Let me tell you stories about these photos first.
In Hangzhou, which is a famous tourist site in China, this elderly man usually show up around the train station. He has been an ERHU busker (Chinese 2-string fiddle) for 2 years in this city. At his age of 70s, he supports himself by performing on the street.
This is a craftsman who molds clay figurines on the street in Xi’an, China. One of his sons is in Beijing as a worker while the other is studying in the college in Beijing. Part of his income from selling clay figurines on the street goes to paying school fee for his younger son, in the meantime, his cost of living also comes from this money. Although molding clay figurines is rarely seen and losting in transmission, one figurine is not more than 1 dollar ( 5 rmb).
He is from Uighur ethnic group of Xinjiang. He moved to shanghai and began his busking life in the central of the city. He plays the traditional flute of his minority group-Weiwuer to attract people to buy the traditional snacks he sells because no one will give him money for his performance.
I took these two pictures when I was in Guangzhou for holiday. These group of old people are retired artists from a Yu opera troupe from Henan Province (Yu). Everyday before going to the street, it takes them two hours to make up and dress up. They never neglect any detail as they want to perform well as what they did the troupe even though few people willing to pay for their performance now. They have been appeared in the local newspaper for many times but it haven’t changed the quality of their life.
From these stories, it is obvious to tell what I found out about buskers in China. First, they tend to be poor people from the bottom of the society. Even though they are living in big cities, they are not actually part of the city as they live a hard life and can not enjoy the welfare a citizen has like health insurance and endowment insurance. Most of them are at their middle age or even their later years but still have to support themselves or even their families. Importantly, most of them feel they are discriminated by others and be recognized as beggar so few of them regard themselves as a busker while most of them even don’t know what is busker.
SPOTLIGHT ON THE STREET 