A 70-year-old British man, who is often seen begging for money at a busy intersection in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, is to be expelled from Vietnam.
An immigration-emigration official of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security told Tien Phong newspaper on Feb. 13 that S.W. would not be penalized and be provided with a free-of-charge visa to leave Vietnam.
S.W. often played harmonica at the intersection of Ly Tu Trong and Pham Hong Thai in district 1 to beg for money from passers-by.
He entered Vietnam on November 19 last year to seek medical treatment. Mr. W. allegedly became a street beggar to earn money to afford hospital fees at FV hospital in Ho Chi Minh City’s district 7.
The Vietnamese online community has shared his story to ask people to support him.
A reporter from Kenh 14 newswire came to his place and tried to talk to him on January 11 evening. She gave him a VND50,000 banknote and revealed she worked for a local newspaper.
The foreigner got furious when she suggested he should contact the British Embassy for help.
He told the reporter that he just wanted money and did not want to get in touch with anybody.
M., a street vendor nearby, told Kenh 14: “I don’t know where he comes from but he shows up there [near a high tension pole opposite a bank in the area] at 3pm almost every day. He moves to a traffic light at around 5 or 6pm. Sometimes, he plays harmonica to beg for money near Trong Dong music stage on CMT8 street in late evenings.”
According to M., people gave him more money than they did to local beggars. Sometimes people in expensive cars stepped out to give him hundreds of thousands of dong.
M. added that he always threw away small-denomination banknotes such as VND1,000 or VND2,000 and even turned angry with the givers.
“Some foreign visitors once picked up small banknotes scattered around him and put them back into the milk-can he used to contain alms, only to be scolded [by Mr. W.]“.
M. gave one more example that on January 12, a little local boy riding a bicycle stopped and gave him some money but the British man got mad at him. “The boy seemed to be surprised by his attitude but remained silent. He gave him a smile and left”, said M.
Meanwhile, K, a representative of the hotel where S.W. stayed, told Kenh 14 that Mr. W. rented a room for VND400,000 (roughly US$20) per day starting from November 19, 2013. She said his visa to Vietnam became invalid from December 14, 2013 and Mr. W. owed the hotel VND14 million (roughly $700) so far.
She denied the rumor that S.W. had his personal papers robbed. “S.W. never told me that his private papers were robbed since we are keeping them. But I can confirm that he received treatment for a disease at FV hospital”.
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