Bạn đang xem bản rút gọn của tài liệu. Xem và tải ngay bản đầy đủ của tài liệu tại đây (11.75 KB, 7 trang )
The rising cost of living
Older people like my parents are always complaining
about the rising cost of living. At first I did not understand
what they were talking about until they explained to me
what the cost of living was.
My father says that he used to be able to get a bowl of
noodles for 20 sen. That is hardly believable considering
that a bowl today costs more than a ringgit. Then my
grandmother says that a bowl of noodles cost half a sen
before World War II. That is even more unbelievable! Now
I understand what the cost of living means. It simply
means how much it costs to buy things we need.
The cost of living seems to be always rising. The first car
my father bought cost less than six thousand ringgit brand
new. Nowadays a second hand car costs more than that.
Apples used to cost 20 sen each, as my mother says. Now
they cost almost a ringgit each.
My grandfather used to earn 5 ringgit a month and that
was enough to feed his family of five comfortably. I marvel
at that because 5 ringgit today is hardly enough for a meal
at a fast food center. Things have certainly become more
and more expensive and there is no indication that they
will cost less in the future. Compared to my grandfather,
my father earned a princely sum of a thousand ringgit a
month. That is two hundred times what my grandfather
earned. However I know it is hardly sufficient for my father
to meet the family expenses. Fortunately my mother earns