Shoe Squeegee Men of Shanghai

Editor and author James Fallows is after the squeegee men of China:

I like China. I like Shanghai. I like most Chinese people I see and meet.

But I’m getting pretty tired of China’s big-city counterpart to the squeegee men whom Rudolph Giuliani was famed for chasing off the streets of New York. Forget running for president, Rudy. Come deal with the shoe-squeegee men of Shanghai.

As a precaution against Colonel Blimp-ism, let me note: There is a lot of misery in China, and a lot of it breaks your heart. Every day I look for the right concept, and emotion, with which to deal with the range of beggars throughout Shanghai. These include:

The obvious professionals who camp in wait for people trying to cross at busy street corners. The women from the countryside who sit on the sidewalks at night with alarmingly immobile, drugged- looking infants on their laps. The legless man who drags himself on his stomach along the main street bordering People’s Square with a little Dixie cup in front of him for change. The crone on the steps down to the subway. The blind young man who play the two-stringed Chinese erhu near the subway entrance. The old man who kneels on the sidewalk all night, forehead against the pavement and alms cup in front of him. The smiling little girls, looking happy and well dressed, who run up and yell at a foreigner "Money! Money!" under the eye of their mother ten yards away. The con man who develops a severe limp when I come into view and later jogs across the street to beat a traffic light. The only way I’ve found to cope with this so far is to have a pocketful of small change when I go out and make give/don’t give decisions on the fly.