Shame
The year is 2003, late summer, lunchtime. The place is Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China. Cars and cycles fill the street, shoppers walk along the road, office people have their lunch. The women wear nice dresses; the young men wear their shades. This is the capitalist capital of China and life is good.
On the street lies an old man with a young boy, a bowl for money in front of them. The boy appears to be asleep, the old man looks exhausted, half sitting, half lying with a crutch next to him.
I pass him by, like most people, only glancing in the bowl. I have my American lunch at Starbucks and wonder why I did not give anything, the affluent foreigner.
I finish my food, fold two bills in a small packet and while passing them on the way back to the hotel I drop it in the bowl. The old man does not even look, the bills folded so tight that it sounds like a coin dropping instead of anything else. I walk on and feel shame.
I have stopped giving to beggars long ago, too many scams, but I am not ashamed of that. I have given more than most to this man but it means little to me, I am not ashamed of that. There are many things I am not ashamed of; I feel shame simply for giving.
In the West the individual is everything, you look out for number one. Social security is not there for others but for yourself, later, when you need it. You earn your keep and so should everybody else. The Western values are exported everywhere.
Giving is weak, you have to be strong in this world, look out for yourself, giving is for the weak. I am part of that society, want to be. So I am ashamed.
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