Wednesday 2 January 2008

Do we really know the poor?

There seems to be a wall in the society. People who have the right to speak are lack of some basic understanding for the real life of those low-income groups. Fashion, noble life styles are filling the newspapers, television and other media while not that much people are caring the poor.

We all know that the price of pork keeps rising, but do you know which part of the pig products rose on the most?

My mom told me that she went to buy meat the other day and the meat price rose another 50 fen, she could not help but complain: "why the price rises every other day?" The seller said, "We don’t want to do that as well. But the water, electricity and gas bills are going up; we can’t live if we don’t raise the meat price. Moreover, the meat is not raising the most." Another customer complained, "Isn’t it? It cost no more than 5 yuan per kilogram last year but now it costs 13 yuan. It has risen more than twice!" The meat seller said, "The pig fat was 2 yuan last year but now is 8 yuan per kilo. It has rose four times" The customers are a bit surprised. The seller kept speaking. "The poor can not afford to buy the lean pork but still they need some meat. The more people need, the more the product costs. It is a natural rule."

My mom said in her childhood, when people were buying meat they always requested “fat meat”. Pig fat is very popular at that time. Sometimes it was almost a symbol of a privilege. Later, as the improvement of people's living standard, people began to buy pure meat. Only some small restaurants buy pig fat meat to fry oil to cut the costs. What is unexpected is that 30 years later, pig fat meat became “popular” again.

There seems to be a wall in the society. People who have the right to speak are lack of some basic understanding for the real life of those low-income groups. Fashion, noble life styles are filling the newspapers, television and other media while not that much people are caring the poor, and the consequence is that when the government and people who sincerely wanted to help the weak, they are helpless for the ignorance.

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