Their first work experiences, as, child laborers, when back then, there were, NO laws against it, and this wouldn’t have, happened in today’s world that’s for sure!!! Translated…
My younger sister, in the winter vacation of her second year of high school, in order to make a little extra money, with her two classmates’ enticing her to, she’d, taken on the contracting job, not knowing her own abilities yet, to clear off the posters of candidates from a street, with the only requirement being, this needed to be done fully by New Year’s Eve, otherwise, the contractors won’t pay her anything. My younger sister and her two classmates, were too naïve, into believing, that they’d, only needed a few short days of nonstop work, they can bag the money easily. But, these posters, glued on by super glue, seemed to have, rooted down hard, onto the places they were, posted up in, it’s, next to impossible, to strip them off by hand! They’d needed to, used the knife, to scrap off the sheets, then, what didn’t get removed, they’d, had to, used the wet brushes, to scrub hard. And even as she’d gone out early, turned home late in the evenings, running her races against time, the progress of her clearing off the posters, was still, very slow.
Seeing how the deadline was, quickly approaching, she’d, started panicking, and, begged my younger brother and I, to give her a hand, to enter into the working troupes. And for the days that followed, we’d, gone our early in the morn, with the chisels, the brushes, the buckets, until the skies turned dark, the lights from the houses turned on one by one, then, we’d, dragged our, achy hands and legs, and our, fatigued bodies, home.
One day, as we were working hard away, to strip off the posters on the poles, a reporter from the Zhonghwa Daily passed by us, and inquired out of curiosity, how we were doing, and, he’d, taken shots of the three of us, brother and sister, working hard away, and he’d told us, that if the boss didn’t pay us what we’d heard, we can tell him, he shall, get what we were owed. As the news story came out the following day, there was, in influx of kindness from the locals all around, and there were even though, we’d wanted to, assist us in stripping the posters off the poles too. The three of us, became, the stars, under that spotlight suddenly, we were, filled up with the motivations, the zests, and, scrubbed away, harder. A little over thirty years later, by chance, my younger brother ran into this reporter who was still working in the press, and, my brother mentioned it to him, and he told him, that he seemed to have, memories, of helping the three of us out.
Working day and nights, on the day before New Year’s Eve, with all our fingers red and the skins peeling off, we were finally able to, complete this, mission impossible, and we were, paid, the measly amount that barely measured up to the hard work we’d, all put in. Thinking back to this experience, it was, a page of our work histories, written with the blood and the sweats; and I’d, started, pondering, if it’d happened today, would it have, gotten, more of the media’s, attention?
I’m sure that it would, because, back then, there’s NO laws against child laborers, but now, the world is zooming in, on the rights of the workers, and the children, so, had this incident happened in the current society, I’m sure, that these young children, would NOT have just, gotten that page of the newspaper reporting about what they were doing!
JUST the Unwinding of Thoughts 