How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
- hanno
- Expatriate
- Posts: 6774
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 12:37 pm
- Reputation: 3142
- Location: Phnom Penh
- Contact:
How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
Hong Kong
CNN
—
When Hong Kong resident Ashley James first started seeing “begpackers” on the streets of his city in spring of 2023, he had two simultaneous thoughts: leisure tourism had returned to Asia, and it was time to make some memes about it.
James, a comedian, is one of the posters behind the Instagram page Chaotic Hong Kong Expats. He shared a picture of a tourist sitting on a busy road with a cup of change and a sign in front of them and wrote “nature is healing, begpackers are back.”
If you’ve ever seen a shaggy-haired young person selling woven bracelets or playing drums near a tourist attraction, odds are you are familiar with the concept of begpacking.
The term is a portmanteau of “begging” and “backpacking” and is usually used to negatively describe people who are asking the public for money to fund their travels.
Typically, southeast and south Asian destinations like Thailand, India and Indonesia have been the hotspots for these so-called begpackers. Yet in most cases, the practice is illegal.
“We mock everything,” James says about the Instagram account, which is a spinoff of a Facebook page. But he notes that some of the page’s best-performing posts take potshots at begpackers.
What makes these specific travelers such a target? And what will happen as they return to Asia after the pandemic?
A day in the life of a begpacker
Someone who knows more about begpackers than most people is Stephen Pratt, department chair of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida.
He’s studied the phenomenon from an academic perspective.
While in graduate school at the Hong Kong Polytechnic, he and several colleagues conducted fieldwork during which Pratt – the lone White male native English speaker in the group – volunteered to pose as a begpacker himself.
Armed with his ukulele and a sign reading “Please help me with my trip around the world” in Chinese, he set up in a busy park in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district.
A Cantonese-speaking colleague waited nearby to see who interacted with Pratt, then pigeonholed them to ask questions – and, in some cases, return the money they’d given.
Generally, Pratt explains, begpackers can be divided into three categories: those who busk (playing music or performing in some way), those who sell something (such as jewelry, postcards, or a service like hair braiding), and those who simply ask for money without offering anything in return.
In turn, passers-by respond differently based on which of the groups the “begpackers” are in.
During Pratt’s study, most people who gave him money made a mention of his ukulele – even if his playing wasn’t great, they said they appreciated that he made an effort.
Encountering stigma
It’s not entirely clear how long begpacking has been around. In his book “A Time of Gifts,” English travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor recounts peddling juvenile sketches for cash during his 1933 journey by foot across Europe.
But the age of social media has catapulted the activity into public consciousness with a wave of begpacking-shaming Instagram accounts and Facebook pages.
Pratt says such online judgments imply that travelers must meet economic thresholds before embarking on their adventures. It also reflects a wider culture of criticism.
“(This shaming) does raise the point of, ‘is international travel only for a certain class of people or people over a certain amount of income?’” says Pratt. “I think tourists themselves are being held more accountable now than in the past.”
Will Hatton, founder of budget travel advice site The Broke Backpacker, pushes back at the word “begpacker” and the negative connotations that come with it.
“I definitely don’t approve of people sitting on the curb begging,” he explains. But when it comes to people who busk or sell things to be able to afford more travel, “you’ve got these people who hit the road, who are being brave and trying to explore a different way of living.”
Joshua Bernstein, a lecturer in the Language Institute at Thamassat University in Thailand, says that some of the anger around begpacking connects to issues of gentrification and privilege.
“I think a lot of this rage is from foreigners,” he says. Bernstein observed begpackers in Bangkok and concluded that locals were much more interested in stopping, chatting or buying things than foreigners were.
“There’s policing that expats do among themselves. There’s an unfriendliness sometimes that expats have to each other of ‘I don’t want you to ruin this for me’ or ‘I don’t want you to make me look bad.’ There’s lots of those types of sentiments.”
He points out that people who begpack aren’t getting rich. They stay in cheap hostels for a few dollars a night and are eating street food, not Michelin-starred meals.
For James, the comedian, scorn against so-called begpackers all comes down to a single word: entitlement.
“Hong Kong is a very expensive place to live and the average (monthly) wage is 15,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,915). Rent prices are so high, you have local people in cage homes. The locals can’t even afford (to live) here. Why are you in one of the most expensive places in the world and asking us to buy beads? Travel is a luxury around the world, and people saying ‘pay for my travel’ is stupid and entitled.”
Questions of privilege
While James acknowledges the irony of a White expat laughing at other White expats, not everyone thinks making fun of begpackers is merely entertainment.
Filipino human rights attorney Raphael Pangalangan wrote in an April 2023 column that the begpackers highlighted the phenomenon of “passport privilege.”
The term is used to highlight the difference in ease of travel for people with certain passports over others – for example, members of European Union countries who can travel around the continent freely versus people like Pangalangan who must endure waits and paperwork in order to secure travel visas and go overseas.
“Begpacking exposes the double standards of passport privilege and reveals the inherent inequalities in our global society,” Pangalangan wrote. “If the shoe were on the other foot, begpacking would be simply called vagrancy.”
Hatton believes that shaming around begpackers is more about race than class, or perceived class.
“The issue is with people having the idea that folks from first-world countries are very rich,” says Hatton. “Perhaps they are, but there are poor people in first-world countries and some of them support themselves through busking. That makes up like 90% of the class of people who get referred to as begpackers.”
He adds: “Hostility tends to come down to skin color.”
The future of begpacking
With Asia slower to reopen post-pandemic than countries in Europe and North America, it’s not yet clear whether so-called begpackers will return to their traditional stamping grounds or if their era is over.
Viral social media photos of begpackers in places like Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong have been appearing on social media in recent months, re-igniting debate over the issue. But Bernstein, the professor in Thailand, believes that this kind of lifestyle is moving online.
People who are trying to raise money for travel have a variety of options, from established websites like Go Fund Me to sharing a donation jar or mentioning a username for mobile payment service Venmo in their vlogs or social media posts.
Is yesterday’s street busker today’s content creator?
Rather than depend on the kindness of strangers, some travelers opt to build online followings and ask their fans to help support them financially.
“I think it kind of represents the growing arena of location-independent tourists blurring boundaries between leisure and work,” says Bernstein.
“I think there is a generational shift between valuing experience over things.”
CNN
—
When Hong Kong resident Ashley James first started seeing “begpackers” on the streets of his city in spring of 2023, he had two simultaneous thoughts: leisure tourism had returned to Asia, and it was time to make some memes about it.
James, a comedian, is one of the posters behind the Instagram page Chaotic Hong Kong Expats. He shared a picture of a tourist sitting on a busy road with a cup of change and a sign in front of them and wrote “nature is healing, begpackers are back.”
If you’ve ever seen a shaggy-haired young person selling woven bracelets or playing drums near a tourist attraction, odds are you are familiar with the concept of begpacking.
The term is a portmanteau of “begging” and “backpacking” and is usually used to negatively describe people who are asking the public for money to fund their travels.
Typically, southeast and south Asian destinations like Thailand, India and Indonesia have been the hotspots for these so-called begpackers. Yet in most cases, the practice is illegal.
“We mock everything,” James says about the Instagram account, which is a spinoff of a Facebook page. But he notes that some of the page’s best-performing posts take potshots at begpackers.
What makes these specific travelers such a target? And what will happen as they return to Asia after the pandemic?
A day in the life of a begpacker
Someone who knows more about begpackers than most people is Stephen Pratt, department chair of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida.
He’s studied the phenomenon from an academic perspective.
While in graduate school at the Hong Kong Polytechnic, he and several colleagues conducted fieldwork during which Pratt – the lone White male native English speaker in the group – volunteered to pose as a begpacker himself.
Armed with his ukulele and a sign reading “Please help me with my trip around the world” in Chinese, he set up in a busy park in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district.
A Cantonese-speaking colleague waited nearby to see who interacted with Pratt, then pigeonholed them to ask questions – and, in some cases, return the money they’d given.
Generally, Pratt explains, begpackers can be divided into three categories: those who busk (playing music or performing in some way), those who sell something (such as jewelry, postcards, or a service like hair braiding), and those who simply ask for money without offering anything in return.
In turn, passers-by respond differently based on which of the groups the “begpackers” are in.
During Pratt’s study, most people who gave him money made a mention of his ukulele – even if his playing wasn’t great, they said they appreciated that he made an effort.
Encountering stigma
It’s not entirely clear how long begpacking has been around. In his book “A Time of Gifts,” English travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor recounts peddling juvenile sketches for cash during his 1933 journey by foot across Europe.
But the age of social media has catapulted the activity into public consciousness with a wave of begpacking-shaming Instagram accounts and Facebook pages.
Pratt says such online judgments imply that travelers must meet economic thresholds before embarking on their adventures. It also reflects a wider culture of criticism.
“(This shaming) does raise the point of, ‘is international travel only for a certain class of people or people over a certain amount of income?’” says Pratt. “I think tourists themselves are being held more accountable now than in the past.”
Will Hatton, founder of budget travel advice site The Broke Backpacker, pushes back at the word “begpacker” and the negative connotations that come with it.
“I definitely don’t approve of people sitting on the curb begging,” he explains. But when it comes to people who busk or sell things to be able to afford more travel, “you’ve got these people who hit the road, who are being brave and trying to explore a different way of living.”
Joshua Bernstein, a lecturer in the Language Institute at Thamassat University in Thailand, says that some of the anger around begpacking connects to issues of gentrification and privilege.
“I think a lot of this rage is from foreigners,” he says. Bernstein observed begpackers in Bangkok and concluded that locals were much more interested in stopping, chatting or buying things than foreigners were.
“There’s policing that expats do among themselves. There’s an unfriendliness sometimes that expats have to each other of ‘I don’t want you to ruin this for me’ or ‘I don’t want you to make me look bad.’ There’s lots of those types of sentiments.”
He points out that people who begpack aren’t getting rich. They stay in cheap hostels for a few dollars a night and are eating street food, not Michelin-starred meals.
For James, the comedian, scorn against so-called begpackers all comes down to a single word: entitlement.
“Hong Kong is a very expensive place to live and the average (monthly) wage is 15,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,915). Rent prices are so high, you have local people in cage homes. The locals can’t even afford (to live) here. Why are you in one of the most expensive places in the world and asking us to buy beads? Travel is a luxury around the world, and people saying ‘pay for my travel’ is stupid and entitled.”
Questions of privilege
While James acknowledges the irony of a White expat laughing at other White expats, not everyone thinks making fun of begpackers is merely entertainment.
Filipino human rights attorney Raphael Pangalangan wrote in an April 2023 column that the begpackers highlighted the phenomenon of “passport privilege.”
The term is used to highlight the difference in ease of travel for people with certain passports over others – for example, members of European Union countries who can travel around the continent freely versus people like Pangalangan who must endure waits and paperwork in order to secure travel visas and go overseas.
“Begpacking exposes the double standards of passport privilege and reveals the inherent inequalities in our global society,” Pangalangan wrote. “If the shoe were on the other foot, begpacking would be simply called vagrancy.”
Hatton believes that shaming around begpackers is more about race than class, or perceived class.
“The issue is with people having the idea that folks from first-world countries are very rich,” says Hatton. “Perhaps they are, but there are poor people in first-world countries and some of them support themselves through busking. That makes up like 90% of the class of people who get referred to as begpackers.”
He adds: “Hostility tends to come down to skin color.”
The future of begpacking
With Asia slower to reopen post-pandemic than countries in Europe and North America, it’s not yet clear whether so-called begpackers will return to their traditional stamping grounds or if their era is over.
Viral social media photos of begpackers in places like Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong have been appearing on social media in recent months, re-igniting debate over the issue. But Bernstein, the professor in Thailand, believes that this kind of lifestyle is moving online.
People who are trying to raise money for travel have a variety of options, from established websites like Go Fund Me to sharing a donation jar or mentioning a username for mobile payment service Venmo in their vlogs or social media posts.
Is yesterday’s street busker today’s content creator?
Rather than depend on the kindness of strangers, some travelers opt to build online followings and ask their fans to help support them financially.
“I think it kind of represents the growing arena of location-independent tourists blurring boundaries between leisure and work,” says Bernstein.
“I think there is a generational shift between valuing experience over things.”
- Jerry Atrick
- Expatriate
- Posts: 5409
- Joined: Sat May 17, 2014 4:19 pm
- Reputation: 3037
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
No. Wrong
Begpackers fucking beg
That is more accurate a depiction of an itinerant hawker than a begpacker
- John Bingham
- Expatriate
- Posts: 13674
- Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:26 pm
- Reputation: 8892
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
Where's the irony?
Silence, exile, and cunning.
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
They're a total disgrace, I will never understand how those people can be that shameless.
-
- Expatriate
- Posts: 270
- Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2022 6:55 pm
- Reputation: 191
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
I was approached by one yesterday outside Super Duper on st63.
A white old man with a German accent.
He's been at it for years.
A white old man with a German accent.
He's been at it for years.
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
Filipino human rights attorney Raphael Pangalangan wrote in an April 2023 column that the begpackers highlighted the phenomenon of “passport privilege.”
Perhaps if the authorities arrested and deported a few for vagrancy - and stamped their passports accordingly- it could make them ineligible for entry into other ASEAN countries for 5 years. That might curb some of it. It also might get them banned from the EU and other countries too.
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
Go Fund Me is sort of the online BegPacking!
"You can't change the people around you...but you can change the people around you!"
- truffledog
- Expatriate
- Posts: 1658
- Joined: Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:54 am
- Reputation: 1028
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
I completely agree on the fact that I feel privilegded holding an EU passport. I have never been denied entry to any country. I dont know if I would be the same person If I would not have had the same opportunities to travel freely around the world.
Some of the younger generations backpackers just miss the last opportunity to go home.
Some of the younger generations backpackers just miss the last opportunity to go home.
work is for people who cant find truffles
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
Like people who can't afford to have babies, so start begging via gofundme. Dear Ukrainians living in Kampot, if you can't afford to have a child, please use birth control (sorry, a little off topic - not exactly begpacking related)
- hanno
- Expatriate
- Posts: 6774
- Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 12:37 pm
- Reputation: 3142
- Location: Phnom Penh
- Contact:
Re: How ‘begpackers’ became some of Asia’s most disliked travelers
WTF!!!! Keep your dick in if you cannot afford a kid. What losers!
-
- Similar Topics
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
- 1 Replies
- 892 Views
-
Last post by ressl
-
- 40 Replies
- 8460 Views
-
Last post by Clutch Cargo
-
- 11 Replies
- 5164 Views
-
Last post by Andy S Tawatin
-
- 23 Replies
- 3395 Views
-
Last post by Kammekor
-
- 5 Replies
- 1303 Views
-
Last post by armchairlawyer
-
- 8 Replies
- 1411 Views
-
Last post by Chuck Borris
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: cautious colin, Deefer, PSD-Kiwi, ThiagoA and 161 guests