Forgot your password?
Story of a Beggar Blogger
On Tuesday, November 13, 2007, Chinanews.cn reported that a 25-year old Chinese beggar called Xia Haibo, born in Meihe Village, Tuozhen Town, Tianmen City of Hubei Province stands in a crowded street, either reading a book or pondering over something for begging. As a beggar, he has opened his blog on the Internet. His blog has been clicked more than 500,000 times now. He has read a lot of poems written by Indian poet called Rabindranath Tagore. He has also read many classical Chinese poems. He has a habit of writing. He planned to publish his writings soon.
As a beggar, he is so special that many people call him "the greatest beggar in history." However, he himself doesn't think so. In one of the articles he wrote on his blog, he said, "I am only a beggar. No matter how great I seem to be, I'm still a beggar, begging for alms."
In 1998, Xia was enrolled in the Tianmen Middle School as the best student in town. However, a year before he took the national college entrance exam, he came down with a high fever and was later diagnosed as having rheumatoid arthritis. For the treatment of his disease, his father borrowed 60,000 yuan from relatives and friends. However, with this money, he didn’t recover from the disease. He did not want to be a burden to his family any more. So in July, last year, he left his hometown and went to Wuhan for making a living by begging.
“On my first day of begging, I stood in front of a supermarket for a long time before I could hang out the wooden board,” Xia recalled. On that day, he earned 40 yuan. From then on, the young man went to several places such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Haikou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Changsha and Kunming, where he earned about 20,000 yuan by begging.
“Begging has become a job to me now. I earn about 2,000 yuan every month,” Xia said. However, he doesn't plan to go on living like this. “By July 24 next year, when I have been begging for two years, I will stop my begging life. I promise,” he said. He planned to rent a small shop in his hometown for a business using the money he earned by begging, and at the same time keep on writing in his spare time.
Right now, he is trying to finish writing a book. The book is titled "Love Is with Me." It has recorded a lot of people once helped him during his begging life including the Internet café boss who gave him some clothes to wear, the young lady who tried to find a job for him when he was in Hainan, and the kind woman who invited him to eat at a four-star hotel, and so on. He has also managed to find a publisher who is willing to publish his book.
