White begpackers are also begging because they are in need
Most people know what a backpacker is, but have you heard of a begpacker?
A begpacker is someone, typically of Caucasian ancestry, who travels around in East Asia and finances the trip either by begging, asking for donations for street shows or by selling souvenirs, post cards or other small items on the street.
Ostracised by the media
Together with three other researchers, tourism researcher and assistant professor at 兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端 University, Matias Thuen J?rgensen, has studied why these begpackers have received so much criticism from media in Hong Kong.
“It’s hard to understand how big of an issue this is in Hong Kong and throughout East and South Asia when you are in Denmark. However, it’s a huge subject of debate. The narrative in the media has been – and is – that there is a kind of re-colonisation taking place where rich, white 兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端st Europeans come to Asia and use it as their exotic playground, and now, on top of that, they also want the ‘poor’ Asians to pay for their trips,” says Matias Thuen J?rgensen.
“Our project puts a human face on a group that is heavily discussed but who have not otherwise had a voice in the debate,” he explains.
“In the media, there is no distinction made between those who beg and those who play music or sell things. The recurring theme is that there are outsiders who use begpacking to finance their trips – and that is where the potential problem is, because taking a trip is viewed as a luxury.”
Travelling around the world and making money for your needs and the next leg of the journey is according to Matias Thuen J?rgensen neither a new or a geographically-limited phenomenon. What is new is that today this type of travel is more organised, as begpackers meet in various online forums, exchange tips and search for information.
The narrative was found to be untrue
Based on the negative coverage, the researcher group believed that their study would focus on why a white middle-class group had begun going to Asia to let a less well-off local population pay for their self-realisation projects.
The reality, however, turned out to be quite different:
“All of the begpackers that we interviewed and by far the majority of those we talked to but who did not want to be part of our study turned out to be, to some extent, begging for money or donations because they had to do so,” says Matias Thuen J?rgensen.
The researcher group spoke to a total of 20 begpackers, and eight of them agreed to formal interviews. Out of those eight, four earned money from ‘busking’ - i.e., playing the guitar, making theatre or performance art in return for donations from those walking past. Two of the begpackers sold various items while the remaining two simply begged for money.
Begpackers from former USSR countries
Over half of the begpackers who the researchers interacted with were from former USSR countries, which came as a surprise to the researchers.
“兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端 interviewed some Russians and Ukrainians who couldn’t go home for security-related reasons - in principle, they were refugees. After they had left, conflicts stated in their home country that meant that they couldn’t actually go home,” he says.
The researcher group could therefore conclude that begpackers are a somewhat more heterogenous group compared to how they were being represented in the public debate. There is an overlap between those who want experiences, those for whom this is a lifestyle and those who do it because they have to.
“兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端 had expected the first two, but not so much the last component that was seen in our study. They have to do it because they can’t just go home and they can’t get a visa to another European country - so instead, they spend their time elsewhere,” says Matias Thuen J?rgensen.
Some begpackers make good money from it. On average, the eight participants in the study made DKK 250 per day, while the highest earners made around DKK 1,000 per day.
A lot of people liked the begpackers
The second part of the researcher group’s study involved finding out how the local community actually viewed the begpackers.
“It is often the case that those who yell the loudest get all the attention on social media, so in order to get a more nuanced view of the local community’s attitudes towards begpackers, we wanted to ask the people who interact with them on the street what they thought,” says Matias Thuen J?rgensen.
Therefore, one of the researchers dressed up as a begpacker and found various spots in Hong Kong to play the ukulele. It turned out that quite a few people going past stopped and donated money to the musician.
“Those who gave money typically wanted to donate for philanthropic reasons or because they felt that since they enjoyed the music it was a form of exchange going on.”
The researcher group also interviewed people who reacted negatively towards the begpackers:
“There were several reasons for people not wanting to donate money or reacting negatively. Some felt that it was annoying with music on the street and others felt that it was odd to find a white man begging for money,” Matias Thuen J?rgensen explains.
The media outlets reproduce a black and white picture of reality
Matias Thuen J?rgensen was surprised over several of the things that he and his researcher colleagues discovered in their study.
“I was surprised that there were so many who did not fit into the media narrative that was presented,” he says.
“I think it’s an example of how social media can be part of spreading a message about certain groups. If someone takes a picture of a begpacker and shares it on social media with a negative comment, it can quickly take off. When a pseudo media picks up the story and shares it, then at some point it reaches such a critical mass that the serious part of the press begins writing about a phenomenon that has not been studied.”
Even though this is a small study and the results need to be tested further if one wants to go deeper with it, Matias Thuen J?rgensen has no doubts about the relevance of the project:
“Generally speaking, our research tells us that tourism and tourists are heterogenous and can be many things. It’s not just about charter holidays and ice cream cones, it is about self-actualisation and, in some cases, also about serious problems such as expulsion and rootlessness,” he says.
The project also has links to post-colonial wounds and the debate about race, Matias Thuen J?rgensen points out:
“White people often benefit from their skin colour in Asia. This in itself might be provocative - seeing the normally privileged white people asking the non-privileged locals for money.”
The study is authored by Dr. Denis Tolkach, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Dr. Matias Thuen J?rgensen, 兴发娱乐官网手机版客户端 University, Professor Stephen Pratt, University of the South Pacific and Dr. Wantanee Suntikul, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It is published as ‘Encountering begpackers’ in Tourism Recreation Research.
Published in Rubrik #15, 2019
A new project is on its way
Soon, Matias Thuen J?rgensen will begin studying the development of the new baggage policies from the airlines. An old discussion about whether the prices of flights should be based on the total weight per passenger, including baggage, has now picked up again as global warming is high on the agenda. More airlines are therefore, so it is said, considering using CO2 emissions as an argument for differentiating the price of tickets based on weight.