The Beggar and the Performer

It's been awhile since I posted but I wanted to share an interesting situation that both Suzi and I found ourselves in while in Singapore. So we were walking down a famous shopping area named Orchard St. and we happened to pass by a street performer who was pretending to be a statue. This guy was dressed in silver clothing (pants and long shirt) and any exposed skin was covered in silver paint. It was about 90F with what felt like 100% humidity. I immediately thought of the Dennis Leary song A**hole where one of the lyrics is "I walk around in the summertime saying How-about-this-heat". I controlled the urge to mess with the guy by saying something as jerky as that.



We continued walking and stopped by many of the malls to do various shopping. A couple hours later we started to head back to the hotel and again walked past the same performer. He was still in the exact same uncomfortable statue position. It had been at least two hours since we last saw him so we slowed a bit just to admire him. After about a minute we continued walking and that is when we noticed a beggar sitting directly across from the performer. When looking more closely at the beggar we realized that he had no arms. The man's left arm was amputated above the elbow and the right arm was taken almost to the shoulder. We continued walking and I said to Suzi that I wanted to go back and give the guy some money. She asked me who I was going to give money to and I said the performer. Suzi looked puzzled and replied, "Instead of the guy with no arms?" Feeling a little foolish I started to agreed with her about giving the money to the beggar. However, it brought up an interesting question. Do you give money to someone that is working hard performing for a living or do you give to a disabled beggar? I think the common initial response would be to give to the guy with no arms probably out of pity. However, the performer is at least working for a living doing something that the disabled guy could probably also do if he wanted. Anyway, since I am a bleeding heart liberal I gave both men money and I walked away happy.



About a few blocks away we came upon another guy with no legs sitting in a wheelchair. I screamed silently to myself, "Are you fracking kidding me!" I mean there is only so much a person can take. Unlike the other disabled guy this man was playing the horn for money. He was actually pretty good. Also he had a prime spot on the corner so at every red light he was guaranteed an audience. It's all about location, location, location. I did not have much money left so I went back to the first disabled guy and took back my money. I drew a few horrified glances but what was anyone going to do. Also it is not like the guy with no arms would stop me right? Of course I am kidding. I gave whatever money I had left to the wheelchair guy.



With no more spare change left I seriously expected to next see a deaf mute blind quadruple amputee playing a flute before we got back to the hotel. Thankfully the rest of the walk was uneventful because I really did not feel like going to an ATM.