Charity

I pay for the drinks from a monthly work meal allowance of 600 RMB ($90 USD). A meal allowance that I’m never short of, in fact if I added up my unused meal allowance it would total about 7,000 RMB. Drinks in hand, I leave Starbucks with a Java chip frappuccino for Yang and a green tea soy latte for myself. Three three beggars glance my way, and they do some type of implicit triage and one of them walks towards me. She says “hello” as near and nudges herself into my walking path so that I must either make eye contact or walk around her. I walk around. She slides into my path and is sure to get her paper cup and arm against mine as I walk by. I move my head ever so slightly “no”. Her voice gets a little louder as I pass. “hello, hello” but is never aggressive beyond not respecting my physical space. The other two beggars, move on to other foreigners walking by.

I know some foreigners who give money and think they are doing some greater good and I know other foreigners who claim that by giving them money there will just be more of them. Me, I am mostly neutral.

Even on the coldest of days and the old woman has a young child with her. I think of the baby as a prop, for sure not the child’s fault but a prop nevertheless. I am reminded of the time I lived and Oakland and my brother Jimmy – not exactly a rich man himself – would give his small change away. Like Oakland, these beggars are part of the fabric of the neighborhood. Same people, same beggars, every day, rain or snow or shine. It’s their job just as sure as my job is a job. I had once told Yang that I wanted to give them a 50 RMB note and say “it’s for the month” and then they would leave me alone. Yang was skeptical this would work so I didn’t try. Yang, on occasion can’t resist giving money to one of the kids or to take them inside of Jenny Lou’s (the foreigner supermarket next to Starbucks) and buy them some food. Aidan, that one of the kind heart, used to give them 10 RMB of his own money. That was until one morning when he saw the beggars leaving the housing complex across the street; a housing complex that is decidedly middle class by local standards.

I cross the busy intersection and walk a block down the road to United Family Hospital. United Family is a hospital for expats, but more in the traditional expat sense than my middle management sense. In fact, when I first came to China United Family was not available to expats in “my class” because it was too expensive. But now it is and we are lucky to have one so near. It has seen Lydia get stitches, Elisa get stitches, and on this day Elisa getting an IV.  Oh, she’s ok, no reason for the extra heart beat. She had something called rotavirus. Every kid gets it and it can cause bad diarrhea and if left untreated can make a kid severely ill due to dehydration. Elisa got it worse than most kids and she’s getting treated better than most. I guess Lydia and Aidan got it but we didn’t notice. Elisa has had it for a few days now and because she won’t hydrate herself by drinking water the doctor says she must get on the IV. This is the second IV in two days, we kept the IV line in expecting she might need it again. I don’t think she will need it again, but if she does we are two blocks away from an excellent, very expensive by local standards hospital.

And I think that one day when I am not so busy I will teach my kids the value of charity. That it is more than showing up and handing out money or food. That it is sustained, ingrained in the fabric of your daily lives. That it’s not making Santa a paper flower (as Lydia recently did) so you will get good gifts. And then I think Aidan will be seven in a couple of months and I’ve been having this conversation with myself now for seven years.

And if I were to stand up and look out my fourth floor window I will surely see a foreigner handing a small bill to one of the beggars and another one brushing past into the night.