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Q: Wearers of Red Armbands
Who are the guys I keep seeing in the street with red armbands? I just got accosted by one. It was very confusing as I had no idea what he was saying to me, and my words of Wo bu mingbai had no effect whatsoever, despite my apparently flawless pronunciation according to my colleagues.
Some of these clowns are in Charge of bike parking.
I do not even own a bike after mine got stolen two weeks ago.
Others will yell stuff in Chinese which I often do not understand. Then I will get a sheet of paper shoved in my face and told "Kan kan" (read this) even though I cannot read Chinese (and though I usually understand it fairly well, these red band guys are incomprehensible.
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With a lot of these guys I tend to do something which I never thought I would do.
I ignore them.
I leave them behind me, often shouting at me.
I just don't care these days and, let's face it, what can they do?
GuilinRaf:
I do likewise by default. Not because I want to blow them off, but because I do not have the foggiest idea what they want.
I see a lot of old ladies wearing red armbands at the entrance of my xiaoqu every day. They just seem to sit there and gossip. I think they call themselves "community volunteers" but in effect they are just old age pensioners who sit around doing nothing. It's a good thing though...at least they feel like they are still useful and it gives them an incentive to get out of the house and mingle with others. Better than the old folks in the west who just watch tv all day.
Is this a Beijing thing? Never seen these guys here....
They are probably volunteers. They had volunteers during the olympics and felt that it was good for the community so they kept using them. You might see some of them at the subway helping out. More than likely what you've seen is a volunteer at work. Were they older people because I've seen the same thing.
I saw the red armbands in Beijing sometime after the Olympics in 08 and 09. I thought it odd, as well. So, I asked my Chinese girlfriend about it and she told me that the folks that wore the armbands were "neighborhood vigilantes" whose mission was to help the authorities maintain the "harmony" of the neighborhood. (Harmony. Guess we'd call that "peace and quiet" back in the States.)
So, yeah. Sorta like neighborhood crime watch groups keeping an eye out for peculiar or suspicious-looking individuals engaging or "threatening to engage" in public "antisocial" activity or behavior, and then reporting said individuals to the authorities for action. I guess they are not authorized to make citizen's arrests, but they are empowered to dob any suspicious character in to the local police.
Since I heard that, I tread lightly when I go out on the town, day or night. Do not want to end up in the slammer because a red armband does not like the way I look or walk. (Ergo, I NEVER get obnoxiously drunk and loud in public. Only at home when I'm posting on this board...) 
They're neighborhood watch, when they see something happening they can officially deny seeing it.
