Day 70 The rich beggar

The rich beggar

It was not some news for us to figure out that beggar who appears in the middle of the road is actual wealthier than us. In fact, it turned out a favored job for some people, since it is easy money and absolutely tax free. There was a popular video on you tube and Facebook recently with the title ‘OKC Panhandler Busted & Confronted’, which recorded an guy who realized that the panhandler he helped was driving a better car than his. Of course, he was fuming, and what he said was worth profoundly thinking. He yells at the old lady with the following line ‘ I gave you 2 dollars, 3 dollars everyday, and I worked hard for my money. That's why people like you got to take advantage of people like me. I do not appreciate that!’ Unfortunately, it is quite common for honest people gets exploited by these villains. Generally, we offer these people financial help due to the sense of sympathy and kindness. In addition, sometimes we simply do not want to be humiliated in front our friends. Same as other human behavior incentives, the demonstration effect takes its part on affecting our decision. When we find out most of the other people around us is generous on the beggar, we would tend to act in the same pattern. That is why these base people would always ‘work’ in the middle of vehicle stream, at the narrow but crowded area, or in front of the train station. According to a statistic, some of these panhandlers could earn more than ten thousand CNY per month in China. A new graduate university student normally, salary is between three thousands to four thousands, so compare to ordinary employees. These beggars turns belong to the high-income group. I am not suggesting all the panhandlers on earth are lazy people who wants to get paid for nothing and manipulating people’s sympathy. Actually, I believe most of them are genuine poor people who really require assistance from the community. However, we cannot deny that more and more people consider to take benefit on this ‘career’. What they do is fraud rather than begs for money. I read an article about one of this impostor on the train. He is a man with perfect health condition, but pretended to be a gimpy man. He claimed that he could earn more than 300 CNY for every time he walks pass through all the coaches on the train, but would get nothing if he acts like a healthy man. As a matter of fact, people are inclined to pity those who have physical disability or carry a child. Even my father was tricked once when we were walking down the street. There was ‘couple’ with their ‘children’ approached us and asked if they could borrow the phone. They explained they lived in rural village and ran out of money in Beijing. My father was a good man, therefore he offered 200 CNY to the ‘couple’ and asked them to buy some food for the kid. We left with their gratitude. However, exact three days later, we confronted these people at another place. It was obvious they did not remember their victims, and I would never forget the expression on my fathers face on that day. Personally, I do commiserate people who are suffering distress, but these impostors induce the distrust to prevail in my mind. However, It is getting harder to distinguish them in now days.