Raoul's China Saloon (V5.0) Beta
The Bar Room => The Bar (ON-TOPIC) => Topic started by: The Clan on June 13, 2007, 02:20:38 PM
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Being an American who is obviously rich beyond all belief, will I have to endure small hands touching me in oh so sensitive places........ :o
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Yes! ... but you'll learn some good vocab for dealing with this pretty quickly.
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If you keep mentioning your wealth, you'll find not only small hands touching you... afafafafaf
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Is that a promise afafafafaf or a threat aoaoaoaoao. I don't know you all that well maybe some of the other fellas can make me aware........George?
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Yeah, Clan, the Cheeks is a Russian, and you know what they're like, but I think she means pocketpickers.
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Small hands might touch you but the old withered hands holding the tin cup will hit you and prod you. The women holding babies will follow you. asasasasas
You have to turn a blind eye. You have to learn to say NO, except China doesn't have a word for NO. Mr Nobody had a T-shirt we all wanted, but never got. It said in Chinese characters, I have no money. Mai yo chen. I am sure others more fluent in Chinese 'no saying' will give you even better advice.
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Saying 'meiyou lingqian' (no small change) can help as well as a 'zou kai' (bugger off) or you can just take money out of the offered cup and say 'xiexie'
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I usually hold out my hand and offer a smile hoping to get rather than give. I remember one old geezer who laughed at situation, took a 5 jiao coin from his cup and gave it to me. I don't give money to beggars. I do give money to buskers who make an attempt to earn their way. Since I almost look Asian and I don't appear to be rich as I take crowded buses and so on, the begging is not too frequent.
Oh, and for what it's worth - the missus and I are definitely not American and as such, obviously, not rich ahahahahah
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Carrying an apple or some candy is also a good way to deal with the kid beggars, that way they actually get something and you can feel good,too. I don't give money to beggars. "bu yao, xie xie" also gets a good laugh.
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I don't give anything to children at all ever. I want them (and their handlers) to figure out that begging is not the way of life for them, and any donation (in kind or money) only keeps the process going. I will keep all my little coin change for the elderly or really disabled I see in the street, but only once every 3-4 months do I do this, when it is getting to annoying to carry any longer.
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BUT ... the opposite of this is that you will have to argue and fight with Chinese friends to pay for meals, outings etc. It's always a battle. And you know even if you aren't Bill Gates, that you are still making more money than they are and they still fight for the bill.
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I don't give money to beggars. "bu yao, xie xie" also gets a good laugh.
Which in english translates to??
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don't want, thank you.
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I don't want any thank you.
I use the 'mei you ling qian' - no little change.
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The qi in the qian is pronounced as....
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Kind of like chee
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chee
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thanks!
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You also have to be careful with kids. They try to grab you while they beg for money. If there are many kids, take good care of your belongings - they could be thieves.
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You also have to be careful with kids. They try to grab you while they beg for money. If there are many kids, take good care of your belongings - they could be thieves.
Or worse. I once tried to walk home from Wal-Mart and this little guttersnipe would not let up. The dirty urchin grabbed my leg and held on for dear life. So there I was, lugging groceries home while a child, screeching in incomprehensible Chinese, was holding on to my leg. Her/his lamentations became louder with every step I took and I finally give him/her/it 20 Yuan to go away. Bear in mind, this was one month after I arrived in China and still had no idea about the value of the local currency. One good advice: if you are of a generous nature, be careful giving out spare change if there are other beggars around. They will see the "rich" foreigner doling out cash and rush you, holding up crying babies or physical deformities to convince you to depart with more of your over-abundant wealth.
I found that playing the silly foreigner and responding in a foreign language, not English, tended to make them lose interest in me. That and simply running away.
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If you have trouble with the kids hanging on, just walk into a shop. The shopkeepers will chase them away. I don't really have this problem because I'm not particularily nice to people grabbing me. Well.... it depends who and where they are grabbing.
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Be careful NOT to hit them or be abusive in any way - the minders will come out of nowhere and you can end up down the police station if the local coppers feel you need a bit of a shake up - waiguoren will obviously pay.
Just keep walking - they have territory they don't cross.
But I never push or hit - I figure even on my worst day my life is still so much better than theirs is and will ever be. Why make it worse? A polite, firm, "mei you ling qian' and KEEP walking works well.
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Sorry, I didn't mean to imply I'm physical with them, just not nice.
I'm usually a very nice boy. bfbfbfbfbf
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Sorry, I didn't mean to imply I'm physical with them, just not nice.
I'm usually a very nice boy. bfbfbfbfbf
Said the resident assassin...
Just keep walking when they accost you.
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I do remember being accosted in Nanchung by a freakishly tall, scruffy, wierdo, babbling incoherently about clogs. I wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman but I beleive woman because she had pink glasses. I could be mistaken.
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Clogs? Freakishly tall? Woman?
See, I am not Dutch, about 5'8 and not a woman. Scruffy and pink spectacles, those are correct. Maybe you were hallucinating...comes from spending too much time under tables quaffing baijiu...
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Who was talking about you? Someone thinks quite highly of himself.
And as you know, 5'8" is freakishly tall in Nanchung. Especially for a woman.
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Begging, panhandling, rose kids, etc. ARE problems sometimes, especially in tourist areas.
So is pickpocketing and petty theft, especially among crowds.
I think what Clan may be talking about, though, doesn't exist much here: being besieged on sight by a large swarm of kids who overtly attach themselves to you and start merrily rifling all your pockets and belongings. I hear of things like this in India, Southeast Asia, etc. but never in China.
I'm with Lotus and some of the others here: I NEVER reward begging with a handout. I've given away food a few times. I don't give money. Ever.
I find that a stiff arm with an extended index finger, or better still the point of a good stout umbrella, will keep the streat scum too far away to attach themselves to you or get in your face, and they will give up and wander away.
Also, in many cities begging is illegal. Holding up a camera, or a mobile phone (even one that doesn't actually have a camera in it ahahahahah) and looking like you're going to take a photo of them usually gets them making a zesty beeline away from you.
Theft is rampant in places like train stations and crowded marketplaces. Keeping a constant eye on belongings, and universal travel basics like not keeping your wallet in your back pocket, are very much in order here.
This stuff definitely takes some learning and some getting used to. But getting around it, with times, becomes a lot easier.
Much easier than keeping these guys here on-topic, for example. uuuuuuuuuu
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Who was talking about you? Someone thinks quite highly of himself.
And as you know, 5'8" is freakishly tall in Nanchung. Especially for a woman.
Of course I think highly of myself...someone has to...
I have been to more major European cities than I can shake an umbrella at but never had my pocket picked before climbing up a mountain in Guilin.
Apart from that child, I never gave money ever. Except to those beggars who were so physically deformed that they would make Quasimode win the Mr Universe title. There was one who used to beg near Ren Min Guang Chang. The Man With No Face, we called him. Child beggars or people who seem to find begging the easy way out, those I merely ignored. But I could not help but feel like giving a few yuan to those poor wretches. As far as I understand, China can boast of having one of the worst welfare systems in the world, so if you are too crippled/horribly disfugered to work, it would seem you're m'kayed.
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The Clan, it is THE reality.
George, cbcbcbcbcb bad bad chicken! I was talking about locals! cbcbcbcbcb
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Ouch! That hurts! I had a kid grab my leg once and cling on. He lasted about 5 steps of a very bumpy ride. Probably bruised his little balls.
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Please don't just banter in here. (Multiple recipients intended)
Although it IS nice to hear of A CHILD grabbing GEORGE'S leg for a change. uuuuuuuuuu
I'm with you in spirit, Eric. There are some who do truly seem to need help, and the social safety net in China is indeed even worse than the USA's. apapapapap
But...it's really hard to tell sometimes which ones those really are. There are plenty of professional beggars here who do a pretty good job of looking old and poor and wretched...even deformed. Deliberately maiming people to increase their begging earning power has apparently not entirely faded into the past here.
It's all just too hard to figure out. It's also hard to get good clues from the Chinese, who tell you in no uncertain terms to NEVER give to beggars...then turn around and slip the beggar a few jiao. So, 99% of the time I just don't give anything to ANY of them.
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I must admit that I was confused about the way the Chinese perceived beggars. In one class, I asked the students to give me suggestions about minimum wage jobs in China. The topic would have been good,had I not been teaching snotty, spoiled teens at EF. Anyway, they all seemed to think that beggar was a minimum wage job. One student even manage to utter, in quite horrible English, "Beggar..err...lazy man...hurt himself to..err...have simple life...very rich". So not only was begging perceived as a job but it was also perfectly logical that the chap took a blow-torch to his face to live a simple life of independent wealth. Made me want to cry llllllllll llllllllll
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Yeah, that one always mystified me: he cut off his own nose?
I do give to the disfigured ones on occasion, but that's it. I've learned to be surly when approached on the streets. Horrid predators.
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Many theories abound regarding the Man With No Face. Some said that he had been the victim of a gas explosion, his apartment blew up when he was talking a shower. There is the self-mutilation theory. The FT's in Nanchang discussed whether he could possibly be an example of a late Maoist punishment for speaking against the government. He had no nose, was blind, had no lips, yellow stumps sticking out of his mouth, his face was one big third degree burn, he had no hair...I still have nightmares about that man.
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And he's on the street. I can't believe how many mutilated people I see walking the streets here: horrid burns, missing limbs. What does a factory do when someone getsmaimed, tell them they're fired?
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Quite probably. I mean, most people at factories are, I think, unskilled workers who can be easily replaced. One guy gets his hand chopped off, he must be replaced. Not exactly because there is a shortage of people in China.
When were you in Nanchang?
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Many theories abound regarding the Man With No Face.
Without seeing him, I would have to ask....could he be a victim of Leprosy??
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Nope, I doubt it. Those are burns. I thought the same thing and did some research on leprosy and the pictures I found looked nothing like him.
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There are literally hundreds of people with no face where I am. I've had 8 as students. This city is the home of fireworks and people working in the factories (including children) get blown up all the time.
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Stil, what city is that? It's very tragic.
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Liuyang ?? in Hunan just east of Changsha. Most Chinese people will reconize the name if you mention Liuyang river (liuyang he). There is a famous song with that title. I was working at a senior middle school in a small town called Dayao where many of the factories are located. It's very common to see people with all kinds of burn injuries. Students, small business owners etc. They are not shunned or treated poorly here. It's just too common.
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Brutal reality. There is a profound, unsettling irony to the absence of stigmatism towards the disfigured and disabled because it is such a common phenomenon in a particular area.
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Very true Moon. Also no one here would give money to burn victim beggars. They would expect them to get a regular job and employers would hire them. Probably every family in this town has been affected.