He was sprawled face down on the pedestrian walkover between the glittering marble and glass Central Plaza and Wan Chai. Beneath him, Mercedes and Rolls-Royces jolted along in the noon traffic jam. In the middle of our obvious prosperity, the filthy, half-naked figure clad only in rotting black trousers exposed his broad back and a horrific suppurating sore.
Hundreds of tourists walked past this appalling advertisement for the Hong Kong way of life, on their way to the convention centre. What must they think of our community? A few steps further along, an aged man rattled the inevitable plastic cup at pedestrians. Before I had got to the stairs down to the MTR, there was an old lady plucking half-heartedly at a pi pa, her begging bowl placed in the way of scurrying crowds. The underground exit in Tsim Sha Tsui near The Peninsula hotel was clogged by two elderly beggars.
I winced in shame. I also boiled with anger.
Beggars are reappearing on our streets in ever-increasing numbers. Many of them seem to be pretty well dressed. Unlike the man in his 40s on the Wan Chai flyover, who looked as though he had swum from China, most seem healthy.
All are eligible for help from social welfare, voluntary agencies and the wide range of charities to which we give so generously.
Many of them, I suspect, are cunning old con-men already getting handouts, live in public housing or with their children and are sufficiently canny to venture to the pavements to make a nice living, thank you, from gullible tourists.
