12.12.13
The story of a cheated young man
I wanted to tell his story. For those who cannot understand Chinese, he wrote that he was from the Northern side of China and came down to work. He wanted to find work but was cheated of his money (630RMB) but has since finished using the money he brought. He asked for help from the passerby to find a job and to have instant noodle as he was starving.
I don't normally pay attention to beggars and buskers. For a thing is I know that it is generally not advisable to give money to beggars. I wanted to tell his story, a story of a well-developed and fast paced city forgetting the needs of the few. I wanted to tell the story of a man who came to find a job but is cheated and yet the fast paced city doesnt stop to read his story. That was my vision, but obviously i framed this shot differently in the end because the fast paced city stopped for a lonely and shaking man who was asking for a job and food. Some of those passerby who looked of Central Asian descent walked back to read and gave him money. Gradually, the purses and wallets opened up. Someone had opened his hands up to receive the little donations from kind-hearted Shanghai people.
When all had left, I walked up to him and gave him a little bit of money, patted him on his shoulder. This was when he started to stand up and look at me as I walked away. The last sight of him was him crying in my direction.
A fast paced city with first world development, this wasn't the only sorry sight i saw. In the dark street at the junction with Raffles City, I saw an old man pushing his old wife on a wheelbarrow. His wife was covered completely with toes protruding. I jumped, as I thought he was pushing a corpse. Then the toes twitched. It is a sorry sight to us, but it was a loving act of a old husband who made sure the wife wasn't cold and he is clearly not strong enough to piggyback her nor rich enough to take a cab, but he still wheeled his wife home.