Shanghai South Station and The Beggars

Begging is commonplace around the world, albeit with varying degree based on which country you are in. I arrived in Shanghai in the evening and set off for Hangzhou the next day via the Shanghai South Station. The station is well signed for English-speakers as long as you stay away from the ticketing section. Here you will find little help at all, even from the security guards, but that’s another story. After going through security and having to wait 4 hours for your train to leave, you can go to an upstairs section where there is a KFC and Chinese fast food restaurant. Up there you’d think it would be peaceful. Unfortunately this is where the beggars work and you are constantly hounded by them. They come in various forms, the old, the deaf and the homeless. Each one has a little card in both English and Chinese that they show you which gives you an explanation of their ‘situation’ and that they’d like a donation to the ‘Me’ Foundation. They must have a great deal of success as there are plenty of them and they all go around in a strategic formation. The Chinese authorities either do not know about them, or turn a blind eye. Given I had little option but wait around in the station, I had to deal with the request and re-requests that they made to me. I am still undecided on my opinion of beggars, in that whether giving them because they need it outweighs not giving them and thus not encouraging them to continue this way of life. This time, I choose to keep my money.

There is a lot of job discrimination based on what I have heard from other Chinese people. Things ranging from the name of your university, your height (yes that’s right) and sex are often discriminated against. It is possible that there is discrimination as well based on whether a person is deaf. In Western countries there are very few jobs that deaf people are unable to do and therefore to not hire a deaf person is obvious discrimination. In a country where no clear discrimination laws exist (or are at least enforced) deaf people are simply not hired for jobs that they could easily do. This may well be the reason why they are forced to beg for money. With so many people looking for jobs in china and bosses have such a high range of choice they will simply reject a deaf person for being less ‘suitable’ for the job.

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