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Photos: Internet
This year, Vietnam is not having fireworks to celebrate Tet (Lunar New Year) anymore, to save the money for relief efforts. Although the plan for allocating the trillions of tax dollars to which projects, who will receive it, and who will be responsible is still unknown, we should still applaud this noble spirit. Otherwise, there will be many people who keep trying to combine the Western and Lunar New Year to save money, to reduce drinking and eating, which would only cause more trouble. Our ancestors sadly watched their descendants fail to come up with new ways to increase labor productivity, so that their children wouldn't be born into debt to pay off. They just blindly follow others, saying things like Japan does this, or America does that, forgetting that character and attitude are the key.
But anyway, that's getting off topic. This year we still have the flower street, don't we? A 'trillion-dollar' flower street to enjoy during the Tet holiday. Who knows, maybe later they'll 'save' it for relief efforts. Let's enjoy today and worry about tomorrow. After a few days, it'll be time to dismantle it, and then we'll have to spend money hiring security guards and street sweepers to clean up. Then people will start 'scavenging' for the flowers again, as the media puts it.
A flower street caretaker said, "These flowers will all end up in the garbage truck, but they're high-tech flowers, they won't last long, so please don't take them. The potted flowers aren't worth much, but people will judge the civic consciousness of the entire city based on how they look!"
Some young people even sneaked into the flower street to grab flowers and quickly run away. Many others waited patiently, anticipating workers loading the flower pots onto garbage trucks so they could quickly take the flowers. Many residents took advantage of the situation to ask for flower pots to take home. When the security guards stopped them, many people explained: "We are educated people, we love flowers, so we want to take a few pots home, otherwise it would be a waste to throw them in the trash later."
Yes, it's strange, there were a few vases and people were fighting and cursing over them.
But it's a waste to throw them away. Billions spent on flowers for a few days, and these are the people who paid for the flower street. They pay taxes all year round, never receive unemployment benefits, their insurance cards aren't even touched, and now they're being treated like thieves and complaining? The flowers are wilting, why don't you sell them cheaply so people can take them? Poor people don't have extra money to buy flowers, why don't you leave them for them so they can come and take them? Create two sections, one for selling them cheaply, and another for free for those who need them but can't afford to buy them. The money from selling the flowers could be used for charity, why not?
Instead of belittling taxpayers who rush to collect flowers, fearing waste, why not think of ways to utilize them? For example, if nobody wants to buy cheap flowers, and nobody wants to take them, then disposing of them later wouldn't be too late.
