Bogus monks' nightly pub crawl with begging bowls

Working in pairs, bogus Buddhist monks do the rounds of Hong Kong's pubs and clubs, night after night.

In Lan Kwai Fong on Friday, a monk dressed in an orange robe was seen begging for alms by tapping men on the shoulder. He avoided women, the man, who gave his name as Tan, told the Sunday Morning Post.

Another monk, dressed in grey, approached two women but they shrugged him off and walked away.

Speaking in Mandarin, Tan said he was 53 years old and came from Jingzhou in the central province of Hubei. He carried a wooden bowl with a 20-dollar bill inside, and wore several wooden beaded bracelets on each wrist.

He claimed to have been the manager of a food company on the mainland that went bust. His wife ran off with a rich man, he said, and to get over this trauma and help him survive, he became a monk.

When asked if that was why he had to beg, he responded: "Life in China is tough. If I wasn't a monk, I would have to get a job."