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anonymous
Q: Part 2 : My encounter on Chinese Spring Festival in Shijiazhuang .
Part 2
My encounter on Chinese spring festiaval in Shijiazhuang City on February 15th , 2014.
I am a foreigner, I feel very sad and disapointed in these days, I wrote these words just want to share my feeling with you, and tell me your story if you have the same experience.
The fact is more than what I wrote yesterday.,
That day was on 15th Feb,2014, my family got together to have dinner in the restaurant in shi jia zhuang( the capital city of hebei province). There is a near dinning room to our room,which is very noisy,people shouting as if they are in the park or in the field, I told the waiter to tell them to low their voice, because we have a baby who is only 5 months old… the Chinese people at the next dinning room keep on making a noise for nearly an hour, during this period my baby cried more and more …….
So I went to knocked their door to tell them to low their voice in a polite way, I said please can you low your voice, because we have kids here who is crying……, I didn’t finish my words,one man stood up and shouted at me, get out, this is my country, a foreigner can let me shut up???? I hate this kind of foreigner, I must beat him. After 20 minutes that I have left for our dinning room..All of a sudden,5 Chinese man popped into our dinning room started fighting with me, the waiter told me not to fight with them, they suggested me to go out to avoid the problems, and meanwhile the restaursnt also called (110.) police
When I went outside, the 5 man ran after me to figh and beat me. I didn’t realise some of them go back the restaurant to beat my family. My wife told me they came to the room we stayed two times, they destroyed everything ,they made trouble and beat my family, but my family members are old parents, pregnant sister-in law, a 5 years old girl, a 5 months old baby, my wife and her brother.
And the situation was getting worse and worse after the policemen arrived, they took 3 people in my family( my father-in law, my brother-in law,and I) to the police station, but the 5 man ,4 of them had already escaped. And the last man framed that I cut his hands and frighten us he had relationships in the police station. Really later his friends who were policemen came to pick him up.
In the police station at Tan Gu ( 0086-31185052085), the man told the policeman I hurt his hands, but it was not true.he needed to go to hospital.and then the policeman seperated us in to 3 rooms, they asked us many questions and took record. Can you believe they kept us in the police station for 3 hours and no result. Even they wanted us to pay the man for the treatment and wrote a statement of guarantee,just only in this way we can leave.
Why I feel so disappoined, because till now the police station didn’t give me any result, and cannot find the 5 Chinese men..The men used his brother who so called a police man in another local police relationship to just let this go like that ( GUANG XI ) China with so called Guang xi ..,but destroying things and putting the image of the innocent people down ,helping the image of the bad people raising …
The case is still on ..
10 years 9 weeks ago in General - Shijiazhuang
this is the wild west, unless you have the money to buy someone to kill them or you use force yourself, you will always get screwed in china. always go armed anywhere knives, brass chucks and be prepared, never expect a chinese person to change their behavior for you, they dont give a shit about your baby or anybody else, tic , this is china, dont pay a damn thing for his medical bills and tell the police to kiss your ass. dont back down, cowards love weakness and today is a good day to die and tomorrow will be a better day. you can not rationally solve any problem with a neanderthal, no point in trying.
Robk:
I agree. He has two directions he can go from here.
1) Quietly cover it up and pretend like the whole thing never happened. OR
2) Blow up the situation. Scream bloody murder, contact foreign media, gather as much evidence as you can... hide the family... say "screw you" to the cops. Start taking acting classes and playing the victim card at maximum capacity.
That's what the Chinese do, and it works here.
Contact your embassy with the details. Let them lodge a formal complaint to the Chinese gov't about hate crimes and nepotism in that police station. It's all I can think of. These are misbehaving 'kids', so you need to force the 'parents' into doing something.
Really, is anyone still taking this seriously? I can't wait for part 3.
Wait so this post is to try and restate your story in a more believable way (in your mind). Someone comes to your booth threatening to fight you and you run out and leave your family alone?This version of your story is less believable. The 5 "man" were attacking you outside while they were attacking your family.?
A few questions:
you say the staff asked you to go outside - do you honestly think this would not end badly doing this? : again, you have been in China long enough to get married and have a daughter so i can not believe you were that naive.
did the staff not make a statement to the police as witnesses?
if your family were beaten, did you take pictures as documentary evidence of their injuries as proof to shown the police?
As 'coin' said - did you not contact your embassy if you were threatened in such a way (is your daughter registered as Chinese or your nationality?)
Robk:
I agree.
One hand should be holding a mobile phone in recording mode... the other holding a knife and telling them to back off.
He is pretty green for having already been married and having a kid.
A restaurant it's a wrong place to ask for manners in China. I learnt that I must accept people's organic sounds coming out of their mouth, bowels and so on. I can't pretend much about it.
What happened to you it's outrageous, had that really happened as you describe it in your story. You must be under the pressure of this miserable ad humiliating experience and I can't but be so sorry for you.
What really calls my attention is that even your older relatives were victims of the madness of those people. Something got wrong indeed, in the way things evolved that they could show no respect at all not even to your old family.
Chinese are very sensible to children. Why would they ignore your request for a little bit of respect, I don't get it. Maybe they were really drunk. Either way, I believe including when they're drunk, Chinese still show the same sensibility, even more for the little children. That's my perception about them, because it's when they control less their emotions. Again, something got wrong to the extent that it turned everything so wild. It looked like the Wild West, the Chinese version.
I am not sure either of what exactly did you do to defend your family from this situation.
I know that people in China are able of a great deal of violence. If you help them to not lose face, the majority of them would be happy to avoid conflicts.
I am not going to tell you whether you were right or wrong. If everything you're saying it's true, then I believe it's enough for you to be through all this humiliation. I just hope you can have your family in a better moral shape as soon as possible. I am sure they will blame you for what they had to be through.
I hope you too be strong enough and learn from all this and as long as you live in China look at what is great and good about Chinese, to avoid bitterness, especially after what you've just been through. It will take a great deal of time to remove the bitterness and it's good that you shared it with us. It will help you to faster fix your personal conflicts.
It doesn't matter where you are, people are good, bad, worst, evil. As long as you seek good about anyone around you, there is always a reason to enjoy being with them.
Maybe it's not the moment for such talk, anyway.
I wish you can reconciliate yourself with your family very soon and with yourself as well.
ScotsAlan:
Good post.
Being a victim of a violent crime can be a life changing experience.
The sleepless nights of thinking " I should have done that, I should have done that, if only......"
Guan~Xi's hold the power in China.. All you can do is help your family and recover and learn from this, dont meddle in other people's affair..THIs isn't your country... Now you understand China.
Are you Japanese, by any chance? It would explain why you were subjected to animalistic behaviour displayed by Chinese that even the most cynical of us expats find hard to envision. Given the hatred some of the nutters here hold for japs, I can imagine them attacking a Japanese guy's family, including elderly Chinese in-laws and children.
At the end of the day, try to realize that the only physical injury was the one the other guy inflicted on himself in an attempt to incriminate you. It could have been much worse. I don't know if you can expect any response from the Chinese gov't about the situation, but I'd still report it if I were you.
Chinese media are using hatred for the Japanese to distract locals from real political problems they face. All foreigners get a bit of demonization, but none more so than the japs. By reporting this, it will at least add to the statistic of propaganda-related violence, giving a clear indication of the harmful side-effects of the Chinese gov't's propaganda. S, please report it, for everyone's well-being in this country. The safety of Japanese visitors, as well as foreigners in general. Also do it for the mental health of Chinese people, which is also being damaged by these warped world-views.
coineineagh:
I just thought it made sense. He claims to be a foreigner, but English is at Asian level. And he's cautious to volunteer his actual nationality, which I'd be too if I were Japanese in China
Robk:
Yes, by his posting I would say he is either from Africa, Japan or the Middle Eastern Asia region.
It would be nice if he told us.
Hey there,
You pretty much described it exactly as I had mentioned it probably went down. They were pissed a foreigner was trying to tell them what to do in their own country and felt their manhood was on the line.
This is very common for drunk Chinese men. They are VERY repressed people and when they get drunk any small nudge will make them explode like an autistic 5 year old (notice I lowered the age on this post) kid.
I am sorry for your experience but I don't think anything will come from it. It is truly regrettable. But like I said... ask drunk Chinese men to lower their voices is IMPOSSIBLE unless they are unconscious.
Have to always think three steps ahead here, that's why I always beat them at their own games like "Chinese Chess" and "Connect 5" or "Wei qi".
I know this can be disheartening advice and I know it is easy to say you did things wrong on hindsight by all of us.
If this happened to me, I would be feel extremely angry, humiliated and would probably hunt them down like dogs while hiding my family.
You have my sympathies but more importantly my advice on how to handle it in the future.
Which restaurant was this?
I state again, I live in the Tangu area. The only other "foreigner" is a Canadian called Mark. I know this because the police station you mention is 200m from my flat and we both register there.
ironman510:
He might be Asian, we're waiting for him to tell us where he is from..
mike168229:
A valid point but the police told my wife that there were only two registered outsiders in this area, me being one.
ironman510:
then I bet he's not registered. He's an illegally resident.
coineineagh:
I've heard conflicting statements from local police about immigrants in my county. anging from 1 (just me) to two dozen.When the police visited the house, i was crossed off a sizeable list, so the latter ismore likely. Anyway, don't call his sincerity/legality into question based on hearsay.
Find out who you have to pay compensation to... go to his house and compensate them all with a bullet to the head / serial slashing.
If they beat up your 5 month old Child you should go to the press.
Remember the incident in Beijing where the guy took a baby from a pram and threw him to the ground?
Any similar incident, that has a good chance of being reported out of the country, would soon bring the Government heavies in to investigate.
Don't forget, the press are often the eyes and ears of the authorities. Your story might not make it into the news, but it might just make it further up the chain of command.
Good luck to you whatever action you decide to take, if any.
LesterF:
Just be careful with this particular course of action - it could easily backfire, even on a bigger scale! The risk is that Chinese authorities can easily spin the story and use it to create anti-foreign sentiment if they feel the need to do so. I'm thinking a heading like "Insane foreigner attacks 5 Chinese men with a glass bottle in restaurant"..... A perfect story to be used as propaganda.....
