maintenance, the upkeep that followed, there’s just, not much energies left to do. I’m not against the constructions systems, but I just, HATE these local leaders for starting things up, but not finishing them, surely, we should save up on the funds, and spend the money where it counts the most, instead of abusing, misusing the funds, to the point of how things became, totally ruined, then, strapping ourselves up, and save money where money should BE spent.
Like how the track fields in A-Lien Middle School, the school had, prayed for the funding to fix up, and it still hadn’t come yet, had it not been the attorney who’d gone to make a speech that’s discovered this, and reported it, how would the Department of Education take note? And the city government couldn’t put up the funding to fix, and begged the Department of Education for the funds. But, at the start of the year, the city government managed to scrap up the funds, to have an extravagant light festival, with fourteen days’ worth of continuous fireworks on display, spent all the money, and, at the end of the year, the government attempted to sell the citizens on the façades of zero debts, and they’d, slashed the funding in the least noticeable, the libraries.
Besides, who’s going to notice, if a library is short of a few books, or short of a few newspaper subscriptions, and the way the local government had, covered it up, is truly, beyond any local citizen’s imaginations!
And so, this is not just in this particular city here, I’m sure, that this is going on, in many other cities, the government wanted the FLASHES, the thrills, and so, they tried to redirect how the budgets to be spent on this or that will be spread out, without realizing, that as they’re, worrying about the appearances, the exteriors of how things looked, the most important things: the education of children, like the government’s thought of slashing the funding allotted to the school libraries, will only hurt the leaders of tomorrow!
Life, the Obstacle Course 