What Kills Us This Week!

Forget what HK's in a tizzy about this week. This is what's worrying me:

There's a Dutch boy who's been begging down on Luard Road for three months tomorrow. He just sits there all day, every day, in this little Wan Chai alcove, with his begging cup out, and he's even sleeping nights there. Keith keeps saying "He's not our problem!" and "Don't get involved!" but very quickly he became seriously stinky, so I've been paying for him to go to the swimming pool every second day to use their free showers and wash his clothes, and twice a week I give him enough money for a cuppachino so he gets to use Pacific Coffee's complimentary free internet, so he can ... I don't know, contact folks back home to ask for help? Find someone to take him in? Do something, anything, to finally go away!

Yes, I gave him URL for the website for Couch-Surfing, and the URL, phone number and physical address of HK's Dutch Consulate, and even phoned the Netherlands Consulate myself several times to let them know he's there ... but he still continues to be down there in Luard Road every day, week after week after week, for three months tomorrow.

By week three, I HAD to know the story so I chatted with him and he's a perfectly nice fellow from Holland who has been working in New Zealand. His visa ran out there, so he had to leave but didn't have enough money to get home, so someone foolishly told him that he could get tickets cheaply in Hong Kong, so he flew here ... only to discover the tickets were still too expensive. So he's begging, he says, to raise the money he needs for that ticket. I've offered to buy him one but he says he won't accept my charity. (Mmmm, so what exactly is begging?)

Personally, I think, since he's sitting directly opposite a travel agency, it's really about "guilting out the travel agents" so they give him a cheaper ticket but doesn't realise he doesn't stand a chance. The Cantonese, both as good Buddhists and as followers of Confucius, have no remit to charity, so just IGNORE the plight of others. And this is obviously what's happened here. Although ...

... actually, it's all too weird for words. Although I've been forbidden to let him into our place, during the recent Typhoon 8, with endless hours of terrible thunderstorm, blinding rain and vicious wind, I couldn't stand the thought of him being out there without shelter so went down to get him.

He wouldn't come. Said being out in the storm was "thrilling" and that if he threw a can into the street, it would dance and fly back and forth for ages, and it was just amazing to watch. Odd, huh? I wasn't prepared to stand out in such a vicious storm arguing with him, so I gave him our address and told him to come if he changed his mind. He didn't!

Anyway, tomorrow is three months, and, since you can only get tourist visas for three months, I guess tomorrow means it'll become a police matter and there'll be all sorts of action about getting him deported and such! I told him this yesterday, and I guess I should go down now to find out what his plans are.

But please do note, he's been out on that street with all his belongings for three months, and he's never been attacked or robbed or had anything at all bad happen to him; sure, he's had nothing good happen, but 'nothing bad' is good too, I guess.

So that's my choice for this week:

THREATDOWN

Cantonese indifference to what's
happening to others.

And Consulates who don't give a damn!

A Week Later: For the entire last week:

Yup, he's gone! Guess I put the wind up him with my lecture on what would happen to him if he over-stayed his tourist visa. The alcove was empty by nightfall.