The Story of a Newspaper Girl
Everday on my way to work in Jakarta, there are a few boys each hugging a pile of various titles of newspapers under one arm, routinely wavering a copy in the hazy air with another, hovering around vehicles stopping at the traffic lights of main road junctions, of course meaning to solicit transactions rather than clear away car exhaust. Indeed air pollution should hardly be an agenda of priority on their mind, even though they may not be fully aware of being in a trade of gradual extinction. When news are instantly available on websites for anyone with a device for efficient internet access, there is not much nostalgia for hanging on to the printed materials. Physical distribution of newspaper already seems to be anachronistic of another era in the past.
Perhaps not quite yet, not even in cities beyond emerging economies where internet access is far more efficient and usage more prevalent. In Hong Kong, eg, traditional newspapers stalls are still ubiquitous and, in fact, very much a feature of the city streets. The image of a little girl spontaneously popped up in mind amid my thoughts of newspapers' circulation. She sat on a stool guarding a rather tiny newspapers stall on the street where my residence was in my early school days. My memory on details for over twenty years has long been fading of course. But the vague impression of the little girl always completely absorbed into the printed materials at her reach, probably more magazines than newspapers, still lingers on.
She was a regular sight on the street, like she had always been there from the beginning of time. And she was still there in her grown form after years, again losing actual counts in my memory, when I happened to return to the street long since I had moved away. So she had been there through her adolescence, apparently having missed or been deprived of school education, absorbed in her own world of cursory reading when everything else just passed by. Her only physical connection with the outside world seems to be through the swift moments of transaction with pedestrains buying papers from her stall.
I couldn't help but feel disheartened somewhat at the thought. For whatever reasons she needed to live on selling papers from her childhood on, it was seemingly out of voluntary choice on her part -and no doubt that of her family, assuming she was not an orphan. In any case, the opportunity of the nine-year free education available to every Hong Kong citizen was passed from her. Is it not against rationality to let go the opportunity of free education, which arguably open doors to more economic choices, let alone the life of an average childhood with school activities and friends, for running a street stall? The opportunity cost of the girl's future simply did not justify the enterprise. But if it was a genuine case of poverty, it must have slipped through the social welfare net of relevant government subsidy, which is readily available in Hong Kong.
Perhaps I had got it all wrong, that the girl was only manning the stall after school, not really there all the time. In which case, however, she probably had not put her academic qualification to much good use, if she was still sitting there past her puberty age.
But who am I to pass any judgement on a stranger. I am just wondering what economic model can explain her choice. This is surely not a case of unemployment by any definition, so what's the problem and why would any economist be interested in seeking an explanation?
I am just curious. The image of her sticks. With some imagination, perhaps the mystery of a newspaper girl in a bustling town could make a sentimental story.
Perhaps not quite yet, not even in cities beyond emerging economies where internet access is far more efficient and usage more prevalent. In Hong Kong, eg, traditional newspapers stalls are still ubiquitous and, in fact, very much a feature of the city streets. The image of a little girl spontaneously popped up in mind amid my thoughts of newspapers' circulation. She sat on a stool guarding a rather tiny newspapers stall on the street where my residence was in my early school days. My memory on details for over twenty years has long been fading of course. But the vague impression of the little girl always completely absorbed into the printed materials at her reach, probably more magazines than newspapers, still lingers on.
She was a regular sight on the street, like she had always been there from the beginning of time. And she was still there in her grown form after years, again losing actual counts in my memory, when I happened to return to the street long since I had moved away. So she had been there through her adolescence, apparently having missed or been deprived of school education, absorbed in her own world of cursory reading when everything else just passed by. Her only physical connection with the outside world seems to be through the swift moments of transaction with pedestrains buying papers from her stall.
I couldn't help but feel disheartened somewhat at the thought. For whatever reasons she needed to live on selling papers from her childhood on, it was seemingly out of voluntary choice on her part -and no doubt that of her family, assuming she was not an orphan. In any case, the opportunity of the nine-year free education available to every Hong Kong citizen was passed from her. Is it not against rationality to let go the opportunity of free education, which arguably open doors to more economic choices, let alone the life of an average childhood with school activities and friends, for running a street stall? The opportunity cost of the girl's future simply did not justify the enterprise. But if it was a genuine case of poverty, it must have slipped through the social welfare net of relevant government subsidy, which is readily available in Hong Kong.
Perhaps I had got it all wrong, that the girl was only manning the stall after school, not really there all the time. In which case, however, she probably had not put her academic qualification to much good use, if she was still sitting there past her puberty age.
But who am I to pass any judgement on a stranger. I am just wondering what economic model can explain her choice. This is surely not a case of unemployment by any definition, so what's the problem and why would any economist be interested in seeking an explanation?
I am just curious. The image of her sticks. With some imagination, perhaps the mystery of a newspaper girl in a bustling town could make a sentimental story.
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