"Mendicants"
When an idea for a new Field Guide episode struck me I had thought to tackle street people of all kinds: beggars and itinerant priests in Japan, the homeless, panhandlers, bag ladies, peddlers, hobos, transients and vagrants, hookers and pimps—all the people who live and eke out a livelihood on the street or on the fringes of society. It quickly became apparent that this was too broad a range, and I saw I would have to narrow the focus just to mendicants and others whose income depends primarily on begging.
Beggars have been a feature of societies worldwide for millennia but seem to be more visible—or perhaps just less welcome—in contemporary urban life, especially in industrialized countries. In classical Japanese haiku we encounter most frequently 乞食 kojiki or kotsujiki, beggars, who are simply paupers who make their living by begging (I note that Jisho, the Japanese-English online dictionary, indicates that kojiki is a “sensitive” term, which suggests that since Issa’s day the word has acquired a negative connotation.)
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