By Min Liu
ADLINK Education Foundation will be hosting a cross-strait children’s summer camp at the end of July. The event will take place in ADLINK’s office in Shanghai. Children who are in grades 5 or 6 with less-privileged backgrounds, such as low-income households or single-parent families, are eligible for the camp. The Foundation has recruited 8 children respectively in Taiwan and Mainland China.
Many of these children look younger than their age, more like 3rd or 4th graders. They appear skinnier and shorter than their classmates.Perhaps this is because they have to “do martial arts” or it may be due to poor nutrition.
Xiao-Chiang pointed at a child and told me that he does not even have a TV set at home. None of the children in the group has ever flownin a plane - the closest they’ve come is watching planes in the sky. I asked them, “Are you excited to take a flight to Shanghai?” They allresponded in chorus, “We’re very excited!”
Even though their reply sounded a bit reserved, their eyes were sparkling. For some reason, at that moment I felt an impulse to cry. Writing this article, I now realize it came from a feeling of compassion.
I want to tell my daughter how lucky and blessed she is. She has been traveling by air at least once or twice a year since she was one. Iwant her to understand that being blessed needs to be appreciated and cherished; otherwise it would not be called being blessed.
