Charles Liu, A foreign backpacker who has resorted to begging for money at the Guangzhou East Railway Station has raised the ire of locals who say he earns a thousand yuan a day, and yet police admit they are powerless to act against the man who has broken no laws.
The 25 year-old Polish man, identified as “Victor”, said he arrived in Guangzhou last week and quickly spent the $500 he had saved to backpack throughout Asia. With no money, Victor has had to rely on the kindness of strangers who have been willing to help him buy the 200 yuan ticket to Kunming, where he plans to continue onward to Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
Knowing no Chinese, Victor sits at the No. 1 entrance to the train station with a sign that reads “Ticket to Kunming” (seen below).
However, locals say Victor is lying, and that he’s always at the train station panhandling. A janitor named Zhang claims he even knows how much Victor makes in a typical day:
Don’t believe him, he’s been here for about ten days now. Foreigners are generous and give him one or two hundred yuan while Chinese usually just give him ten or twenty yuan. In a day, he can usually make about a thousand yuan.
An unidentified police officer confirmed Zhang’s account saying, “He’s been here for about a month now. I saw him before I went on my vacation on October 10.”
305348When a reporter with the Southern Capital Report confronted Victor, he immediately came clean and explained, “I’ve been here for ten days, but if I were to explain that I’ve been here for so long, people will get mad.” When asked how much money he has made from begging, Victor would only say that Guangzhou residents are “really friendly”.
If it seems like Victor has worn out his welcome in Guangzhou, no one appears to be showing him the door. Guangzhou police have admitted there’s little they can do:
He hasn’t caused a public disturbance, so we can’t force him to leave. Sometimes we have a communication problem (with him).
The fluently-English speaking Polish expat said that he has decided to leave for Kunming very soon, but then cryptically ended the interview by asking:
Out of a hundred percent, how much of my story do you believe?
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