I read the NYT article on this, and apparently the New York City Rescue Mission convinced him to give them the 90,000 for homeless services, rather than give the money out to the people directly (because they feared it would be used for drugs and alcohol).
That is a far-ass cry from the nearly one million dollars he would've given out if he'd done it the way he said he would.
Hard to say how responsible for this debacle the NYCRM is, but it SOUNDED like it was their idea.
I love the part at 6:48 where an anthropomorphic slice of wonderbread robotically wanders out of the building to tell everyone they couldn't be trusted with 0.
The article I read on it made it pretty clear the Mission was to blame for the welching. They provided the homeless for the lunch and insisted that they couldn't be paid directly, or they'd back out of the deal. They've got a faith based step program and whole bunch of bullshit hoops they put guys through as a condition of housing them. Fuck their power trip.
Man I wish either everyone in the entire world was moderately rich and enjoyed a good quality of life OR I was supremely rich and powerful and thus able to make the previous statement a reality.
This stunt was messed up. Chen Guangbiao had his assistants dress up as Red Guards for this. This wan't just "Mao era soldiers", the Red Guard was a source of serious mental and physical trauma. He's basically reviled and a source of embarrassment in China.