I
n a very small part of Hong Kong's grass root level, I caused a bit of commotion yesterday. As you see in my profile, I work as a part-time garbage collector in a housing estate in Hong Kong. So does my wife. (But she is a full-time sanitary worker.) Well, she actually arranged this job for me after seeing my severe lack of exercise after I'd started working at home.
My wife brought me yesterday a document from our company (written in Chinese) and told me to sign it. It was a notice of salary cut from HK$700 to HK$600 a month (a 14% cut). So I groaned "A salary cut!" And she suddenly got quite agitated. She had little idea what this paper meant before hearing my groan...
She, a Thai, cannot read Chinese just like the majority of foreigners in Hong Kong. So she did not know what this document was about. But she signed anyway after hearing her boss' explanation. However, he did not tell her a word that it was an agreement form of a salary cut.
After I explained her about this, she started calling her colleagues (who are mostly immigrants from Fujian province, China) and none of them knew exactly what the document was about! They are only half-literate or simply do not bother to read anything. (You can easily imagine that a university graduate is a very, very few exception there. And I am one.) And the manager could have known this. It was his duty to explain to everyone who was supposed to sign this form.
But it seems that everyone signed document as directed by the manager. So it is very likely that this salary cut will be implemented as the majority of employees have agreed to it. I feel sad and angry that the company used the workers’ ignorance and fear of losing jobs… They are already among the most exploited in this city. And Hong Kong's economy is now booming...
I still have no plan exactly how to react to this situation. Anyway, I should calm down first and think about what I can do… Well, I think I can do a lot as I am a very rare person who has a bachelor’s degree (in legal study!) there.
Indeed, the ability to read protects you. So I have started wondering how I can take a part in helping illiterate people learn how to read…
3 件のコメント:
Yes, to make every incident into an opportunity to do good, that what life is for.
I read once a real life story of a Jew whose wife and children were shot. He asked to be shot too but they needed him because he was educated. He decided then and there to love only because hate had killed his family. In the concentration camp he served as a translator and helped everybody all the time. At the end of the war when the camp was liberated he was the only one who was well. Love is the great Healer.
Veronica sounds like he was a 'christian' Jew, or in-deed what the 'christian' teaching says.
Love (not lust) kindness and compassion are Divine, for if God were not so, Man should have been destroyed long ago for 'rebellion'
it startas at a very young age. Grab them as young as 4... after that it is very very difficukt to protect people....whoever they are. whereerver they come from.
Especially ifit's CHINESE!!
:)
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