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WotD: Live rough
I’ve travelled a lot in my time, but some of the biggest shocks and most vivid memories I have are of seeing people live rough on the streets of big cities.
I grew up in a small rural town of about 1,200 people.
There were no homeless.
Yes, there were a lot of poor people.
Many families lived hand-to-mouth or from paycheck to paycheck, but we all had a roof over our heads and a warm bed to sleep in at night.
Most families had a subsistence farm growing vegetables and raising animals such as chickens or pigs to slaughter and eat.
Then, of course, most people hunted both for sport and food.
We were poor but not destitute, and nobody was living rough.
The first time I saw someone sleeping rough was in Vancouver, Canada.
I had gone there for the summer to work and experience life on my own.
I’ve always been an early riser and enjoy morning walks.
Walking around Vancouver early in the morning was a real eye-opener for me.
People were sleeping outdoors on park benches or under them everywhere I went.
They were in the parks, sleeping in grimy sleeping bags, and on the beaches.
Homeless people were living rough under bridges, in alleyways and doorways.
It was amazing!
I had never seen anything like it before in my life.
Then, ten or twelve years later, I came to Osaka, Japan.
I never thought I’d see homeless here, but then I went to Tennoji, and once again, my eyes were opened to a new world of living rough in Japan.
There were dwellings constructed out of old wood and blue tarps everywhere.
When you’re out and about today, spare a thought for the homeless.
There’s no joy in living rough.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.