If He Walks and Talks Like a Monk, but Has His Hand Out...Panhandlers Dressed as Monks Confound New Yorkers

If He Walks and Talks Like a Monk, but Has His Hand Out...Panhandlers Dressed as Monks Confound New Yorkers 

The article written by Joseph Goldstein and Jeffrey E. Singer is about a particular group of people found in the Times Square. These are the people of Chinese descent with shaved heads and dressed in orange, brown or gray robes. They offer good wishes and peace to the people, offer them a bracelet or a shiny amulet and ask for the donation of minimum 20 dollars. They have a notebook on which they write the name of people giving them the donations. There are women dressed in as Taoist nuns adopting the same tactics of begging and grabbing money. These people have been confronted many times, but they are always evasive of questions and telling their religion, temple and identity. Similar types of people are found in Australia, Canada and Hong Kong as well. Few of them have been arrested for aggressive begging as well. These fake monks are the source of defamation of Buddhism around the world.


Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/nyregion/panhandlers-dressed-as-monks-confound-new-yorkers.html

kun