【Humans of Taipei】航空城打亂的退休夢

「我是做拆除的。很多藏汙納垢的東西，是不拆不曝光。例如，有次拆四米高的柱子，只打了兩顆釘。

「這種事屢見不鮮。還有一次拆禮堂，電路都切了還走火，我找了老半天，原來他們幾十年來都偷接路燈的電。禮堂的天花板，要拆卸下來賣給木材行，才發現根本不是當年興建時，合約裡寫的頂級木材…。

「沒法度，黑白兩道都要揩油，結果就是偷工減料。也因為這個工作複雜又危險，我沒讓孩子接手；現在半退休了，就在老家的山坡地種茶葉、種筍仔。但賺不了錢啦，種來自己呷，或是送朋友。

「誰知，清幽的退休夢被打亂，桃園航空城把我家畫進徵收範圍，換我家要被拆了。其實，這邊廢棄的軍用機場很大，應該將第三跑道蓋在這就好。說穿了，不就是在炒地皮嗎？」

“I am a demolition contractor. Squalor reveals when you tear down things. I once dealt with a 4-meter-high pillar. And its had only 2 fasteners on it.

“These things always happen. I had been working on an auditorium. We had cut off the electricity, but a short circuit suddenly happened. After a long investigation, I finally found that they’d been steeling the electricity from the street lamp. We resold the wood ceiling but found out that the wood wasn’t as expensive as expected. In the contract it should have been the best wood.

“Contractors have to ‘take care of’ both sides of the law. The budgets left for the real job would be lower and the quality would not be good. That’s why I didn’t hand over family business to my child. This job is too complicated and dangerous. I am almost retired now. I go back to old house and grow tea and bamboo shoots. It won’t make me rich. I grow them for myself or to give them to friends.

“I didn’t expect that my peaceful retirement can be interrupted. My house is in the area of land expropriation for the Taoyuan aviation city project. This time people is coming to demolish my house. Actually they had an old deserted military airport which is big enough for them to build their third airplane runway. To be honest, the whole project is land speculation, isn’t it?”