#begpacking

'Begpacking' is a term you might be more than familiar with in Southeast Asia. It's a portmanteau of the words 'begging' and 'backpacking', and the people who engage in this form of travel usually consist of Caucasian westerners who flock to Southeast Asia with a minimal budget (almost always intentionally), entrusting their travel funds to be paid for by kind-hearted (perhaps a little naïve), lower-earning locals.

How do they do this? It's simple: Beg on the streets, maybe offer 'free hugs' and ask for 'donations' because they're free spirits who want to 'see the world' and 'find' themselves. In essence, they're basically going on vacation for free, in developing countries that were once (most probably) colonized or exploited by their own.

Begpackers are parasites. Look at this entitled twat. If I were to support anyone’s travels, that person would be me, not some privileged jerk who had enough money to board an international flight in the first place.

I recently posted a joke I made about begpacking, and while googling for a good definition of the term for those unfamiliar, I came across this article by Helen Coffey about why she refuses to judge westerners busking and begging for money in Asia.

As someone who has a passport that requires me to apply for a visa to pretty much everywhere I go -- one of the requirements of which is to show that I have enough funds in my bank account for the duration of my journey -- of course I have strong feelings about people from countries who aren’t required to do that essentially making a mockery of the system.

Now one could argue that the problem isn’t the begpackers specifically, but the governments of the countries not enforcing the requirement to prove a means of sustenance at the border. I agree. 

But I also believe that personal responsibility should come into play at some point. Sure, sometimes you get into sticky situations, as Helen pointed out in the article, but just like you (hopefully) don’t open your tap and let it run (even if you can afford to) because you know there are places in the world where there isn’t any water, you probably shouldn’t plan a trip without having a fully thought-out plan for financing said trip.

There’s this unfair comparison from the article:

In London, someone busking in the underground is not viewed as a beggar, but a performer – whether they are home-grown or simply travelling through. It adds a richness and a vibrancy to the city, and no one would disparage a passer-by for relinquishing a few coins for the pleasure of hearing someone play. No one would chastise that they should be reserving their cash for the truly needy – and we aren’t short of those – rather than someone who can obviously afford an instrument and an amplifier. Yet the idea of someone doing the same in Thailand is somehow abhorrent – it just doesn’t add up.

Thailand isn’t the UK. Because counties represent power.  And in a power game between a Thai and a Brit, they aren’t in the same weight-class. At least not in terms of border-restrictions and mobility, which really is the most important thing when it comes to travel. So to equate their experiences busking in the London underground is not only unfair, it borders on the ridiculous.