Fishing Is Not A Sport
by Maysen Yen
An old Chinese proverb states, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” This might have worked in the days of ancient China where the only other worry besides starvation was whether or not those smelly Mongolians would scale the Great Wall. However, in today’s society, merely having the proper skills is not enough to make a living.
In order to fish, the hobo, impoverished worker, or illegal alien needs to possess a basic fishing rod. A boat can be useful too, for avoiding minuscule shore fish that taste like rubber. Judging from today’s world, even if you do finally get enough money to purchase a fishing boat, there is still a strong chance that next year, a sleeker boat that claims to be “fuel efficient” will be introduced. In essence: fishing rod - fifteen dollars, fishing boat - five thousand dollars, the realization that selling the fish you catch doesn’t meet the poverty line - priceless. There are some things money can’t buy; for everything else, well, just skip Christmas this year.
The newly-made fisherman has to compete with other factions. Sure, he could always just eat the fishes he catches but where would the profit be in that? Three meals a day of smelly fish will get pretty boring anyways. Therefore, the fisherman needs to sell the fish he catches to the market, or some fancy French restaurant that puts some roullie or bouillabaisse sauce on it and charges thirty dollars over the market price. However, the fisherman will not be able to sell his fish, because he has to compete with groups like Chicken of the Sea and their tuna goodness. Plus, the sex appeal of the mermaid on the can is just unbeatable.
In all seriousness, who really has the time to teach a hobo how to fish? We’re all busy people and the most we’d ever do for a hobo is throw the guy some change. Maybe the liberals should start campaigning for fishing training programs for the poor. We all know the massive enrollment the programs will have, especially when TANF runs out. Apparently, the temporary aid to needy families was just… temporary. Once these new fishermen come out fully trained, they will probably find their jobs outsourced to China where, ironically, this quotation originated.
After all that, we are back where we started. The hobo ends up on the streets again, the impoverished worker is back to working two jobs, and the illegal alien gets deported back to Mars after spending weeks rotting in an immigration cell; “ET want my one phone call.” The boat gets sold for half the original price because it depreciated as soon as it left the harbor. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Personally, seeing as the proverb has been disproved, the next time I see a hobo, I’ll give him a nice salmon and settle for the day.
On second thought, maybe I’ll stick with the quarter.
August 13 2008 04:47 pm | Uncategorized
