On the Necessity of Having Beggars around Us > IDEAS & IDEALS

• 목록

To my great embarrassment and surprise I met a beggar the other day, very late at night, in the Seoul Subway Station on my way home. Unlike the traditional beggars whom I used to see, when I was a small child in my hometown or on the streets in the cities later in my life, this one was a quite new breed. First of all, he was a young man of about thirty or thirty-five, and was not in rags and tatters. Although dirty, shabby and haggard in his outward appearance, evidently from lack of sleep and neglect of meals and regular toilet, and from too much drinking, he was wearing a white shirt and even a tie, like the one I had met years before in the Grand Central Station in New York. Anyway, he was a beggar because he approached me and asked for some money.

     Once there were so many beggars around us. As a lowest social class in our society it consisted of poor, old, infirm and disabled persons who were unable to work, or of children abandoned or orphaned. Many of them banded together and lived as a group in a strict hierarchy, while there were also many who led a solitary life. Usually each of them had their  own turf of business and did not allow anyone's trespassing. They had certain fixed days and even hours of visiting the houses and shops, and received alms in food, grain or money. Tatters and rags were their natural uniforms, and some bags and a large empty can should be carried on their back or across the shoulder, or in their hand as a basic equipment. They found shelter in any empty, unused barn or under the bridge, or in a pit. In short, unlike the beggar I met in the subway the other day, those genuine beggars of old days were so conspicuous and familiar, like a soldier or a policeman in uniform.

     I remember an old beggar in my hometown in the country who used to come to my house when I was a little boy before I went to school. He was a very old man who had great difficulty in walking and speaking. They said that he was dumb from birth, and no one knew where he came from. He carried a long staff to support his unsteady gait. Whenever the old beggar came to my house in the morning, my mother, young at that time and very poor herself, showed no sign of distress or annoyance on her face. Instead, she gave as much as she could, and tried to be kind and warm as much as she could. In the extremely cold mornings in winter she often asked him to come into the kitchen and let him eat there by the fire. My mother talked to him and asked many questions in order to make him feel at home, but the old man just ate in silence. But I could see clearly that the man appreciated the warm meal and the hot soup, and my mother's kindness to his bone. My mother also looked very happy, and I was also very happy and proud to have such a good and kind mother. After certain period of time the old man ceased to come to my house, and mother said that he must have died of cold and hunger during the winter, and I saw tears in her eyes, and I felt great sorrow, pity and sympathy for the lonely man probably for the first time in my life.

     Since then not only have the old beggar but also the beggars as a class disappeared from the scene of my life, and I wonder where all the time-honoured beggars have gone. They are not to be found around us because we have become a wealthy and affluent nation, and the government has successfully housed all the mendicants in the charity institutions, and probably forbidden the act of mendicity itself by law. Anyhow, I am very glad that the miserable evil and the pitiable nuisance, namely beggars and begging, have disappeared from my sight. We have tried very hard and come a long way to get rid of these social evils and nuisances. The dream has come true, but the beggar I confronted the other night in the subway troubles me a lot and more.

     Now I realize belatedly that the existence of the beggars around me when I was a little child was a great benefit and education for me. The sight and the presence of the beggars, especially that of the young boys and girls in rags whose parents must have died or must have been too poor to feed them, made me feel so deeply grateful and thankful to my parents for providing me with everything I needed, and to God for sending such good and loving parents for me. Furthermore, it was they who brought me the first mild touch of humanity into my heart by making me feel pity and sympathy for the poor and unhappy, and by connecting me with the world of want and sorrow. And the necessity of charity has kept the kindly emotion and impulse in my heart until today and formed a compelling habit to do good. It was all before I went to school and began to read books.

     These educational beggars are all gone now, and children of today are not likely to have the proper view, opinion or picture of them, although they know the vocabulary. They would never be intimidated by the traditional bluffing or scolding of their parents' such as, "Do you want to become a beggar?" or "Do you want to carry a can?" if the beggar here pointed out as an example were to be like the young man who asked for some money from me in the subways, as if he needed some pocket money and I were his parents. Your son or daughter might ask who or what the man is, and when they are told what he is, your children would never feel or learn anything really good and valuable in their life from the modern breed of the beggar, as much as I did from the old beggar who visited my house regularly when I was a child.

     Now I wonder and ponder seriously how our children will ever feel and learn the first mild touch of humanity in this affluent society where we have no more proper beggars around. They will probably read from books or be taught at school by the teachers, or watch from the television screen about the children in the orphanage, old men and women assembled in the asylum, and will form their own notions of human suffering, pain and loneliness. But it is quite evident that their feeling and understanding of pity and sympathy for the poor and the needy will be far different from mine who grew up in direct contact with them. It also worries me that a fine and tender part of our humanity itself will eventually vanish or alter into something hard and callous, even violent with the complete disappearance of material poverty and want from our life, and along with it the beggars. Certainly, affluence is not all.
          (February 3, 1995)