Poverty is terrible.
Scary in that it takes away one's dignity.
When I had not yet graduated, my family's financial condition was not good. During the summer of my junior year of college, together with my older sister and younger sister, we ran a summer study and tutoring program in the village. Dad helped us install fans, tables, chairs and so on. When the parents came to inquire about the fees and other related matters, Dad stopped his work and answered with a smile on his face.
That smile, which I will never forget, was a flattering, humble smile that I had never seen on my father's face, or on any family member's face, before. That smile made my heart ache, yes, the customer is God, but that almost ingratiating smile of Dad's was only because of the family's dire circumstances, only because of this money, this student who was attending the tutoring was important to him, to the family.
Scary in that it can obliterate human feelings and even basic moral values.
Poor couples have a lot of grief. Every year on New Year's Eve, Mom and Dad always have a fight, and the reason for the fight is always that Dad tends to buy better gifts to visit friends and relatives, and Mom thinks it's too expensive. In the past few years, we sisters one after another to participate in the work, the family economic conditions are much better, this kind of quarrel will never happen again, Dad is willing to buy how much money to buy how much money, no one to pay attention to it anymore.
In my senior year, I entered the graduate school review, a Shanghai college. My family was mostly opposed to me going to graduate school for no other reason than that the three years in Shanghai would cost as much as 100,000 yuan for all kinds of expenses. This incident in my heart cut a deep wound, for the sake of money, can easily cut off my future, let me lose the possibility of further development? There are several years, this matter let me can not get over it.
I have also seen villagers suffering from cancer, in the moment of knowing the disease, just waiting for death, never properly treated. I have also seen elderly people with no pensions being disliked by their children, and when they are sick, it is a luxury to be able to get treatment.
Scary in that, poverty itself becomes the original sin.
Poor people do nothing right. I've seen smart and cute children being snubbed by relatives and only getting a hundred dollars in New Year's money just because their parents are ordinary farmers. I've seen children from wealthy families in a star-studded position just because their parents have power and influence. I've seen rural areas and farmers stigmatized over and over again in film and television dramas and online debates, and I've seen them belittled, as if I'd forgotten that there are still 800 million farmers in the country and that many of these families have been out of the countryside for more than three generations.
Poverty itself has become a sin. The network has repeatedly discussed the thinking of the poor and the thinking of the rich, time and time again, clamoring you poor you have reason. It's as if being poor represents ignorance, laziness and guilt. They think they are a surrogate for rationality and objectivity, but they have lost the most basic compassion.
Poverty is not a sin, and the causes of poverty are complex and sometimes not even the fault of the individual. More tolerance and compassion, don't let the poor distort the human heart.