Good for free, not for money

A farmer in Zhengzhou, Henan province, announced that people could collect sweet potatoes from his farm for free because he could not get the right price for them in the market. He thought that the people who came to collect the sweet potatoes would also buy some of his cabbages and white radishes. But people dug out about 100 tons of sweet potatoes from his farm within an hour without buying almost any of the other vegetables. That reflected the public mentality of grabbing anything for free without caring to honor other people's labor, says an article in Dazhong Daily. Excerpts:

People are justified to take government welfare, such as free education and healthcare, for granted. But they should be more considerate when it comes to enjoying a "free lunch" offered by individuals who have no choice.

The Zhengzhou farmer offered his sweet potatoes to the public for free not because he had already earned a huge profit by selling his crop but because he could not sell them. In true socialist spirit, he decided to give the sweet potatoes to the public instead of letting them rot on his farm. In the process, he expected the people who came to collect the sweet potatoes would buy some of his cabbages and white radishes, which he couldn't sell in the market either, and help him recover some of his loss.

What happened was not something he had expected. His sweet potatoes vanished in a flash while almost no one bought his cabbage or white radish. The people, in this case, should have been obliged to buy the farmer's cabbages and white radishes to return his kindness and minimize his loss but they were too selfish to do so.

When a person offers us something for free, we should try and return the favor as much as possible at the first opportunity, which the people who enjoyed the sweet potatoes didn't.

(China Daily 12/05/2012 page9)