Beggars

Feel a bit ill posting this, but hey, why not?

It’s always kind of fun when a beggar spots a foreigner in some China backwater – it’s the guy’s lucky day. But in the big city begging is a real bummer.

Begging I suppose is like any other job, you need to be good at it or have a gimmick: be a cute old man who looks like Iron-crutch Li 铁拐李, one of the eight Taoist immortals; or be missing a limb (both a bit clichéd). It’s better not to be one of those terrible burn victims – people will feel sorry for you – but you won’t get near enough, often enough to really solicit. The persistent soliciting wretches make the most money in the end I’m guessing – those really annoying types who hang out in the areas where rich foreigners converge. They are good at following you until you're so fucked off you give them money. They are not like the quiet beggar at the entrance to subway stations – who you can walk by in an instant. Perhaps you walked by several of these characters as you entered the station on your way into town. You felt you should have given – hey why not, the truly wretched soul waiting for those coins which generally mess up your house, much like you put rubbish in the bin, you could put a coin in their little cup.

Getting off at a downtown stop you are harangued by an old man in a chairman Mao suit, he shuffles behind you with quick steps, grins and tugs at you like the barbershop prostitutes. You go for a little human interaction – laughter conquers all no? you reach into the cup he is jingling and make to take a coin, and say thank you – he grins, but is oblivious to the joke. You feel a fool, and out of shame, and not wanting to walk another fifty metres with this dead soul, you give a couple of coins He’s off; but your not through, you're pretty close to the bar or coffee shop by now, but you have to get by another obnoxious alms seeker. You promptly tell this next character to fuck off, and then almost trip over as you cross the road.

Later that night, intoxicated, you stumble out of the bar – it’s the turn of the beggar children and the woman controlling them who points insistently to her own ghoulish mouth. You give freely to be cheery and benevolent, but really just out of weakness, you don’t want the hassle. You remember the other beggars you encountered that day, rue your choices, the undeserving got from you. You are no judge. Human life that scrabbling, scabbing mass – why bother – this feeling continues through your night and subsequent hangover…