Over here, buskers are few, and the ones who do appear generally get some pretty odd looks, be they Thai or farang (Westerner).
Beggars are legion, but I never give to them, because they are not allowed to keep it themselves. It’s straight out of Dickens. Highly organized, and they all have minders. They turn in their money at the end of the day. I mean really, doesn’t anyone wonder just HOW that man with no arms and no legs managed to get up to the very middle of the street walkover. A genuine beggar would be seriously injured or even killed for muscling in on the gang’s territory. I’ve given to people whom I judged to be real beggars-in-need in countries like Nepal and Cambodia, but in Bangkok, forget it.
And they’re not even Thai for the most part! They actually bring in beggars from Cambodia to work the streets for them. There are round-ups from time to time, and the authorities in one instance put all of the Cambodian beggars on a plane and flew them back to Phnom Penh for that government to deal with. Talk about a treat! It was their first plane ride ever, and they were like giggly tourists. I’ve no doubt many have been brought back.
The beggars here tend to work in regular themes. Some months, it’s young women with babies. Sometimes with puppies. Sometimes amputees. Changes from month to month. The babies are often borrowed or rented. In Pattaya, they recentle arrested a transvestite beggar who was workig the crowds with a baby. He had rented the kid from a friend for 500 baht a day. (500 baht is about US$15 at the current exchange rate.) At one point, I was on nodding terms with one lady who was stationed for years in the same spot with the same fake gashing leg wound. Another I came to know on sight sat in the same spot for years at Victory Monument with a sign in Thai saying he needed money for busfare to get home upcountry.
In the lower Sukhumvit area, there’s a well-known gang of small Cambodian children, about 10 or 11 years old. They’ll hit a farang up for money (lots of farangs in this area), looking all sad-eyed, will even make hand motions to his or her mouth about needing something to eat. If the farang foolishly pulls out his wallet instead of some change from his pocket, another of the urchins waiting close by will race past and grab it, or even a cellphone if it’s now exposed. Oddly, the police somehow just haven’t been able to do anything about them. Kickbacks to them, no doubt.
I remember a family of Indian beggars who worked Khao San Road. The mother could be seen picking the kids up around 1 or 2am. A time or two I offered to buy one kid something to eat rather than give money, but he only wanted money. Had to keep working the crowd or else get beaten by mommy and daddy. A similar family works near Nana Plaza.
Most pathetic of all are the farang beggars. I cannot imagine coming to a Third World country to beg on the streets. They are rare, but I always simply advise them to contact their embassy if they need help. Some are flat-out con artists. There’s been the same Frenchman stationed at different Skytrain stations for at least a year now with a sign saying he needs airfare to return home. He runs if you try to take a photo, but he has been photographed, and I’ve seen the pictures online.
There was one lady who used to hang out in the airport. Claimed to be South African. Would approach farangs and say she’d been robbed of everything – money, plane ticket, passport – and she needed money. She would have some ready excuse for why she could not contact the police, not even right there at the airport. She disappeared after becoming too well known, but I’ve heard of a lady of similar description hitting up farangs near the Royal Plaza.
Another Frenchman would do the same at different bus stops along Sukhumvit Road, which is home to many farangs. Had a tale of woe of being robbed of everything but could not contact the authorities for this or that reason. One farang reported that he gave him some money once, and then the guy hit him up with the same story again about six weeks later! The con man failed to recognize him from before.
Lately, a Brit has been working the train station in Bangkok. One backpacking couple said the guy’s story sounded very convincing. They gave him some money, then when they returned from Cambodia later in their trip, actually saw him again in the Khao San Road area, wher the backpackers stay. He did recognize them but persisted with his story, said yeah, he was just waiting for his new passport to come through the embassy and he was making it okay, blah blah blah, but could they slip him maybe a 100 baht or so more. They said he was usually slightly drunk whenever they saw him. One couple in the train station refused to believe his story, and apparently he became obnoxious, following them around persistently. He was spotted, too, in a nice restaurant with an expensive-looking Thai lady, and he paid the bill.
Yes, there’s quite an assortment of characters over here. Panhandlers make up a whole category of their own. Never a boring place.
In my defense I was far from the only one and at that hour in the morning I haven’t had my coffee yet so I was kind of out of it.
