Money

Strange thing, money. I’m still trying to figure out whether it’s the shackles or the key. Probably it’s both. On the one hand, it enabled me to undertake this mammoth journey, but on the other money was what led to me eventually returning home despite all my half jokes to friends about staying in Asia and joining a monastery. I actually contemplated doing that quite a bit, but decided that turning my life over to the care of an institution (even one so tangibly caring and ‘good’ as a Buddhist monastery) was not something I felt comfortable with. Plus my Laos/Vietnamese/Khmer language skills were pretty shitty. So I came home. But I did learn a few things about money, particularly charity.

The prevalence of beggars varied a lot between countries: in Laos, there were very few. At least in the western regions where I generally was, (the east suffered more from the effects of the Vietnam War as the two share a border there.) or maybe it was the ubiquity of the monastic system as a social welfare organisation. In Vietnam and Cambodia there are a lot of disabled people, as I’ve mentioned before. Being disabled in a developing country basically makes it extremely difficult to make money from any means other than begging. So what do you do? Whatever you have to I guess.

To be honest I’d never really given much money to charity back home but in these countries, where the loose change in your pocket can buy a few meals you’d have to be pretty cold hearted not to give out once in a while. The usual problem with giving money to beggars persists though: where does my money go? Does it go on food/clothing or drugs/alcohol?  My solution to the problem was to give as much as I could spare to as many people as possible, sure there would be some who didn’t spend it on food but a lot probably would. And how would I convince those who didn’t buy food/clothing to do so, when we didn’t speak the same language? How could I tell who did and who didn’t? Hence the non-discriminatory generosity. Bit of a cop-out maybe but there you have it.

That policy became more difficult when kids got involved. Saying no to a sad-eyed street kid asking for what equalled less than a pound was tough and people knew this so you saw that a lot, especially in Cambodia. But more often than not there would be an adult round the corner taking the kids earnings. Some of it probably trickled its way back down to them, but nowhere near what they got from you. This was especially saddening in Cambodia, which has a reasonable education system for one of the world’s poorest countries and one that more importantly, is free. The amount of times we came across kids on the street at night begging or selling trinkets was unreal. You ask them why they’re not at home in bed and you get blank stares in return. Truth is, some of these families are too poor to have any other choice. So you give them some money - its nothing to you but a lot for them - and hope it goes to something beneficial. That was the best solution I came up with; to go somewhere like that and give nothing is a travesty.

I mentioned I learned some things. I learned how unbelievably lucky we are to have some money. Would I like to live in a world that doesn’t revolve around money? Sure, but that’s out of the question. I moan about having to go to work and pay rent and taxes and blablabla, but at the back of my mind I always try to remember how fortunate we are to have the things that jobs/rent/taxes pay for even if it is a fucked up system. I also learnt that giving charity in developing countries is an ethical minefield. Unsatisfying conclusions to draw, but again there you have it. Discuss.