Yesterday I tried to translate a posthumous peom that had been written by an anonymous beggar at his dying moment.  Reputedly, the story happened around the era of Qianlong (乾隆) or Jiaqing (嘉慶) at some relatively wealthy area of southeast China.  Though starting to decline, Qing Dynasty was at its peak, the time when people were enjoying the happiness of Qing(享"清"福).  However, there were poor people died of hunger, let alone the famine during those tumultous time.  The root cause could boil down to uneven and unfair distribution on the wealth of society, particular by land gobbling, on which all dynasties had waxed and waned throughout history. 

Not anymore.  Now within Chinese areas, no matter in Mainland or in Taiwan, I believe there may be poor people begging for money, but not for food.  We must say thanks to the advanced tech on agriculture and much better governance; nevertheless, it is still a remarkable achivement for China when we make the comparison between the pupulation of 0.3 billion in then Qing Dynasty and 1.4 billion in now China.