Sunday, May 14, 2017 1:33 AM
It's all in my mind.
And so I get my first taste of being scammed of (in relative terms) a lot of money, and how Wayne reacts when he has been scammed.
Since I've related it a few times, it's easy to create this post. On the first day in Berlin, at our first stop the Berlin Wall Memorial, a woman came up to us with a clipboard. It stated that they were trying to petition for something for the Deaf community. Since it appeared to be just a petition, it seemed to be no harm- I proceeded to accept her pen and started to fill in the name, country etc.
The woman seemed really grateful, motioning to kiss my hand and making affirming sounds. I paused a moment as I was filling in the details- at the column that labeled donation amount. There was a small nagging feeling that it wasn't really right, and I prompted Wayne that there was a donation component. In that span of time, another woman had already approached Wayne with the same clipboard, and he had also filled in his details.
Should we really donate? He was alright with it, and said that he'll just donate €5.
I guess it's something different when you have cash on you in small numbers. €5! Retrospectively, I would probably realise that donating SGD7.50 was more than I'd usually donate on streets. Perhaps it just feels different, since a similar issue wouldn't have arose if we were thinking in Swedish Kronor- where the smallest note was 20 SEK, which was what, SGD 3.50?
But at that moment I thought, okay, then I would too. I took my coins out and counted out that amount for the woman. I found €6 in coins instead, but decided to hand it to her anyway. When I passed the coins to her she gestured to something handwritten on the back of the board. In blue pen and scratchy writing, it wrote €10.
It didn't click into place until a moment later with a wtf moment when she spoke. When she had previously just been gesturing, smiling and making affirmative noises, she told me that that was the minimum amount.
I should probably have stopped there, and stood my ground. It made me uncomfortable as she stared into my purse as I silently prodded around for more coins to give her. She pointed out my larger Euro notes and told me to give her that and she'll give me change, to which I resolutely ignored.
Her counterpart who had gone up to Wayne meanwhile was refusing to give him change for his €20 note, and in fact was trying to make him give her €50 for which she will give the change. I could sense Wayne's disbelief as he held back from outright anger at the even more demanding woman he was facing.
I gave her the coins of another €4. The woman on my side was very unhappy and frowning even as I gave her the coins even though it amounted to exactly €10, which grated on me because you could tell she wanted the notes but didn't have a good excuse to get more. The woman on Wayne's side was refusing to give him back the change and still making movements for his larger notes.
It was evident it was a scam, but I just ended up resolutely tugging on Wayne as we left the place. Just didn't expect it to happen at a WWII memorial site, where the peace and quiet on those grounds radiated introspection and a more open heart for the survivors of wartime past. On our first day in Berlin too, and probably we have only been lucky for the rest of our time in Sweden and in our travels.
I wonder if I should have just let Wayne rage at them, stand his ground, and make enough of a commotion that the rest of the tourists in the site would view those women with cautious eyes. I probably should have, and should have had an agreement beforehand about who would be the ones paying for anything (even tipping and donations), because then our total loss could have been at most €10, instead of €30. Yet I was also afraid of the other woman grabbing for Wayne's entire wallet.
It brings me to a tangent of how Wayne and I discussed why there were still beggars in Sweden. It was in a broader conversation about the welfare state, for which was a strong reason why I chose (such an expensive) Northern European country for my exchange.
The topic of beggars on the street surfaced again today when I went for lunch with my French exchange friend (of Asian descent) and his half Swedish, half French friend (who grew up here in Gothenburg and is graduating high school).
I asked the Swede if the beggars on the streets here in Gothenburg were really gypsies (as opposed to refugees or Swedish) as the French guy told me before... And the Swede said definitively that they were Romanians or specifically they were gypsies. He told me not to feel bad about ignoring or declining to donate to them (which explains the ambivalence I see in Swedes as the begging happens, with many of them shaking paper cups jingling with coins at people). Because apparently the gypsies don't attempt to get jobs, don't attempt to learn Swedish, don't attempt to put their children in schools... And he called them parasites on the social system, which was what the French guy said too before. A phrase I continue to cringe at. Not only at the mental image, but also of calling anyone a parasite, and also since the Swedes are usually very hesitant to label fault on most occasions and generally conflict avoidant and very accepting of alternative perspectives.
The Swede continued with an anecdote about how when he was in France he was approached by a gypsy little boy who begged for a cheeseburger, then when he bought it for him asked for a happy meal for his brother, and then requested that the Swede withdraw money from the bank to pay for his education. That no matter how much you give they want more and they won't be grateful.
The French guy was indignant also because he met with many gypsies who utilize their children to gain sympathy and money from unsuspecting people. The French guy said that the clipboard thing happened to him in Paris before and he felt bad for not giving until his parents informed him after that it was a scam.
I told him of how Bern was puzzled about how her host in Budapest was so negative on the topics of gypsies when she was otherwise a very nice and kind person, but the French guy said that it was to be expected. He said that in Europe it's a problem that they feel for, unlike us who fortunately don't have gypsies in Asia.
It's interesting because Bern was thinking about labeling and it's effects on crime prevention etc when the society assumes it's done by gypsies... But it seems like perspectives may be one thing, and the gypsies indeed reinforcing this is also another aspect of the problem.
But I get Bern's point. It's like assuming people who are jobless in SG or live on the streets are lazy when their stories are most likely more complicated and complex than that. And interventions that start with the premise of them being gypsies (like the premise of them being lazy parasites) will be very different from interventions to boost employment for low skilled workers or improve opportunities for non native speakers.
And then I wonder why maybe we don't see beggars in Amsterdam and Berlin per se, and wonder how the officials deal with these issues in different places.
But all in all, I worry that the SGD45 scammed from us ends up making Wayne jaded and cynical (though he probably hasn't based on today's conversation) towards giving to people who appear to be in need. It affected his mood the wholee day and more until we saw this board at the Topography of Terror, and he had an email to contact and take actionable steps.
