Giving to beggars - Page 4 - Ajarn Forum

Guy Mandude · 18th May 2008, 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by jananya

It only fair to giv to poor people. Make you better person.

I lived in San Francisco for nearly 10 years, and beggars in the City were actually trained in how to beg and make money. There's an art form to developing your own misspelled hard luck cardboard box sign and how to play up an angle to get money. There's even a "Street Sheet," a newspaper that beggars "sell," to supplement their income. A few of these beggars have sizable bank accounts, and many of them are where they are because it's what they are.

There are alternative ways to help poor people, but handing out money to professional beggars which goes for drugs, alcohol or their "franchisor" does not make me feel like a better person.

markle · 18th May 2008, 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killing Me Softly 101

would it be a protected category of work the would be excluded to foreigners like architecture?

Actually this a fact. Begging is illegal for non-Thais.

Killing Me Softly 101 · 19th May 2008, 16:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Mandude

A few of these beggars have sizable bank accounts

A guy in Fresno died a few years ago. Everyone knew him. Only his stock broker knew he had a million dollars until his death. Was homeless. Lived in a car park. Guess he liked the outdoors.

Piece Train · 7th June 2008, 00:41

Thanks for the thread, Lox.

Guy Mandude · 8th June 2008, 10:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killing Me Softly 101

A guy in Fresno died a few years ago. Everyone knew him. Only his stock broker knew he had a million dollars until his death. Was homeless. Lived in a car park. Guess he liked the outdoors.

Same story with an eccentric woman in my building when I was a kid in Flatbush. She begged clothes from the neighbors and stood outside the local A&P to do a little dumpster diving for her food. She turned off her electric and lived with candles. My mom once gave her a used pair of shoes she wore for 11 years. When she finally went totally nuts, we (the neighbors who had supported her for more than 25 years) went into her apartment. Her bed was crawling with bed bugs. She ended up in a low-end nursing home. I remember seeing her curled up in a fetal position...aw, never mind.

After she died, we all learned she had amassed a considerable fortune in the stock market. Because she was too cheap and weird to do estate planning, her nearest relative, some nephew in Rutland, Vermont, inherited a pile of money. Seems she had been buying stocks since the crash of '29. BTW, she used to bitch and moan about how this same relative, her sole beneficiary, could give a shit that she was alive. Strange how the world turns.

tom2000 · 14th August 2008, 11:27

Beggars are different type.
We must help for the handicapped persons.

robitusson · 14th August 2008, 11:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom2000

We must help for the handicapped persons.

Wipe their drool away. Pat them on the head. That kind of thing?

redhaze · 14th August 2008, 19:21

There is a lot of lumping into categories going on in this thread. I think the truth is a little more ambiguous. Yes, if you give to beggers you are probably getting ripped off. I think its also true that if you are giving to beggers you are probably helping some people who are very legitimately poor and destitute.

Tough to know the difference, but I don't think its an either/or type of situation. Certainly not in the states, in any event.

columbia · 17th August 2008, 09:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by redhaze

There is a lot of lumping into categories going on in this thread. I think the truth is a little more ambiguous. Yes, if you give to beggers you are probably getting ripped off. I think its also true that if you are giving to beggers you are probably helping some people who are very legitimately poor and destitute.

Tough to know the difference, but I don't think its an either/or type of situation. Certainly not in the states, in any event.

This is so true. My daughter likes to eat chicken from the same chicken shack every day on the way to school. 2 or 3 times a week there's a guy who sits just down from the shack. He's not even begging. He just sits there. He's blind (got the white eyes with no pupils like a zombie type thing) and obviously mentally disturbed because he just sits constantly talking to the air and rocking back and forth. No shoes, no belongings, nothing. He's filthy. Whenever we see him my wife buys some chicken and rice for him and slips him 50 baht or whatever. I didn't prompt her to do that. I have never seen a single other person (and it's a busy shop) give him so much as a glance.

Which pissed me off a little when I went to that walking street in Chiang Mai and there's people practically queuing up to throw money in the hat of this teenage girl in Lanna dress doing a traditional dance. Same as the ones who give the monks food every day. Bowing their heads to a guy who looks bored shitless half the time. Bet most of them wouldn't think twice about giving it to somebody really in need.

Chainfish · 18th August 2008, 15:10

There was a Bangkok Post piece a few years back on beggars here. According to that the vast majority of them are run by criminal gangs. Certainly I have seen some that appear to be 'on rotation', spending a month or so in one place, only to re-appear again later... and again later...

One old man with a leg ulcer springs to mind. He would have got enough on any average day to get the ulcer treated... but had for over a year (that I saw him begging).

Most Thais questioned by the Post said that they would give money to beggars even if they knew for sure that the beggar was being run by criminals. Their reasoning?

"It's still a good deed, and so still gets me merit"

Bottom line: Most Thais give with at least the thought of some personal (spiritual) benefit in mind.

I never give to beggars. I give to people I actually know, who really do need some help now and then.

bet · 18th August 2008, 15:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chainfish

I give to people I actually know, who really do need some help now and then.

Got any spare change, mate?

Chainfish · 18th August 2008, 18:44

Sorry, do I know you?

Ah, that seedy farang 'teacher' I met on Sukhumvit Road...

Spare change?

I can spare you this thirteen-baht note... :-)

sarahs · 28th August 2008, 16:11

My oppinion about 'giving to beggars' is quite strict, i'm afraid. I also think that once you get your hands out of you pockets and give them something that will eventually cause them to be able to survive more doing nothing (except begging) and will prelong thier unfortunate condition. Maybe if we really want to help a begger we should help them in a more personal way, spare a second to talk, get the to a homeless shelter or something...