Money and Freedom

Kiki Post 4

While reading Les Miserables, I was amazed by Victor Hugo’s choice of words as well as metaphors and sarcasm he used in the book. His language is so powerful that even though I am not a native English speaker, I still find it very poetic and impactive. I believe the original French book should be even greater. 

As we talked about in class, the description of Gavroche showed the boy’s miserable living situation. To him, freedom was the least thing he needed since he did not even have food, money and parental love. Also, was he really free? My answer is absolutely no. How could he be free when he was incarcerated by the prison of poverty and hunger? He was not free at all. His action and option were limited by his poor living condition, being worried about and tortured by a series problems that he was not able to solve.

Gavroche reminded me of the “Left-behind children” in China. As China’s economy keeps growing rapidly, many social problems has been emerged. The Economy growth and the massive construction of the country provide people from poor regions with opportunities to work in the big cities as industrial and construction workers. Some people would even start their own small business in big cities. As these adults chose to seek for better opportunities in big cities, they left their children at home with the children’s grandparents. The recent data shows that in China, there are more than 60 million left-behind children in Chinese rural regions.(South China Morning Post) Living with illiterate grandparents, those children are not likely to receive good family education as well as physical care since their grandparents still have to take care of the family’s agricultural works. I had watched several documentaries about left-behind children in China. The scene that touched me most was the farewell between the children and their parents after a short reunion during the Chinese New Year break. Tears and sadness on the children’s faces made me feel sad as well. Those children are at the age when they need parental care and accompany most, but they have no choice because their parents need to make money for them to go to school. This example again proves that people cannot be free when they do not have enough money. Every time when they need to make a choice between money and something else, they would have to choose money.

Fortunately, Chinese government has realized the importance of solving this problem. The government has been working with major companies and factories to build up new and free kindergartens in the cities for the workers’ children only. Therefore those parents can bring their children with them without worrying about who’s going to take care of the children and about the high preschool education cost. But there is still a long way to go. 

Back to Les Miserables, many disasters described in the book were caused by money. Also, one’s life path was largely determined by his or her family status at that time. However, it is not the case nowadays. It is true that in some cases money can make money, but it does not mean that people from poor families can never be successful. Governments are putting efforts in eliminating inequality and individuals with social responsibility are also contributing to increasing equality in the society. Even though there is still a long way to go, as long as we are doing the right thing step by step, the future would not be hopeless and doomed.