Yes the Italian mafia offers deals you can't refuse, the Chinese mafia offers deals you can't understand.

Yes, I do, but those details are not to be discussed in public, and sometimes not even in private.  But it does exist.

If you read about stuff online, you know what they can do. It's enough to, hopefully, warn you that you probably shouldn't talk about it and try your best not to get involved. Doesn't every country have a mafia? If you are a citizen leading a harmonious life in China, you shouldn't have to worry about it.

Generally speaking, it is best to know enough to avoid them and not much more. This is one case where knowledge is NOT power, just a whole lot of grief.

there is no mafia in harmonious china. that is american lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I heard they can break your kneecaps using nothing but chopsticks and a bowl of rice. And the Buddhafather's decree: "Kiss My 5000 years of history."

How I learned to mind my own business:

I was walking past the Buddhafather's palace the other day.
All the bodyguards were shouting, '13....13....13.' !!

The fence was too high to see over, but I saw a little gap in the planks, so I looked through to see what was going on.....

Some crazy bastard poked me in the eye with a stick! 
Then they all started shouting, '14....14....14.... !!

In first and second tier cities, if the mob exists, they stay way under the radar. I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever here in Hangzhou, or in Shanghai.

However, in third and fourth tier cities, which the government has practically written off, they are the only form of law and order and very present and very visible and very involved in everything.

Even if you don't see the tattooed guys around (and you will if you are in one of those cities), the mob is easily identifiable because the beggars will be mutilated in the exact same ways,. Early on, when I was new to China and lived in a quite poor and lawless city, the beggars in east downtown would never have legs. There were dozens of them, and all lacked legs. Some of them would sing and even have cheap little stereos they would lipsink over. In west downtown, it would always be people with a baby or toddler and a sign explaining their troubled circumstances (on a business trip, got stranded, etc). Having lived in that neighbourhood, I noticed that the same few babies and toddlers were alternated between different beggars. The names of the babies on the signs would remain the same, but the babies would change. The toddlers were extremely docile for children that age. In the south part of town, the beggars were all, 100%, covered with extreme sinuous scarring, likely the result of having had boiling water thrown on them at some point in the past.

A couple years ago, the Chinese government busted what was, by its own accounts, one of the largest slave rings in the history of humanity. From personal experience and anecdotal evidence, I suspect that was just the tip of the iceburg, and someone forgot to pay their modest bribe that month. I doubt there's any real reliable statistical information on what the population of China actually is. According to the newspaper I just read, American will start the nuclear war with China in the next few days, and this is about the 15th time America has launched nukes at China since I've lived here. WWIII t made page four in the local paper, just after "local 87 year old saved by paramedics" and "pork prices are rising." Is anyone really stupid enough to trust their facts when their own propagandists don't take them seriously?