text: what the most messed up thing you ever saw in your life?   this is hard to say even now.  i was travelling in china about 10 years ago.  i was in a city near the border where there were a lot of tourists and hence a lot of beggars on the street.  the beggars were mostly children - perhaps 8 to 12 years old.  what made it worse was that they had babies with them - babies that they left lying on the sidewalk until they saw you coming, then picked them up and ran after you asking for money.  i never heard one of the babies cry and i still wonder how many of them were already dead and where their supply of them came from.  there would be 2 to 4 children (with their babies) on each street i walked.  i only went out the once; i couldn't take it any more.