On Charity
There is a column called “Newsweekly of Charity” in my newspaper. I write charity stories for this column constantly. Therefore, I begin to pay attention to the charity undertaking since then.
I once interviewed an expert researching on the charity undertaking. He explained that charity was in fact the third-round social allocation. In his opinion, there are three rounds of allocation in our society: the first round is the allocation in terms of social materials, say income from the capital, the earth, the labor, etc; the second round is the allocation from the government, in the form of wages; and the third-round is the earnings from the charity.
In his opinion, the first two rounds of allocations are not always fair, because
there exists the poor people in our society, who can earn a little money. People of this class are living at the very bottom of the society, and they need extra money from the charity. Moreover, in the western society, the charity undertaking has fully developed; the number of the charity organizations, the amount of
the donations, and the number of the donators are all more advanced than those in China, for the charity law there has been systematical and relatively complete
.
In fact, since the first day of my work, I have started to report on the charity
stories. Usually, these news stories are about a person who is seriously ill, but his or her family can hardly afford the medical treatment. My reports are supposed to arise some of the readers’ sympathy, and then they will donate money to the person. I find that the donators are always ordinary people, many of whom
can earn quite limited money. So I start to think is it fair for them to give what they should own to the poor people, who should actually get money from the upper class?
In fact, so far as I know, the people in the upper class are not unwilling to donate money to the poor, but they hesitate or give up doing so simply because the
system can hardly make them feel secured and easy. For instance, once I got a call from a rich reader, she insisted on giving the money to the donee by post rather than coming to the hospital to give it in face. I just asked her why, and she explained that once she went to the hospital to donate money, the donee’s family asked for her address, so she told them. To her astonishment, it turned out
to be a nightmare. The donee’s family started to call her on and on for more and more money, which truly irritated and disgusted her.
I came across the similar unpleasant situation too, say, the ill’s family called me many times, asking for more money. In one aspect, the donee need far more money than the donation, so his or her families are cornered to try every means to cling to the last straw. However, this kind of act is sort of compelling, which truly brings pressure to the donators. I once donated money after my interview
several times, but finally I gave it up, for I realized that it’s far from enough, and I was also tired.
I can never forget that once a little girl got leukemia, and his father called me several times requiring for a report on her. I confessed that my sympathy was
sort of numbed for having seen too much similar stories, so I refused him politely. One day, to my surprise, I got a call from this little girl. She was weeping
on the phone, saying she had got leukemia, and got no money to treat. My numbness started to melt until I suddenly heard clearly that it’s her mother taught her to say every words behind her, which truly took all my sympathy away. I suddenly felt that the mother was cheating, and just wanted to make use of me. I turned down their request for an interview again, though I felt unpleasant.
I must to say that one person’s sympathy has limit, and can easily get tired after experiencing too much, why can’t the government undertake the charity cause
instead of the ordinary people? This morning, I read a thrilling piece of news
from Sina website, saying that our country is now taking into account of making
a charity law, and the People’s Congress is going to discuss whether to carry out the law. I sincerely wish the charity law could and would come to carry out
soon, and then the needed people can really get the help in a fair way.
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