The Shock on Father’s Day

Commentaries, on the Front Page Sections, translated…

I saw a short film on Father’s Day, about a teacher, taking a group of teenage students out.  The instructor pulled out a one-hundred dollar bill, as a reward for the student who ran to the finishing lines the fastest.  Before they start, the instructor asked the students to listen to a few questions, and, those who fitted the criteria can move two steps ahead from the starting point.  The first question, “your parents are still married”, about two-thirds of students took the two steps forward; then, the questions that followed are all on family and education, including not worrying if the cell phone bills are unpaid, the tuition being unpaid, and other questions on the household economics.

After the questions, the instructor asked the students who’d moved forward to turn around and look, and stressed, that all these questions answered, are NOT because you’d worked hard for them, the instructor wanted the students to think about how they got to where they’re about to start running?  “You already won at the starting point, of course, you have a higher chance of getting that hundred-dollar bill, and those who’d stayed behind, it’s not that they have no chance of winning, but they lacked the opportunities that you guys have!”

After the second World War, the baby boomers were all born from poverty stricken homes, they don’t even know where the starting point is; back then, the government had, set itself up, in the storms, taking the steps forward one by one.  Those who’d walked through the hardships, as they moved forward, they remembered, to look back, especially, to see if their parents’ lives are, improved, “looking back”, it’d given people that sense of responsibility, and the drives, stemmed from it—to make the family economics better, to move our country forward!

Naturally, the Republic of China was reborn in Taiwan, the fast growth in economy was named a miracle by everybody.  And, this reputation wasn’t out of nowhere, not only because we have the steady growth rate of eight-percent in economy by the year, we’d also, shortened the gap between the rich and the poor, and this was accomplished, in the high number of people who needed looking after.

Every individual in this current generation can go to college, and most didn’t have to worry about where their next meals came from growing up.  During this time, as parents, they either worked very hard, or saved up on the money, and invested what they made onto their own offspring.  Although they are glad, watching their children grow up in no lacking of resources, they’d also, pushed them forward, so their children can win at the starting lines; but they’d, forgotten to teach their young to “look back”, to tell them, “You need to rely on yourselves, to keep moving forward”!  And now, the kids are, complaining, “Why can I be at the position of the person in front of me?”

Currently, the work age (15 to 64) takes up about seventy-two percent, the elderly, 14.5-percent, the children, 13.5-percent), not only do we still have the assets of manpower, those between 25 and 40 with a college degree are at the top of the world; and in the end, the younger generations are not getting the jobs, losing employment, on the other hand, there’s, this lacking in manpower in the workforce; and those Southeastern Asian countries that pushed the workers in, aren’t even at seventy-two-percent.

Having such high good qualities, why did the competitive edge decline, and why is the economy still in recession?  Could it be because we’re, blindly, chasing democracy, simplifying democracy into election, willing to win and destroy the democracy, and as the incumbent became elected, they’d, started, gaining more power, obtaining more power, then use a false sense of democracy, to screw over their competitors?  This bad wind of “democratic” election blows once every two years, and, it takes a whole year, for the parties to fight internally; simply stated, Taiwan had, wasted its prime time on “fighting internally” and “fighting for power”!  Without knowing, that if we don’t move forward ourselves, and not looked back, isn’t this, the ideal example of “How Democracies Die” as proposed by the book by Levitsky & Ziblatt?

On the morning of Father’s Day here, there was an earthquake at six on the Richter Scale, and on the evenings, the alerts of a typhoon.  And thankfully, neither one of these natural disasters caused any damage, but as I thought of that short, I’d still, felt, shaken up, if the natural world turns bad, what of, when people are the ones, committing the crimes?  On August eighth, we naturally need to give thanks to the fathers, but shockingly, those who are, willing to shoulder up the responsibilities of fatherhood, are declining!  The responsibilities of parents, is nothing more than setting up their own home as their children’s forever home, and as they age, they see their children marry, starting their own families, and, longing to hear, “mom, dad, this is, also your home too!”

And so, you see, this problem goes down to the basics again, because of how F@#$ed up the family units are right now, how can we expect our countries to be strong?  After all, families ARE, the basic building blocks of a country, and, if the families are no good, how can we expect our separate nations to be good, especially in this day and age, when those god DAMN politicians are, screwing all these countries over, for their own, personal benefits, with no other goal, than to, win that god DAMN election or re-election?