Man shamed for allowing mother to beg

A man in Shanxi Province was questioned by police after it was discovered that he was leaving his feeble elderly mother to beg at a railway station and living off her earnings.

The man surnamed Li drops off his 83-year-old mother at Taiyuan Railway Station, where she begs from 9 am to 8 pm.

“It’s not that I don’t want to work, but my mother doesn’t want me to,” Li told police, adding his mother takes in around 60 yuan a day.

Li said he and his mother have lived a difficult life and begging seems to be the only practical way to make a living.

“My mother is physically challenged and blind. My father passed away when I was four,” said Li.

While his mother begs, Li said he would look for odd jobs. However, police officers questioned why he hadn’t found a job since his mother began begging in 2004.

Locals told police that Li spends his days playing chess and cards. “He basically lives on his mother,” said one man.

Li’s mother defended her son. “How dare you think he is lazy! He lives with me and takes care of me.”

Many interviewed at the station got to wagging their fingers at Li. “She gave you life and cared for you, yet you let her beg in her eighties?” A man told reporters.