An email to a friend – on the poor

Hello, H.L.,

Frankly I don't know you are poor, not to mention how poor you are! Quite to the contrary, I always think that you are rich, perhaps not so rich as most Chinese Canadians.
Not having brought a portable computer with you doesn't necessarily mean that poor, does it?
I anticipated that you don't have much difficulty receiving this mail in Tibet, provided you don't go too far away from wherever you can buy something like an authentic American hamburger!

If I go to India once a year for a month or two, then tour round another part of the world during the same year, and visit Tibet still in the very year, without even bothering about fixing the date of return, just like you do, I will surely go bankrupt in no time.

You can meet with really poor people in Tibet if you wish. Simply venture away from the temples and lamas and you will find yourself talking to them, only if you speak Tibetan of course, for these poor nomads living on one of the harshest lands on earth may not have a single word of the Han or English language.

Some 2,500 kilometres southeast of Tibet here are the richest parts of China, yet most of the inhabitants are by no means rich according to global standards.
Hong Kong has a decent GDP per capita as a developed economy, and an ugly Gini Index worse than many developing countries.
A couple of days ago a mother of two suffering from mental illness committed a jumping suicide, which killed also her innocent children, leaving behind her hospitalized husband. Such a tragedy is definitely due at least partly to shortage of social resources allocated to the poor and the helpless.
Hong Kong has roughly only 2.5 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, compared to 11 in the U.K.
If one needs to see a doctor in a public hospital or clinic, GP or psychiatrist alike, he/she will have no more than a couple of minutes for just answering a few questions the doctor would choose to ask. Consultation in the true sense hardly exists.
A junior doctor practising in a public hospital here in the SAR is paid at least 30% more than his/her counterpart in the U.K., despite the fact that the U.K. GDP per capita is always higher.

On last Sunday early afternoon I came across a poor and hardworking mainlander at a remote wavy bay here in the SAR.
When I was exploring a small beach along a rocky shore, I saw a man picking something on the rocks in the shallows. I was curious, so I went closer. It was a man with a typical Southern peasant look. He was skinny with a small build. He turned away and walked into the deeper water as he saw me.
I left my camera on the beach and got on the rocks to approach him. I asked him what he was collecting. He responded by showing me a small rock snail he had just picked.
He then climbed on the rocks to talk to me as the surf was pounding a bit hard. He was wearing a pair of shoes moulded in plastic in the way some slippers are made. This suggested that he definitely came from the mainland waters, illegally of course. His clothes were all but totally wet. Hanging from his waist was a deep nylon net half full of small rock snails. He held the collection up to show me. Round his waist twisted another nylon net.
He carefully put off his hat already soaked with seawater. Between his hair and the hat he had kept a tightly wrapped plastic bag. When it was unwrapped I saw a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and something else. He wanted to treat me to a cigarette, but I told him I don't smoke.
I could barely understand his dialect. When he tried to light a cigarette the lighter failed because his fingers had wetted the flint. If my campsite was not so far away I could have given him my spare lighter, even though I thought I was not supposed to encourage smoking.
I asked him where he came from. He pointed to the open sea and named a place I don't know. I know there are the waters where illegal border crossing by speedboat is convenient.
He told me he could sell the snails for 10 Yuan per kilo. He expected to collect 5 or 6 kilos in that afternoon. A boat would come to fetch him before sunset. I thought there must be several of them picking separately in different locations. I asked if the snails were good for food or fishing bait, but I didn't get what he said for the answer.
On leaving the beach I reminded him that he had to be very careful as the surf could pound really hard on the rocks all of a sudden, and with the head bumping against the rocks one could be badly injured or even pass out. I could only wish him good luck and bringing home safely 10 kilos of pickings or more.

I can imagine that while this poor mainlander was doing his dangerous collecting of snails, many very wealthy ones were arriving at Hong Kong International Airport no more than 10 kilometres to the north, for flights to Paris or Zurich, to do their collecting of the most expensive bags and watches in the world.