Standing on a corner in Henan Province, China I am watching an old woman collect plastic bottles from pedestrians. She moves laboriously as she grabs the bottle and shovels it in her torn bag. I quickly took her picture and in the process, caught her attention. She came over and said something in a loud voice. I thought she was annoyed with me. But my translator says she wanted to tell me that I come from “a wonderful country”. A long time ago, she met an American and he was polite to her so she thinks we are all polite. She stared at me a little bit, checked me up and down, laughed to herself and then went back to her task. She gets 1 Yuan for every 10 bottles she collects. So she gets 10 Yuan for every 100 bottles and that is about $1.75. She told me she collects about 30 bottles a day. So she makes about 50 cents a day. She is 80 and this is her daily income. The government sends her 10 Yuan a month . It's it for her total income. She and millions of other people in this country live at this level of poverty.
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