The Monkey Kings 美猴王

In our last week in Suzhou, right before Spring Festival, the monkey royalty was visited by my queen’s mother and sister. We went to the Master of the Nets Garden (网师园) and Shan Tang Street (山塘街), both beautiful places, took countless photos and left for Fuzhou.

We spent Spring Festival in Fuzhou, the Monkey Queen’s hometown, listening to firecrackers (sometimes at 4 in the morning and usually giving me a headache), giving money (红包) to kids and relaxing. Next, we are off to Yunnan, and after that, Canada once again.

Having left Suzhou, I am discontinuing this blog. If you still want to hear from me, you can follow me on my old blog, menso.wordpress.com. I may still use this blog for things such as business, putting in links and advertisements, but otherwise, the tales of the Monkey Kings are at an end. Thank you for reading.

Every time I meet a stranger in China, he or she asks me what country I am from. The general assumption is that all white people are from the United States or England (since these are the only three countries outside China—and I could not possibly be from Japan). But they still ask if which of those two I am from. I tell them to keep guessing. And I usually lie to them.

The two times I was asked yesterday are good examples. A young guy at Old Uncle（老娘叔）asked the Monkey Kings of Old in English where we were from and instead of just asking the question, he felt it necessary to name countries until he got the right one. The first thing he asked was, “are you from England or Germany?” I said, “are those my only two options?”

He continued, “maybe you are from the United States?” I said no. He said, “Canada or Australia?” And before I said anything he said “no, I don’t think so.” I told him I was from Suzhou, and that I come from old Suzhou, from Suzhou when it started 5000 years ago. He got a kick out of that. Eventually, instead of insisting on guessing or just asking “so?”, he got up and left. Many Chinese people are very curious but they do not go to great lengths to satisfy their curiosity. The poor young man will never know the truth.

I get asked these questions every day, and it gets annoying, so I need to have fun or else I will go crazy. Later, as we were buying vegetables on the street outside my building, two old men were staring at us and asking about us to each other and wondering where we were from. Eventually, I said to them, “我是中国人！你们是哪国家的？” (”I am Chinese! Where are YOU from?”) And that held them for a minute or two. Great fun.

There is something happening in Suzhou. When we came to Suzhou seven months ago, when we came back from work we would usually see one or two old people begging at the bus stop. They are annoying, especially to foreigners (being white is being loaded, of course), but they do not do any harm. We work around one of the main centres of Suzhou, Guan Qian Street (观前街东) and a lot of Chinese people give beggars money there. And if my economics is right, that is the reason there are so many more beggars there now.

It seems strange to think that, in just half a year, there would be an explosion in begging. There were two or three beggars before; now it is difficult to count them. They have spread out: at first one would come to the bus stop and beg and that was it; now they are on both sides of the street, some sitting, some looking scruffy but happy, some looking pathetic, some with children. At the intersection near the train station one used to see one beggar walking among cars with a cup, knocking on windows. Now there are several old men and women carrying infants. Where did all these people come from? Where are their families? And how much money are they really making?

There are even some who look like students and who write something in chalk on the sidewalk, then sit, looking pathetic, in front of what they wrote. They do not look poor or maltreated, they simply sit there with their heads down. Another blogger, who was passing through Suzhou, noticed the phenomenon as well.

I could not find any information about beggars in Suzhou except from government controlled newspapers but my guess is that they are being drawn by kindly but ignorant locals and tourists. They are made to feel sorry for those who put on a sad face and, because they are nouveau riche, the locals feel guilty and give them things. My guess is that these beggars make as much or more than some of the hard working people on bicycles carrying wood and metal or the ones with wheelbarrows carrying garbage around.

What to do? Well I certainly do not like the idea that the police should arrest them or push them around. Unfortunately, being the easiest solution it is probably the one for which the government will opt. But I suggest that the people simply stop giving money to them. When you do not give beggars money, they find other ways to survive. Perhaps there could be some kind of donation-funded homeless shelters. If we could make people realise that there are better charities to give to, they might be tempted to try them. The problem is that, in China, you could not possibly start such a charity without the big hand of the government in it. They would insist on funding and controlling it, and turning it political. And if you think that is good, perhaps you should ask why this very powerful government has not actually eliminated poverty.

Do not expect a real solution any time soon. Until it comes, I will give my money to charities that I trust and not to people on the street I do not.