Adventures in fabric

The illustrious Xiamen fabric market--two levels of glorified stalls containing floor-to-ceiling bolts of fabric, row upon row of ribbon and many millions of sewing "notions" (that means buttons, zippers, clasps, etc for you non-sewers). One day I was waiting for my Danish friend to meet me here so we could have some pants (me) and some shirts (her husband) made by a tailor she has used previously. There is another tailor in town, the Shanghai Tailor as he is known by all the many expats who keep him in business, but it is more of a hassle for me to get there. It would involve taking a taxi to the fabric market (cannot figure the bus route to this place and it's too far to walk), finding fabric on my own, taking another taxi to his place and then taking a third taxi home again. So we decided to give this guy a try. I had some pants I wanted to have copied so I showed them to him and he went with me to find appropriate fabric from one of the stalls--I can say the colors in Chinese but not "I want a bit of stretch in the fabric" and other vital information. He was very good at understanding my needs! Then my friend noticed a fitted, wool coat (the kind we call "church coats") on display and asked him if he could make one like it for her. She noticed that it had a fur collar but wasn't sure she wanted it for every occasion. Enter my mad Mandarin skills...I was so proud that I was able to convey the meaning of "removable collar" to the tailor! Okay, what I actually said was "jin tian, wo yao; ming tian, bu yao" which means "today I want, tomorrow I don't want" while pointing at the collar. But we understood each other--victory!! I also had asked my teacher how to say "more narrow" so that he could make the new pants a bit more narrow in the legs...jump ahead to the picking-up day: the pants were not more narrow! He had me try them on in a back room in which a person (woman, I hoped) was sleeping not three feet from the changing area! Not comfortable. Anyway, I asked him to alter them into a better fit, even though that required returning another day to pick them up. My friend's church-coat-with-removable-collar, by the way, turned out fabulous!
Now for the sad and disturbing part of the story...While I was standing outside the market, waiting for my friend, I heard some very loud, very annoying music. When I looked around, I saw a mysterious figure coming toward me exceedingly slowly along the far side of the street.
I didn't want to be rude, but I just had to get some photos of this guy. Notice that this is the actual road, not the sidewalk, and it is quite busy. This guy was paddling himself along on a cart-type thing with a speaker tied to the top, blasting music to gain attention to his plight. He was wearing gloves to protect his hands but was also expending much energy to drag along a metal mixing bowl, in which he sought to collect donations.
While he struggled along, taxis, private cars and even large city busses swerved around him. I was amazed that the drivers could see him in time to avoid hitting him. It took him quite a long time to progress down the road and he paused to look up and get his bearings every few meters (trying to learn the metric system, along with Mandarin...)
When he had passed me, I could see that he was missing his left leg. I wished I'd had a spare wheelchair to give the guy...but I think part of his set-up was intended to draw the most sympathy. Not that I blame him, I know precious little about the social welfare/social security for the disabled situation here in China, but this was a pathetic situation. Anyone care to discuss the current health care goings-on in the US...just kidding I don't care to debate it!