One man’s left arm ends before the elbow, and he uses it to press against the cup mostly held in his right hand. He’s about 30 years old and regularly wears a gentle smile that stretches all the way to his eyes.
Another man, older with a diminishing mass of tangled long-ish grey hair and pale splotches of skin, has a recorder that he occasionally plays. He doesn’t interact with the people dropping coins in his cup.
An older woman hunches as small as she can, never making eye contact with people giving her money. If she sees someone approaching, she hunches even lower and holds her cup high above her dropped head, submissive or shamed.
A middle-aged man is losing his dark hair that’s showing grey around the edges. After months of momentary encounters, he’ll now make eye contact with me using a side glance.
The final man has pebble-sized lumps all over his skin, stiffening his eyelids and obscuring his facial features, his neck, arms and legs – presumably everywhere. He holds his cup with a blank stare.
These five people are the ones I regularly see near our apartment asking for money, sitting among the rotating band of street vendors, buskers, and the man who sleeps in front of the 7-Eleven.
There’s no social safety net in Thailand beyond family, and for these five that apparently isn’t sufficient. Or, perhaps some of them are the safety net for other family members who are less able to provide.