Searching for HOMELESS People in China - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues in the People's Republic of China.

Moderator: PoFo Asia & Australasia Mods

Forum rules: No one-line posts please. This is an international political discussion forum moderated in English, so please post in English only. Thank you.
#15187383
There's considerably less homeless than in American cities, but there's a couple outside my apartment. Be careful with some of these vloggers - they do get stipends and benefits from the Chinese government to whitewash aspects of it. There absolutely are homeless beggars in Chinese cities.
#15187395
I'd often go for late night walks in Shanghai's tourist infested bund side CBD. The homeless blend in during the day because it is considered shameful, but stop blending in at night because they're clearly standing around alone with nowhere to go often accompanied by bags. There were not many at all for a city of 25 million but they are there.

Smaller cities like Xi'An I absolutely notice no homeless at any time of day. I did see a few beggars but I don't know where they go at night, probably back home. Most of them have mental issues/learning difficulties-probably abandoned by families for being subbies, those that approached me were very sweet and non threatening because they don't abuse substances. Some I would recognize as during the day they were hecklers trying to direct me to local business. What I saw in big cities in the US during the day and here in Sydney shocks me by comparison. Violent drug addicts with mental issues are walking time bombs and there are 1000x more of them than anything I've seen anywhere in Asia. That part doesn't exist very much in China if at all. Alcoholism is also neutered/hidden away. I watched a bunch of drunk middle aged guys celebrating a birthday get kicked out of a hot pot restaurant the second they started getting loud.

The smaller city that guy is in probably has very few to no homeless. It's only the giant cosmopolitan centers they'd congregate in so they can heckle tourists.
#15187405
Lol. I've actually been to those cities myself.

Xi'an was nice. Beautiful Ming Dynasty architecture, nice and clean. China as I pictured it in my dreams.

Public Toilets sucked though(but that's a problem everywhere in China).

I hated Beijing. Too many fucken eyesore CCTV cameras, and the feeling your being watched the entire time. Still it has its highlights. Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Plus the Peking Duck.

I don't know about Shanghai, I think that city is too big to adequately experience in a couple of weeks. Still enjoyed it, but only had a short time there.

Of course I also visited Hong Kong during the trip too, and frankly it was the best city with its "100% metropolitan experience", English signs everywhere and Cantonese food, went to that "can actually do it in one day" Disneyland and had fun. Heck we actually stayed there because the original resort Hotels seems to be permanently discounted. I guess Disney is still taking a bath financially on that one. Of course it's mum's home city and I hope to take her back one more time before senility makes it harder.

Heck that fucken "Australia Dairy Company" Hong Kong cafe was fucken awesome. Best Victorian scrambled eggs I've ever had. I guess our dairy products are pretty good after all!

Hong Kong seems to be where alot of Homeless people go to though, because I saw heaps. Guess it's because the Real Estate and rental prices are famously a bitch there.

Yeah I kinda want to go back now. Damn you Igor!
#15187408
I found Hong Kong too tiny and congested.

Most comfy layout is probably Beijing, followed by Shanghai. Beijing is more self contained so if you want to experience one city and lifestyle Beijing is it. If you want more options Shanghai metro is insane, gets you anywhere in the city within an hour and the HSR rail stations get you anywhere within 400km of shanghai within 1-3 hours. It's too convenient. Plus Shanghai has everything Hong Kong has and way more, including the worlds biggest disneyland (lol fuck mickey).
Image

But really if you can stomach a bit of driving the older rural side-roads in hilly parts of the country are insane for exploring.

#15218049
This is a very interesting question. I think there are four reasons homelessness is almost non-existent in China.

First is that this prosperity is relatively new. China was still relatively poor even in the late 1980s. So there was an effect on the genetic pool. The less fit were filtered out. (Or viewing this very pessimistically, a huge segment of the population was killed off by starvation and poverty a few decades earlier in the country's history)

The second thing is that in a country with a rapidly growing economy, increasing land prices have not kept up with the growth of economic opportunity, so it allows more overall opportunity for the population. This could be discussed in more detail, but capitalism creates much larger levels of opportunity when the economy is growing.

We cannot ignore the effect of Chinese culture on this, the very strong ties between parents and children, or the drive to work, extreme thriftiness, discipline and self control. (Some of this is genetic)

And lastly, there is some effort by local authorities to sweep any homelessness problems away. So it could be said homelessness is just not very tolerated in the city areas.
There are plenty of affordable rural areas in China. The people may live in poverty there, but they will not be homeless.
In fact there is almost a little bit of a problem of depopulation in some rural areas, since so many migrants have tried to relocate to cities for better jobs.
#15272915
I have lived in China for the past twenty years and for the most part have never really seen any “homeless” people. No one sleeping in a tent or a doorway or anything like we might see in America. It seems the last ten years that there is almost no begging, like there used to be.

There is poverty here, and I am sure some people do live under a bridge, but it isn’t noticeable or even a thing here.
Russia-Ukraine War 2022

You're not ordinary, Qatz. Stop pretending to d[…]

Another resource of degenerates who want to watch […]

There are many ways to approach a construction si[…]

The actual argument (that the definition is being[…]