Personal Blog of Carl Pei

I used to give money from time to time to beggars, but after several incidents and revelations, I will never do it again.

In China, beggars are professionals and will take measures, such as wearing dirty clothes and adding dirt to their body in order to maximize profits.

• Incident 1. A month ago, I was in the buffet section of a Macau casino offering some of the world’s best buffets. Sitting by a table was a beggar from Zhuhai whom I’ve seen numerous times on the streets looking very poor now enjoying a great meal.
• Incident 2. During the Chinese New Year celebrations we were outside setting off fireworks. A beggar, male crippled with only one arm disturbed me for a few minutes asking for money. After the fireworks, on the way home I saw the same man, wearing the same dirty clothes, but now carrying a smart citybag walking home rapidly. He now had two arms and was enjoying a cigarette after a hard days work.
• Incident 3. A friend one told me of how he was standing in the line of a bank behind a Guangzhou beggar who deposited 200,000 CNY (approx $45,000 USD) at the counter. When the beggar was walking out of the bank, my friend glanced at his bank statement which now showed more than a million CNY! A regular hardworking Chinese can’t make a million in a lifetime.
• Incident 4. Yesterday I heard a street vendor ask a beggar who was missing an arm how business was going. The beggar said, “Not bad.” Beggars see themselves as businessmen.

Another type of business model used by beggars here is to buy crippled people (normally children) and send them out to beg. At the end of the day, the owners come and pick them up and take all the money. If the cripples don’t manage to get a certain amount of money, they will be beaten or not given food.

So you see, no matter which kind of beggar you decide to give money to, it is a complete waste. If you have money to throw away, give it to some regular hard working person who needs and deserves it more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 6:17 am and is filed under Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.