On Poverty

It was kind of late, probably around 11:30, while I was walking home I bought a cigarette off of a 5 year old girl. I didn't think about it at the time since it is quite common but afterwords I started to think about how some people would find it appalling that such a young girl would have to be out on the street all night selling cigarettes and begging for money. There are a few of these girls that hang out on my street, during the day they put on their school uniforms and go to elementary school but their parents apparently force them to “work” all night begging for money or selling cigarettes. The girls are very sweet and nice. It's funny because when I walk to work sometimes I see them going to school and they always say “Good morning friend!” but at night they take a completely different tone and tell me that they need money for food. I have given them money before but I was quickly reprimanded by a local woman and told they I shouldn't give them money. She told me that they probably have enough food but it's a like an Oliver Twist type situation with their parents just collecting the money.

To be honest it is kind of rare to see adults begging for money and they seem to enlist their children because it is hard to say no to these cute kids. I have a tendency to give to homeless people when I am in the mood to and while I lived in Vancouver I definitely got used to seeing homeless people on a daily basis. The question of poverty is a hard one. Unfortunately a lot of the homeless in Vancouver are using drugs so not only do you not want to give them money, they usually make no sense at all.

I remember after a tough night at a club, for reasons I won't write here, I was abandoned by my friends who I came with so I sought consolation from the local crack head. I bought a six-pack for the two of us and I told him my problems with the vague hope that talking to someone would make me feel better. I think he told me his name was Jason and he was definitely completely out of his mind. I was disappointed because he didn't listen to anything I was saying and he just kept talking about Lee Harvey Oswald and how he was his hero. When I asked him why he like him and if he really hated JFK he had apparently never even heard of Kennedy so I have no idea how he came idolize Lee Harvey Oswald. I discussed with some other homeless people in different places but I have come to no real understanding about the reason why there is poverty or what is a good strategy to help fight it.

It is inevitable that there will be rich and poor people which is probably enough for some people to cope with. For me it is hard to see people suffering but I wouldn't take up the Marxist cause to redistribute wealth. Some government programs do help people but they are usually flawed somehow and unfortunately it seems that there will always be some people who because of drugs or just a lack of motivation, choose not to make their lives better.

When I first arrived here I was struck by the number of poor people I see everyday. I have since then became desensitized and used to seeing little kids taking baths in dirty puddles and old people scavenging through garbage bags for some food. Sometimes I feel like I've lost my compassion but then I think that I was never really compassionate before. My feelings of sadness were stronger then because I was not used to seeing people live this way but I did not help them then as I don't help them now. I've walked through some slums here and you might think that it would be a depressing place but I got to admit I am never sad when I leave. People routinely call me “Joe” or “Sam” because that was a common name of the US soldiers that were stationed here. There are lots of children playing all sorts of games (I see lots of Pogs here which I think went out of style in America like 15 years ago) and people doing laundry and just living their life. I do stand out in those places and people do notice when I walk by and sometimes come outside and say hello and are usually friendly. They do not hound me for money all the time. They have too much pride for that. Slums actually are quite interesting because you see just how creative people can be with limited resources. There is a sort of poetic beauty to seeing an old women sweeping up the trash outside her house while the local river gives off a overpowering stench from the untreated sewage that is pumped into. They may be economically depressed but their communities are thriving. I am much more interested in going to these places than the touristy developed part of the Philippines. I am involved a little bit since I go every Saturday to teach Japanese to some kids in a relatively poor neighborhood but what I do won't really make their life better. I am just helping to satisfy their interest in Japanese culture. I am not interested in poverty because I am idealistic or have some cheesy ambitions. I am sort of masochistic somewhere I think and I always felt frustrated for some reason that I did not suffer so much in my childhood. I was superficially jealous of people who had real problems because I felt that they had a better understanding of life compared to me and my sheltered upbringing.

I remember when I was waiting with a few Japanese girls for a friend of mine there was a little boy, probably about 5 or so, asking me for money. Since I was waiting there I couldn't walk away and I guess the kid thought that if he just asked me 5,000 times I would eventually give in. I tried to ignore him but then for some reason my Japanese friend starting talking about Adolf Hitler. Sometimes I have conversations with people that try to analyze Hitler's legacy “objectively” and try to discover some positive aspects of the man. I always get uncomfortable and usually pissed off when people try to do this and I think hearing a Japanese girl tell me that she was impressed with his “achievements” of empowering Germany just put me off a bit. So then I looked down at the young boy and saw that he was staring at me intently. His nose and mouth were covered in dried glue, children here sniff the glue to alleviate the hunger pains, and his gaze was strong. I engaged him in a spur of the moment staring contest to test his will and I was impressed with his resilience. He never relented and just stared back at me with a resolve I rarely see. I was the one that eventually backed off. The ambiguity of having a staring contest with an impoverished Filipino boy while over-hearing a couple Japanese girls idly talk about the good parts of Hitler did not escape me. I never gave the kid any money but he did make me reflect on the character of impoverished people. Far from being a weak victim he demonstrated a level strength that I do not usually see in more privileged people. Maybe the high from glue gave him strength just as some people on PCP do amazing physical feats like taking the full shock of Tazer and then beating the crap out of a cop. Maybe in the future the kid will work his way out of his present state and make his life better but statistics are not his side. Some social scientists theorize that a lot of people become poor because of some sort of predisposition to being bad with money; that there are people that are just “weak” and won't be able to succeed. The boy is just an example but I am always impressed at the emotional and mental strength of the poor people here and the amount of effort they expend just to make ends meet. It is not apart of Filipino culture to be poor. The reasons why the Philippines is poorer than neighboring countries are complicated and the hindrances to progress are not easy to understand. There are of course lazy people here. I see them all the time, some guys just chill all day and depend on their family and don't seem to try to find work at all. I don't have much sympathy for those guys but those people live in all countries and are represented by all races and ethnicities. Filipinos are very much aware of the better living conditions in other countries and they work hard to make their country better but they have a lot of obstacles on their path such as a corrupt government that has history of squandering money.

When I try to understand something I try to avoid generalizations. I like to work from specifics and eventually attempt to form a comprehensive understanding. I have talked and gave money to a lot of homeless, been to slums, read theories about poverty but I still have no idea why poverty exists or how it can be effectively fought. Should we just passively accept this aspect of society as an inevitability? Promoting education seems to be a no-brainer and I think it is definitely true that education does help in making opportunities more available but what good is an education for a Filipino if there are no jobs? It forces them to leave their families so while they personally may make money in foreign countries, their country continues to be poor. And should the government supplement impoverished people's income with Welfare or programs like that? Some Americans think that Welfare is a waste of money and actually contributes to keeping people poor by taking away incentives to find work and people sometimes just squander the money on booze or gambling. It is debatable but I personally have no problem with Welfare and if I had to choose I would want my taxes to pay for a deadbeat's bottle of Jack Daniels then contribute to building a bomb that kills people in far away countries. I do volunteer here and maybe contribute to making some Filipinos lives better and so sometimes I feel exempt from giving to the poor but I don't like this attitude. I also know that even if I gave money to these people everyday it wouldn't really solve anything and I would probably just end up poor as well. I am still at a loss of what I should do to contribute to some sort of solution.