CHINA: Homeless people who earn their living by collecting discarded bottles are affected by Beijing's Olympic clean-up campaign

Record ID: 329617

  • Title: CHINA: Homeless people who earn their living by collecting discarded bottles are affected by Beijing's Olympic clean-up campaign
  • Date: 21st June 2008
  • Summary: BLOGGER, ZHANG SHIHE, READING HIS BLOG ZHANG SHIHE SMOKING ZHANG SHIHE TYPING ON COMPUTER SCREEN PICTURES OF HOMELESS PEOPLE ON ZHANG'S BLOG (SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) ZHANG SHIHE, BLOGGER, SAYING: "Even these people, who have a reasonably low level of intelligence, know that the government's orders change all the time and it will loosen up after the Olympics. It is very straightforward. They can go back to Tiananmen Square and collect bottles again after the Olympics. Is this what a mature country that is ruled by law should do? Herein lies the problem."
  • Embargoed: 6th July 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Sports,Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA23HNAFZRXABB94JWT9GXQDIH3
  • Story Text: While Beijing starts to clean up its city streets ahead of the Olympic Games, homeless people are complaining that they are being deprived of their only means of earning a living -- collecting discarded bottles in downtown areas.
    Ge Binglun and Zhang Zhiqing have made a living collecting plastic drinks bottles and picking up trash for years.
    In the past, they had been able to collect more than 70 bottles a day at Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, selling each bottle for 10 cents (one U.S. cent), earning them enough money to feed themselves.
    But now this life line has been cut, as Beijing starts its pre-Olympic clean-up, which aims to rid the city of beggars, hawkers and prostitutes before the start of the Games in August -- now less than 50 days away.
    The planned relocation of what China dubs "problematic residents" is aimed at creating a spotless image of the Chinese capital in time for the arrival of an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists, athletes and journalists.
    Among the targets are homeless people, like 60-year-old Ge Binglun and 70-year-old Zhang Zhiqing, or "Old Ge" and "Old Zhang", as the elderly are traditionally addressed in China.
    They were members of the "vagrant gang" of around 30 people that used to live in the slums of Qianmen area, just south of Tiananmen square.
    That is until they were picked up by a police van from their shacks and dropped off at a bus station outside the fourth ring road in the city's far south, on the same morning that the National People's Congress opened in March this year.
    They had been ousted from the city centre like this many times before, whenever Beijing needed to present a spotless image in the lead up to a big event. But they crept back every single time.
    This time, however, returning was not an option, as much of the Qianmen area has been redeveloped into a commercial hub to showcase China's decades of rapid economic growth.
    After staying at the bus station for three days, Old Ge and Old Zhang found a shelter in a nearby neighbourhood with the help of some local people.
    The "gang" disbanded and its members were scattered all over the outskirts of the city.
    Old Ge and Old Zhang now live in a room of less than 10 square metres.
    For a while, in the early morning hours of each day, the two used to make the one-hour bus ride to Tiananmen square to collect hundreds of empty plastic bottles left behind by the many tourists. Despite having to compete with the other rubbish collectors, Old Ge and Old Zhang still managed to make five or six yuan (80 U.S. cents) each day.
    But now they can only walk around the outer city, searching through every rubbish bin in sight to find only an average of 30 bottles a day.

    "Where can I go? Please tell me where I can go if I want to leave this place? There is no place for me to go to. I was counting on collecting plastic bottles for a living. But they don't allow us to do it anymore. How can I make a living? I don't know what to do. I have no tears left to cry," said Lao Zhang.
    Through his indistinct speech, Old Ge said that his biggest wish was just to have a place to live and enough to eat.

    "There are less than two months left to the Olympics. When the Games finish, I can have my life back again," said Old Ge.
    Blogger Zhang Shihe has been following the "Qianmen homeless gang" closely for two years, taking pictures of them and raising money among friends on the Internet to help them out.

    "Even these people, who have a reasonably low level of intelligence, know that the government's orders change all the time and it will loosen up after the Olympics. It is very straightforward. They can go back to Tiananmen Square and collect bottles again after the Olympics. Is this what a mature country that is ruled by law should do? Herein lies the problem," said Zhang.
    China has been under fire over its handling of dissidents, homeless people and migrant workers ahead of the Games, which start on August 8.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register