[Un]Handicapped
As I walked past Spinelli's on the pathway to my Office Lobby I noticed an old lady standing about several metres away from the escalator leading up to my Office Lobby. She was waving several packets of tissue paper and calling out to the people walking asking them to buy tissue paper from her.
As I walked past her, she approached me waving the several packets of tissue paper in my face and spoke to me in vigorous Hokkien requesting me to buy the packets of tissue paper from her. I swerved away by natural instinct, not with disgust but with a slight tinge of disappointment.
Recalling an incident about several months ago, I was having lunch with some friends at the Food Centre called Chomp Chomp located at Serangoon Gardens when this lady who looked to be in her late thirties wheeled an old lady who was sitting on a wheelchair and looked like she was only half-alive. I wouldn't be surprised because the sun was so hot that the heat stung our skin like some heat ray weapon designed to fry our brains alive. One of my friends was practically perspiring like he just ran some 20km marathon.
But the middle-aged lady was simply wheeling the old lady on the wheelchair around asking people to buy tissue paper from her, stopping at almost every table and waving the tissue paper in their faces. Admist the sweltering heat.
I was tempted to commit murder.
When the lady approached our table and spoke to us in Chinese asking us, "Xiao Di Di buy tissue paper from old lady? $1 a packet for old lady?"
As I gazed upon the old lady in the wheelchair who was looking nowhere with a glazed expression a sudden surge of sadness arose and when I looked up to the middle-aged lady there was an intense expression on her face - Almost bordering on demanding us to buy tissue from her because she had taken the trouble to wheel her mother perhaps? Out on this little sympathy crusade to sell tissue paper?
Without hesitation I took out what must have quite a few ten-dollar notes and even a blue fifty dollar note and shoved it into the lady's outstretched palm [like a beggar] and told her in crisp tones, "Give me your basket of tissue paper and take your mother home now. If I ever see you around here again I will report you for parental abuse, now get lost."
The middle-aged lady looked at me speechless for a while, my friends as well. I looked back at her with a stern expression - Firm but not fierce. She looked at me for a few more seconds before handing over the basket of tissue paper packets and left slowly.
She hailed a cab. I guess she got the message.
I simply do not believe a middle-aged lady with four fully operational limbs could resort to taking her wheelchair-bound mother out on her little tissue paper sales outing. I didn't have much appetite subsequently, even my friends were silent for a while as they sipped their sugar-cane almost sheepishly. The very thought of a mother who had raised a child till that age only to have the child use the mother as a "sympathy motivator" for her sales irked me to the core. Out of the respect that the mother probably needs this daughter [which I highly doubted] I managed with a considerable amount of effort not to end that lady's life right there.
A similar scenario assails me for every morning outside Ang Mo Kio MRT another old lady would be sitting on the wheelchair calling out to passengers walking by, calling out to them to buy the packets of tissue paper from her. Sometimes the occasional passerby would stop and buy a packet from her but most people would simply breeze past. I stopped by a few times to buy tissue paper from her till I realised that this is not helping her much, and I would stop and wonder - Why is she doing this? Have her children abandoned her as well? Or perhaps like the similar case of the Chomp Chomp Centre her children have left her to fend for herself. Just about a few weeks ago she did not appear again, I wondered if some kind soul had taken care of her food and shelter. I sure hope so.
Mighty is the compassionate heart, for they are the stuff of Kings and Emperors.
~ La voix de l'Inarticulé.
posted by Inarticulate at 10:24 AM
6 Comments:
This is so sad, exploiting an elderly's handicap to obtain sympathy.
Frankly, I wouldn't think twice about helping a truly handicap or an old folk. BUt I have reservations about an abled person begging for money. It shows outright laziness.
You know, i used to be suckered into buying tissue. They always look so sad (and i always forget to bring tissue out with me)... But no more. Able bodied people should go find real jobs.
Anyway, at least with these tissue vendors, you get something for your dollar. There's this one guy around my house who goes around asking for one dollar to catch a bus. Yea, right.
You are very kind.
Anna, you're right abt the laziness part. In addition she gave me the "I'm waiting for your purchase look." which triggered my comments. Sigh, I'm jus hoping the mother could just stand up and walk away.
Littleblueboo, you should have jus asked him back if he has a dollar to spare and watch his reaction. And some of the people I handle who appeal for financial difficulty simply gives me reason that they "dont like this job dont like dat job." Haiz~
One Little Twit, thanks. =) I cant say I'm a totally kind person becos I have to be strict at times when I'm assessing their credibility for financial aid in my work.
Indeed it is awful that people can have to be reduced to such states, and even more horrible that they can be exploited as such. What really gets on my nerve is when people sucker people by exploiting their sympathy. Here in London, there are always people on the roadside asking you for token sums. Yet one is always inclined to wonder if they'd actually run away with your purse if you take out your purse to give him the cash....Indeed, sometimes, good guys truly do finish last, and it's always hard to tell when and where that's true, and perhaps even if you do, perhaps even if finishing last was made all worth it by the other rewards that you gained...What do you think?
Hi Harry, as comparable to other countries Singapore's average income is comparably higher to most countries but the income difference however is a different story. Moreover, the crime rate in Singapore is definitely one of the lowest in the Asian Region and thats one of the factors expats preferred when choosing a place to work and live in.
As for Good Guys finishing last.. it can be pretty situational dependent because what one person considers as a loss might be much worse if things had actually happened otherwise, and as you have mentioned that despite the loss you felt if it gets offset by the other rewards you have gained then the hurt of the loss gets either fairly reduced or you don't feel it at all. =)
Optimism helps to a certain extent but practical optimism is often what people choose to make their lives easier to live by.
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