Urban Poverty
China’s economic boom has succeeded in expanding the upper and middle classes but has also left many citizens behind. The gap between China’s wealthiest and poorest is constantly increasing; at present the top fifth of wage earners are receiving fifty-percent of the income while the bottom fifth receives less than five-percent. Thirty million Chinese live in absolute poverty while another 60 million live on less than 865 Yuan ($109) per year, which is well below the dollar-a-day standard for poverty established by the World Bank.
The disparity between China’s rich and poor is particularly severe when the thriving urban centers are compared with the poorer rural areas but is increasingly evident within the cities themselves. It is a common site in Chinese cities, both large and small, to see the disabled begging for change, young children reduced to working as street performers to help support their families and the elderly scouring trash bins for plastic bottles to recycle.
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I was in China ten years ago for about six months.
I never once saw anyone begging on the streets. Do you think that the lives of the poor are worse now than then? That now it is worthwhile begging given that there is opportunity to ask people for money when previously that was not? That sounds hard. Life is certainly hard there. A paradise it is not. I hate stereotyping people. I am a Scot and I loath the way we are viewed by others but my view of the people there, allowing for my petty little zenophobic moments and the fact that there are so many different ethnic groups stretched over a such a huge land, is that they are incredibly tough and resilient.
I have been back twice since then and it is incredible how fast things are changing. But is the side by side incongruities that get me. Satellite dishes, the latest mobile phones with “hello kitty” covers and then toilets with notices that ask you to pee only. If you need to shit you have to walk around the block to the communal facility.
Anyway, one particularily surreal moment was in Kunming ten years ago. A whole class of immaculately dressed schoolchildren were on the street carefully scrapping the moss from between the cobbles with chopsticks. How things have changed.
I am really enjoying your journey, your words and, of course, your images.
[…] The project is in the form of a photoblog and is easily navigated by using the archives section to view individual posts. You may also use the categories to focus in on a particular city (Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, etc.), theme (minority groups, rural china, architecture, etc.), focus (religion, urban poverty, pollution, tourism, etc.) or region (north, south, east, west). For a quick overview of the project the “best of” section is particularly useful. To view the entire project, click here. […]
I recently visited China during the summer of 2006 … and in almost every city I visited I saw begging such as this. Although, I didn’t visit citys such as Beijing, or Hong Kong.. which are more westernized, which may be why less begging is seen. However, I strongly suggest traveling to China, their citys are huge, and shopping mall are like none I’ve ever seen!
this is horrible to let these people go through this the world should be ashamed for the wrong we let happen.
I think what these people have to go threw is a very sad and pittyfull thing, but i think that the world we live in with so much money, we should help out these ones in need. Insead of spending ou money on starbucks or itunes songs we should give our money to ones who really need it. Our buy things for these people. I think we live in a country that does what ever we want to do with out paying attention to how much our counrty is falling
i have never been in china i live in newfoundland on an island called bellisland i think that there should be something done about the poverty in china there should be a couple shelter’s for the poor and the rich should give to the poor well thats what i got to say i wish i could say more and i really hope something is done about the poor in china your’s truly brittany jenkins
here i am sitting on my bed looking up pictures on my laptop eating an apple and there are millions of people lying on the floor like this man. starving. begging. how do we let this go on?
For a communist nation, it seems that the gap between the poor and the rich is vast. So much for equality…
if you go to china now, many of this does not exsist. let me clarify what is going on in those pics up there. there is no description, but since ive been to china several times, i know pretty well whats going on in those pics. oh and btw, the begging etc, is just like any city, the homeless on streets in usa cities = the homeless in china’s cities. ok 1st pic, the guy with no legs believe it or not is not homeless. he has a house. and that pic is very controvertial though. but judging by how well groomed he is and clothes i doubt he is homeless, some chinese just beg like him on streets. 2nd pic, that is just 2 boys playing w/ each other. they have several stands selling these toys there which is near pudong river, and btw that toy is not a leash for people, he is using it wrong, and the two boys are merely playing w/ each other. theres a stuffed animal connected to it but the boy took it off. 3rd picture. let me tell you i am for sure 100% that that man is not searching for food inside those dumpsters, in my days in china i have never seen that. he is a “can collector” just a normal “poorer” person. the people ive seen doing that are people his age. every province/governemt gives for ex: 10 cents for every bottle or can they collect. and you will see some people like him digging through garbage cans like that. btw,this lady took my pepsi bottle which i wanted to keep as a stupid “suvenier”. 4th picture, what can i say, its just a old house, it might be demolished, or maybe not and will just be restored. my mom was angry when her childhood house wasnt demolished b/c the governemtn would pay the resident 10,000 yuan as well as provide a nice new apartment complex condo. oh well. 5th picture, that really is a homeless person. but my stays in china ive rarly seen a person like him. prob once every 6 months. china has developed tremendously only 1.7 % of total population live in poverty now. china has brought 400 million out of pvoerty within 25-30 years. its really amazing. i recommend you visit that place. 10 story malls, and typical movie theaters on 20th floors. night life is just so safe and exciting, teens are every around shopping at midnight. great place to visit. very modern.
This is rad.
oh bih them hoes is ay too skinny. ugh they nasty
i was in china just this past year for about 2 weeks and i saw ALOT of poverty, when the group i was with took a train from Beijing to Suzhou the poverty was incredible there were homes made of mud and clay that housed large numbers of people. so i think really there is a lot of poverty in china, the government just does a good job at hiding it.
You know why you see no begging or only a little in Chinese cities? The government send the poor to phantom cities in rural China where they can die without western Tourist seeing. That is why when you get to the airport with a camera crew, they send a smiling guy that doesn’t let you go where you want. Those cities are enourmous and no one can go there, although there is where they keep the farmers that once lived where now they build massive hotels for the “moneyfull” Western Tourists. Its an easy way of making the Western World think that Communism is actually good. Even though they don’t let you see the Work Camps, the Phantom Cities and the massive repression. I hope that one day we can see another China, a China where executions, forced labour, repression, censorship and Cultural Destruction don’t occur.
It’s really sad that a lot of people are suffering in the world. I’m really feel sympathy about that. While i always worry about stupid things, such as essay, my mark, friendship, etc, so many people’re dead because of poverty. Humm………T^T
I’ve been to China several times in the past few years. Yes, there are a lot of disabled beggars, people with amputated limbs or scarred faces, I’ve seen no hands, no legs, a kid with his whole face distorted and maimed. The truth is that a lot of these people do it on purpose, the parents purposefully disable their child or mutilate them so that they can go and get money, living on the sympathy of passer byers on the streets. It’s sad, but true.
Also although there are a lot of homeless, China isn’t the only country with homeless. Just because China’s population is so huge, it has a significant amount of homeless people. It’s difficult to ensure that each and every single person can get what they need in a country that has over a billion people. India also has a large amount of people in poverty. Why? Because of the population, and the fact that unlike America and most western countries which were urbanised by the migration of settlers from Britain, China has a rich history of 5000 years and for most of the time it was isolated from the world, it couldn’t advance the way western countries did in terms of urbanisation. You will never be able to get everyone in China out of poverty. There are people in the far reaches of the country who don’t even have access to technology, who are still isolated.
The Chinese are brought up with communism and thats just the way they are. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people or people without compassion. Democracy is hardly going to run a country with China’s size and potential power, however that is not to say certain horrible aspects of the government shouldn’t change.
Personally though, I think everyone- especially Westerners living in their snug developed countries who have never BEEN to China themselves and have only read about it in books and heard about it through the (often bias) western media (although many won’t admit that their media is bias), should just stay out of it. It’s not your country, mind your own business. If you haven’t lived there you will never fully understand, so don’t talk about something you don’t understand.
Just a piece of my mind.
And yes I’m Chinese. But I’ve grown up and lived overseas all my life. I love reading, I love wikipedia and I love western food and music. I’m top in english in my school, but I still speak chinese to my parents. English has become my mother tongue and this ‘foreign’ country has become my home. But no matter what I can’t deny that I’m Chinese, my parents are, my family is. I still love China and I know its problems, I live two lives with two identities. I think like a westerner, but my familial connection with China gives lets me understand exactly how the Chinese think and feel too. You can decide what that makes me.