"I Have No Money"

The shirt caught my eye as I walked along the market street of Dali's "Old Town" in the Western Province of Yunnan, China. "I Have No Money" it stated simply in Chinese. Boy, I thought, I should get that shirt to wear on my trips.

I did buy the shirt, as a joke and as a reminder. The simple truth is that everytime I come to China I experience events that break my heart, and reinforce to me again and again how most of the world lives. Jesus's parable of the Good Samaritan doesn't apply well to the back streets of rural China. If one took the teachings of this parable literally, one would never be able to walk to the end of a single street. Need is everywhere here, and manifests itself in many forms: the four year-old street urchin; the teenager asking for education money; the crippled man barely able to push himself through the dirt and trash; the old woman with broken teeth asking for enough to give her another meal.

"I Have No Money"

The Chinese remind me that the shirt is meant as a joke, that the Chinese seek to impress those around them with their possessions, even if purchased with borrowed money. For the Chinese, the look of money is the goal. To be able to portray to the less fortunate that the Chinese gods have looked with favor upon them. The joke lies in the fact that few in China are willing to admit that they truly are poor and have no money.

"I Have No Money"

I wear the shirt feeling a burden of guilt. Although I am told that most will find the shirt funny, and show others that I have sense of humor, I realize that I also must hide my face in shame as I pass the poor beggar. For the truth is, I am richer than 95% of those whom I walk among in China. I carry my trinkets home from my daily shopping excursions, passing those who have nothing of what I have. My heart is torn between my selfish and carnal side, and my religious and moral upbringing that holds the conviction that those who assist others in need will be blessed.

I am reminded of a night I sat in a KFC in Nanking, in China's eastern Province of Jiangsu. A city steeped in history, I had come here to witness for myself the pictures and graves bearing witness to the atrocities the Chinese had experienced in World War II at the hands of the invading Japanese. Now, as I silently ate my fried chicken, a woman approached me through the glass and motioned that she was hungry.

I invited her to come into the facility to eat, but an employee forbade her entry. "She comes here often," was the look the employee gave me, "don't feed her." But in my mind I kept hearing the words of my youth, "I was an hungered, and you gave me food." I walked to the counter, ordered some food and drink, and walked it outside into her eager arms. She turned and walked into the darkness.

The Chinese largely ignore the myriad beggars they pass on the streets. "They do it for business," is their reasoning, a rational I am all too familiar with at home. But when I am approached by a young girl who looks like she could be my daughter, my hand slips once again into my pocket, hoping that I will find some small change to pass on. Even those who work make little money by Western standards. The director of my daughter's orphanage, a respected government position, makes $160 a month. Taxi drivers make about the same, and those that clean China's streets make less in a month than I spend to go to McDonalds with my girls. Most of China's farmers and the factory workers make less in a year than an American teenager makes at a part-time job in a month.

China's poor remind me that I live in a global society, not on an island of prosperity in the sea of destitution and poverty. U.S. calls to limit imports from China, India, and other impoverished nations fall on deaf ears with me. The threat of globalization, the loss of American jobs, the importing of cheap goods, is a two edged sword. Certainly there is a cost to be borne by those whose incomes exceed that of most in the world, but few of us in the U.S. realize the benefit those jobs are to those in other countries. The exporting of factory jobs to the "Sweat Shops" of China allow many women who previously worked at the back-breaking labor of the field to make more money in a factory job. In a small way their lives are improved -- slowly, almost imperceptively -- but improved none-the-less. I question any policy that elevates or maintains my standard of living by continuing to suppress that of others.

As I walk China's streets, I have long ago stopped trying to discern who is "doing it for business" and who is in true need. I give whatever change I have freely and willingly, with a silent prayer that others might do so also. What I do is small. If I was a better person I could do much more. But I hope that one day all might be able to live like I do, rich in the abundance of the earth's blessings, free of the deprivation of life's basic needs. Instead of living on an island of prosperity, I hope that one day the economic continents will unite and we will all live in abundance together.