This happens in all major cities everywhere. City living dehumanizes people.

Cowards??
I read an article that one Japanese help up more than 20 men with only a knife.
Scared to get hurt? Hell i mean the Jap can only hurt one, if he is lucky

cities and everywhere else in hohhot they claim they dont resist the thieves because they have knives. in usa many fight back against gun toting thugs. here there is no sense of manhood but yet they believe they can bully their neighbor countries

They're scared and simply put they (most of them) don't care about anyone else. Yes they will watch and do nothing MOST of the time, I had seen 1 man caught stealing BUT he was caught by the woman's husband (he snatched her purse and tried to run) even the security guys simply watched the man chase the thief (useless as tits on a board those guys are) but the husband caught him and smacked him around, of course like anything in China the crowed gathered to watch but never to help...

One time, I saw this old beggar woman hitting a family's child with a long stick. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the father do nothing at all as the mother tearfully screamed and tried to run with her child. I simply grabbed the stick and threw it across the street. The woman was clearly mentally disturbed and harmless. I have no excuse for the husband who was too afraid to defend his family from an old lady.

We really need a Chinese person to comment about this or we will never know the real reason behind the philosophy the Chinese adhere to when they are in such situations.

I believe it's not only a matter of cowardness, but also of good sense.

Let me explain why according to Chinese principles.

1) For Chinese, all thieves are Xinjiang people.
2) All Xinjiang people carry a knife with them.
3) You stop one Xinjiang person, you get 5 of them surrounding you.
4) Police men are so afraid of Xinjiang people that they don't want to arrest them.

My wife told me of stories (true or not I don't know) of people interfering in Xinjiang's people robbing business, and be immediately surrounded by several of them and get beaten up without anyone else interfere.

Once I prevented a young woman to get robbed by a Xinjiang child (her mentor was not far being her), by telling her "mentor" that if she wouldn't stop her attempt, I will call the police. Then they moved away, but my wife was scared to death of my action.

I've had that before too. Our real estate agent tried to screw us over and I marched down to his office and told him to get F*cked in a very loud conversation. My wife tried to stop me the whole time and tried to convince me to just LET the guy screw us over.

I think there's two kinds of people in China, the bastards that mess everyone around and the people who just lie there and take it. There seems to be no in between.

"I believe it's not only a matter of cowardness, but also of good sense." It makes no sense in the same sentence... good sense and cowardliness are both ok? or not ok or one is ok but not the other? I don't get it....

@nevermind, it is all about losing face. God forbid anyone lose face when they can just get screwed over and feel good that they kept face. On the other hand how much face does a person lose if they get screwed over? Maybe that part of it is just kept quiet and everyone silently involved agrees that no face was lost even though it was destroyed totally.

I think Sangoku said very image, and this is just one of them.

well I`ve never see nobody get robbed near to me, I come form south America, where people get robbed every minute... things in china are different...

malcolb: go visit hohhot in jan or feb especially they go into the stores and pick pocket people and people just ignore them while they steal their money and others chinese men are gutless, in my 2 months in the south guangzhou and nanchang i have not seen anyone robbed and people seem more honest , in hohhot school kids crowd on to the rear door of the bus in order to avoid paying, here people send the money up

Gutless.. Nice way to put it.

Bloody shameful and shameless at the same time, if you ask me.
What kind of... MAN... would stand by and idly watch as some lunatic robs another without lifting a pinky or breaking a sweat?

Won't call you a man, mate! I would kidnap the thief, take him home, strap his fingers to my dining room table, pull out a hammer and break those itchy little buggers one-by-one, in unison to the words: "YOU SHALL NEVER STEAL AGAIN!"

Then throw the "innocent bystander" who just stood by with his thumb up his arse and do the same - shouting a different sentence, of course.

Cheers