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THE weekend before the last Hari Raya festive season, I happened to be in Penang. With me were two mainland Chinese social activists concerned with rural poverty and migrant communities in China, who were keen to compare urban development and its impact on the poor between our two countries.

As I was touring them around some of Georgetown's best-preserved historical sites, we saw a group of Malay men and women sleeping rough just across the street from the magnificent Masjid Kapitan Keling. A few badly clad children were making fun out of the misery by playing with the matchboxes that they had picked up from the drains, the parents apparently too worn out to pay attention to them.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I went up to ask a pak cik what was going on. His answer shocked me, for they had come all the way from a small village in Kedah to camp near the mosque, awaiting the Hari Raya alms from the worshippers expected to throng the area in a few days' time.

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