McRefugees in Shanghai find refuge in fast food joints

Shanghaiist points us to an interesting article (in Chinese) about McRefugees, residents of Shanghai who spend their nights sleeping in McDonalds because they don't have enough money to pay rent.

...[McDonald's] spokesperson Mr. Lu said the store "doesn't explicitly allow it, but doesn't explicitly disallow it." But for all the stores in the Tianyaoqiao Lu area, KFC has the most serious McRefugee problem. "Because there's sofas there, [McDonalds] only has hard stools. In the winter, people will even bring their blankets and bedrolls into the restaurant."
< This is a loosely connected group. Every night after 10pm, they gradually gather here. All they have is a backpack or a canvas bag, or sometimes nothing at all. They usually sit at the farthest booth from the ordering station, and never order a drink. To entertain themselves, they bring kung fu novels, financial or educational books, and leftover newspapers from other customers. After midnight, they are scattered around every corner of the restaurant. Some in the sofaed partitions, using their books or newspapers as pillows, leaning over tables or even using rows of seats as beds.

A similar phenomenon exists in Japan's internet cafes and fast food joints, too. I once met an internet cafe refugee in Tokyo; he used to wait tables at a bar but was having trouble finding work and didn't want to go home to his parents', so he spent most of his evenings sleeping in internet cafe booths or riding around the Yamanote train line.

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.

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retchdog

And if only the libertarians could have their way, the US might be a similarly paradisal liquid labor market!
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Don’t you?
Anonymous

This is also popular in South Korea for late nighters. Most McDonalds and Lotterias are 24 hours and have multiple floors so there is plenty of place to flop out in and wait for the transit to get up and running again. The staff there don’t even bother you it is wonderful.
Xenu

This makes a lot of sense, really. After dark a lot of businesses shut down. Why NOT let the homeless sleep there?
- eAi
  
  Because someone would have to tidy up after them, and clean the toilets etc.
  
  That’s not to say I disagree – but there’s clearly a cost to allowing homeless people live in your place of business.
  - CeeDee
    
    Exactly. There is no explicit policy, and no one there gets paid enough to shoo people out when they’re taking up a bunch of seats or generally creeping out the customers.
    
    This also may be in a country where there’s enough of a shame culture that these people do generally pick up after themselves, and don’t cause a disturbance.
    
    My husband worked at a drug store here in the US where the truck drivers would be handed a snow shovel when they made deliveries. The snow shovel was for shoveling away the human excrement from all the homeless people that would use the back alley as a toilet. The alley was otherwise unpassable when it was time to deliver merchandise. Stories of what happened to the restrooms inside the store are no less horrifying. Oh yeah, and don’t ever buy the first box of toothpics on the shelf. They would routinely come in and use a few, then put them back in the box. I could go on.
    
    I can sympathize with the fast-food restaurant owner who says “please don’t sleep here.”
    - nic
      
      This is partly the result of not paying the staff to care, but also partly a sense of solidarity between low level service workers and the homeless vs a relatively wealthy employer and a multinational franchise.
      
      If you go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, you will be accosted by hundreds of children a day trying to sell you baubles for whatever they can get. Even if you hire a local guide, the guide will stay well clear during any negotiations and will almost never shoo the kids. Both the guides and the children are dependent on the tourist, and nether party is going to spoil the others business.
  - Xenu
    
    As long as they’re not super messy, I bet this is cheaper than running a homeless shelter.
MikeonTV

As if I needed a reason to avoid going into a McDonalds or KFC before reading this, now I have homeless Chinese guys sleeping next to my quarter pounder!
- dainel
  
  Exactly. This is why I’ve had to ask homeless people to move on, and not sleep right in front of our shop. Scares away the customers.
  
  You could see that most people will stay well away from them. If you have a retail shop, whatever products is displayed near where they sit down will not be sold that entire day. Some customers wouldn’t even come in at all. You could see them pause quite a distance away, look at the person sitting/sleeping on the floor, and then walk off in another direction.
  
  I can’t imagine any restaurant allowing people to sleep on the chairs/tables, much less bring in blankets.
  - Jack
    
    The thing is that it depends on the place, context and culture. There are tons of stores in NYC where there is basically one homeless person who “claimed” the area as their territory. The unwritten rule is pretty clear: Don’t harass the customers too much and you can stay out here.
    
    There are some things in life you just can’t get rid of. And it’s better to deal with the neighborhood “characters”. In fact I will tell you what my mom did:
    
    I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, and was pretty independent as far as playing on the street goes. I was about 8-10 years old at this time. My mom and dad and neighbors would hang out in front of the building, but there would also be various “casualties of life.” My my gleaned on one guy who was youngish (20s?) and would make him Muenster cheese sandwiches on Wonder Bread. She’d pass them onto me and tell me to give them to “Bill.” Bill was basically an innocuous acid causality. But here is the rub. Not only was he graciousâ€”he said my mom was nice to doing thisâ€”but the added benefit: He’s another set of eyes on the street who would look out for the kids.
    
    Seriously, when older kids and jerks came around, guess who shouted them off or told them to go away? Bill did.
    
    Never knew what happened to him or where he is now, but I learned to appreciate the “ecosystem” of the city.
    
    Heck, you know the attempted bombing in Times Square? Who were the firs two people to see the van smoking and call the cops? Two Vietnam Vet street vendors. Not specially trained, nor an electronic surveillance system, but basically two guys who are on lower rungs of society who naturally keep their eyes peeled and they helped stop a tragedy.
    
    I don’t know what kind of shop you own, but I suggest finding some way to work with these folks. You never know if they will end up being a key witness if someone tries to steal or break into your shop.
    
    The rest of us have full-time jobs: The folks on the street (for whatever reason) pay attention to everything else.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Do you live in Empathydeficitistan?
    - Cicada
      
      Dude, you can’t just drop whatever you’re doing to care for the less fortunate.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        You seem rather confident as to who is the “less fortunate”…IIRC, Glenn Gould used to hang out in all-night restaurants.
        Who?
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould
        
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyOf_L4cNHc
        
        You never know about the people you see unless you actually care to speak with them.
        That “less fortunate” person may be in the midst of a first-class life story. Or not.
        The point is: who are you to judge? What do you know about that person, until you interact with them?
      - dculberson
        
        I think that was a joke.
        
        @Jack: Thanks for the cool story, that’s really neat.
      - Ugly Canuck
        
        Oh. Sorry then.
        Thick of me, eh?
        
        Oh and I did mean “mores”, in my above comment, in this sense:
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_tempora_o_mores!
        
        I oughter keeps my comments in English that’s proper, wot? Not bargled up with all that foreign tosh, means I.
squidarthur

Not really refugees, but McHomeless sounds a little coarse. Obviously the poster doesn’t spend a lot of time at the local Denny’s, this is a pretty common phenomenon that’s not limited to the far east.
Euryale

Looks kind of like the fast food joints in Penn Station.
Ugly Canuck

Jeez, here’s an altogether more sad piece which arguably points to more Chinese-American convergence of mores:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/gunman-kills-three-judges-china

A discouraging similitude.
DelicateFlower

The McDonald’s restaurants in Shanghai have the best public restrooms in the city. I was deeply grateful for them as a tourist, and I’m sure these folks are too.
Chico Harris

I did this when I went up to New York for the last homestand at the old Yankee Stadium, at that McDoanld’s right there. They were cool about it.
bolamig

That looks more spacious than a capsule hotel.
landale

I work nights in a 24 hr large chain donut shop in the U.S and we get similar problems a lot. People discharged from the local hospital get stranded, people who clearly have no place to go sometimes sleep there, and the local mentally ill guys will hang out all night and talk to themselves. There’s even one guy who goes into the bathroom for 30 minutes to do his laundry. We’re supposed to throw them out, but I feel quite sorry for most of them and leave them alone unless they cause trouble. It must suck to have no place to go, or to live out of a car, or to be thrown out of the hospital, ill and with no way home.

This is occasional rather than every night, but it’s there, it happens, and it’s a shame… I’ve seen a lot more poverty since I came to this country then I ever saw in my homeland.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  It’s too bad there’s no way to get some subsidy from the local Authorities for providing what seems in essence clearly a public service – at least it seems to be a public service to me.
  Keep up the good works!
  And if they are too stunned, indifferent or stoned to say it, take my “Thank you!” on their behalf for any help you throw their way!
  And I thank you again in advance this time on behalf of everybody who should neglect to do so for any help which you may give to them at any time in the future!
  After all, courtesy costs so little.
Ugly Canuck

Ah-ha!
The true faces of the modern urban proletarians!

A song about cheeseburgers, (make it a double-decker!) for them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWq6ckRrmME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLi3rawArrU

From those venomous pests & murderous pigs the Gang Of Four traitors…although time has apparently thinned their numbers, and hair…I’m sure they are remembered in Shanghai for their crimes against the State.