How often do you come across a homeless person or a beggar and how often do you give them money or something else? Do you think people beg for money because they don’t want to work or because they simply have no way of generating an income?[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: A swimmer[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten!
To be honest, I quite rarely come across a really needy person. That might depend on the fact that I probably very seldom (from what reason ever) visit places where needy persons linger/remain. But recently I had an experience that made me wonder and I´d like to tell here:
On my way back home from an erection at a customer´s I had a stop at a petrol station near the autobahn. While I was stepping out of the car two women (an elder and a younger one) came straight to me and asked for some money. They explained that they urgently needed to arrive at Dortmund that day. The elder woman was missing several teeth and both went in rags nearly. Now, I was about to give some two Euros to them while the cashier of the petrolstation rushed up to them and chased them away. Afterwards the cashier explained that this two women are begging for money since some days already at that petrolstation and their men are sitting in the restaurant the whole time meanwhile. Finally I´ve not seen the begging women again.
What makes me wonder on this is wether the women aren´t needy in fact and the elder woman is missing one more tooth since that day? What do you think?
I come within approximately fifteen feet of a homeless person, oh, probably about every other day.
I’ve gotten to know some of them (or recognize them, at least) to the point that I can predict which will ask for a cigarette, which will ask for money, which will be rude and which will be polite… etc.
one dude comes by about once a week to visit during smoke breaks. If I have a smoke to spare, I often offer one up.
I’ve bought food or drinks for them but hardly just give money.
I really appreciate your good deeds, Boke. It seems to me that doing this way is much better than giving them money because then we are not sure for what they will you use the money. We can imagine, they will use it for drugs or something else bad.
I often come across homeless people. For me, I don’t often give money to them but I prefer giving things to eat. My heart always sinks down when I see there are just so many of them in a day. I think that there are a few reasons why people beg for money. Mostly, it comes from their inability to find a job to do. The situation around where they living is not good and fruit to find a job. Then, they start to have an idea to beg for money, to make others feel sympathic for them. It’s like people who resort to this way are weak-minded and as we call it, lazy. People who are in need of money might just ask for it once or twice but doing it every day shows that they are not persistent to work and to me, they are not able to generate an income.
In Georgia,there are lots of beggers,may be some of them don’t want to work but I think 90 % can not find job…
+some of them or invalids e.t.c
In my Country, there are many,who give money to show others,he’s so kind and good person,so We don’t often talk about that,it can be understood in the other way…
Hi Michael,
You are probably right – you will be pretty hard pressed to find any person in Germany who can be classified as “really poor” or needy. It seems that the two women you were describing are part of some kind of business scheme run by a group of people who are trying to avoid paying taxes.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: Enjoying a beer[YSaerTTEW443543]
Hi Torsten!
Interesting aspect, I havn´t considered it from that point of view yet.
Michael
If the one begging is a child, I can’t deny him/her.
In one of my vacation, when I was back in my hometown, my parents brought me to eat at a stall or more like an open-air restaurant that is famous for its ‘Rojak’, a fruit salad in Malaysia. And a small girl, I guess she was only 6 or 7, with a woman who I assumed was her mother, were going from table to table begging for money. The begging was done by the little girl ( she brought a can with her) and he mother waited at a corner. My mother of course gave the little girl some money along with an advice, telling the little girl to refuse her mother’s request to beg. Some customers refused and gave the woman a piece of their mind.
Living abroad, surrounded by lush surroundings made me forget such ugliness and I felt such an easiness in my stomach I lost my appetite and kept watching the little girl until she finished her round.
Then when I saw them leaving I secretly followed them by excusing myself, telling my parents that I needed to go to a toilet. So at the back of the shophouse, I saw a van driven by a man picked them up. Apparently, they were forced to do the job by someone, or a syndicate.
The other one that I encountered in Kuala Lumpur, more than ten years ago was a girl who seemed to not have a tongue begging money from me. This was in a particular area and I then discovered that there was a syndicate where small children were abused and forced to beg. I don’t know whether this is true but people told me they cut the limbs of the children to make people sympathize more. And I am not sure of how the situation now in my country and what the police are doing to stop it.
The crime rate in Malaysia is alarming and even tourists are afraid to come to Malaysia nowadays. This was actually admitted by our present Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, the Inspector General, the News, and the TVs. And yet our PM raised the police salary (I believe for the coming election). Even the Inspector General was still able to show his face on TV and admitted it! I mean, when this kind of things happen, shouldn’t they be stepping down?
Personally, I help them regardless their genders and ages. The reality that exposed by NinaZara about the “syndicate” is really miserable yet devastating. Without doubt, I believe that it also happened in Indonesia, but some most of homeless in Indonesia perhaps cause by the unemployment.
In Indonesia, especially the developed city like Jakarta, we can easily see the homeless in every corner of the roads. It seems nothing wrong with that apprehensive condition. The government along is unable to solve that problems, the problem that had occurred since ancient years.
Perhaps a bit difference here, some of the homeless demand the money by forced. In traffic light, they beg the money while threaten they will scratch your car if you don’t (or perhaps this can be considered as robbery?).
Hi!
It seems that there are likely behaves of beggars everywhere in the world that nothing has to do with really poverty. Especially Belajar´s beggars should change their methods and don´t threaten their victims but wash the windows of their “customers´cars”. They possibly would receive some money on good will, don´t they? Once it was reported that, for instance, in South Africa cars have some defensive strategies in order to chase threatening people away from their cars or even hurt them.
The mess is that negative events like Nina and Belajar and I have discribed makes us refusing or overlooking that there are needy persons in fact. I don´t know about other countries but here in Germany, if you´re really needy, you may ask at town administrations for help and they are able to help you immidiately with first aid and also can help you enduring. You only must be ready to work on this yourself. It sometimes may be no easy way but possible.
But to return to needy persons I´d like to add another event I´ve been told by a club mate who is a doctor:
He once had filled ful a prescription for an old man who was threatened by a heart attack. In the same house where the doctor resides there is a pharmacy where the old man could have got the medicine my club mate prescribed him. Now there is a law in Germany that you must pay a percentage of the amount for a medicine yourself. The mass was that the medicine the old man needed was that expensive that it would have cost him the third part of welfare salary the man got and the druggist wasn´t allowed to give him the medicine for free. Now, what would you say? Was the old man needy? By the by, the amount the old man had to pay were 120 Euros/month while he had got a welfare of 360 Euro/month.
Regards
Michael