Today is the third day in Chinese New Year. There was an all girls troupe of lion dancers performing in the Giant Supermarket. I heard that the Giant chain of supermarkets in Sabah was being taken over by a group from Labuan. Already Giant in Tawau was in new hands with new name.
After lunch we were outside of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The door to KFC kitchen was open. Three boys were collecting paper recyclables in black bags on trolley to a small lorry outside. A boy that looked like 11 years old was wheeling the trolley. Another smaller boy that could be 7 or so was loading the trolley. A third one that could be 14 was standing up in the loading area to pack the bags tightly.
My son said that these boys probably came from the interior and were too poor to go to school. Their parents may have too many children to feed that they were farmed out to relatives near the city. The relatives found individuals who would feed, house, train the boys to a legitimate line of work. Near my place there is a restaurant that sells economic noodles for breakfast and economic mix rice for lunch. The lady boss is a fair, even-temper individual who trained her servers from young, maybe 12 to 14. As far as I could see, she had been having the same three servers (2 boys and 1 older girl) for the past 5 years and now there is a 13 year old new additional girl.
Well, certainly these boys will have a better future than the five glue sniffers who sleep rough in front of the shops. Being employed bodes well, they could advance to better jobs as time goes on. It is better than the undocumented children that hang around the dumb site. It is sad that the very state that produced the most resources happened to be the second poorest in my country. I certainly do not see Malaysian citizens being deprived of education in the Peninsular. But here, things are very different.
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