# China is one f\*cked up society
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [October 16, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782 "2011-10-16T02:27:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/21 "2011-10-16T09:37:30Z")
…the above post of mine indicating that this kind of thing (thankfully rare) may be a facet of Chinese culture per se, rather than Communist or totalitarian.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/22 "2011-10-16T09:56:04Z")
I’m a cynical bastard and a misanthrope, but I cannot bring myself to believe that actual human beings would run over a six year old child and then leave her to die on the street like that.
Such behavior is clinically sociopathic by western standards, or actually, by any decent standards. The word “depraved” hops to mind.
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/23 "2011-10-16T10:40:52Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#):
>
> Let’s not forget, [this sort of thing happens in America too.](http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5013503)
>
> [Video link (disturbing)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuxGh5axb2k)
The video claims no one helped, but the article says that four people called 911 upon witnessing the accident. That sounds like help to me, particularly if the callers didn’t know any first aid or how to otherwise deal with the situation themselves. (Perhaps the least they could have done is to walk into the street to divert traffic around him until paramedics arrived. Then again, look what happened when the victim walked into the street to begin with.)
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/24 "2011-10-16T11:21:31Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#):
>
> Doesn’t anyone else think this is faked?
I’m a little skeptical myself.
What undermines the indictment of Chinese society as a whole, however, is that it’s, AFAICT, a Chinese news show broadcasting it with a Chinese broadcaster saying it’s shockingly wrong and expecting the Chinese audience to agree.
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/25 "2011-10-16T11:37:23Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#):
>
> Doesn’t anyone else think this is faked? Look, there is no freaking way that people would walk by and not even glance down at the kid. And there is absolutely no freaking way in China that a crowd would not form.
>
> Sorry but this plays on bad bias and not reality.
Sorry, all I can go on is what I see. That someone who calls himself “China Guy” thinks it’s fake isn’t enough to change that.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/26 "2011-10-16T11:48:08Z")
I don’t think it’s faked. I know it’s too horrible for most of us to comprehend, but [shit like that does happen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjeev_Nanda#The_BMW_hit-and-run_case).
> [@](#):
>
> After running through the policemen, he allegedly stopped the car to check the damage, saw people under the car, and according to the prosecution, at this point co-passenger Manik Kapoor said: ‘‘Let’s go,’’ and they quickly drove away.
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### Author:  [@raskolnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raskolnik)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/27 "2011-10-16T13:06:29Z")
When a country has enough people, not only is anything possible, but the opposite is possible as well.
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### Author:  [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/28 "2011-10-16T13:30:09Z")
I’m not one to bash on China but there is a Chinese guy who works on the same floor of the building that I work on, and we hang out sometimes after work for a few beers or what have you. He’s a pretty switched-on guy and he says there are places in China where you can eat human babies as the main course of a restaurant. I really hope he’s just pulling my leg, but he didn’t seem to be when he told me.
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/29 "2011-10-16T13:42:41Z")
> [@Isamu](#):
>
> I’m not one to bash on China but there is a Chinese guy who works on the same floor of the building that I work on, and we hang out sometimes after work for a few beers or what have you. He’s a pretty switched-on guy and he says there are places in China where you can eat human babies as the main course of a restaurant. I really hope he’s just pulling my leg, but he didn’t seem to be when he told me.
:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@raskolnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raskolnik)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/30 "2011-10-16T13:53:54Z")
aborted fetus maybe…fresh baby no way…baby is too expensive in china especially male baby. Lots of people want to buy male baby, cause their wife had too many abortions and cant deliver anymore.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/31 "2011-10-16T14:05:35Z")
It might be real, but it’s probably fake. I can’t imagine any Chinese parent leaving their toddler alone for even a second. Chinese parents don’t give their kids a lot of freedom- kid leashes are common. Seriously, I used to see ten and eleven year olds riding their bikes, with the grandparents running behind them to catch them if they fall.
> [@Isamu](#):
>
> I’m not one to bash on China but there is a Chinese guy who works on the same floor of the building that I work on, and we hang out sometimes after work for a few beers or what have you. He’s a pretty switched-on guy and he says there are places in China where you can eat human babies as the main course of a restaurant. I really hope he’s just pulling my leg, but he didn’t seem to be when he told me.
This is a [common urban legend](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/cannibal/fetus.asp) in China, and a lot of people believe it. I had quite a few of my students tell me this with utter sincerity.
It turns out that the rumor is based on an art project that someone once did of faked pictures of a guy eating a fetus.
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### Author:  [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/32 "2011-10-16T14:36:15Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> It might be real, but it’s probably fake. I can’t imagine any Chinese parent leaving their toddler alone for even a second. Chinese parents don’t give their kids a lot of freedom- kid leashes are common. Seriously, I used to see ten and eleven year olds riding their bikes, with the grandparents running behind them to catch them if they fall.
>
> This is a [common urban legend](http://www.snopes.com/horrors/cannibal/fetus.asp) in China, and a lot of people believe it. I had quite a few of my students tell me this with utter sincerity.
>
> It turns out that the rumor is based on an art project that someone once did of faked pictures of a guy eating a fetus.
OK, Thanks. I’m glad I was misinformed.
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### Author:  [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/33 "2011-10-16T14:49:39Z")
I can’t bring myself to watch the video. But if it was representative of a society of 1.3 billion, wouldn’t we have lots and lots of similar footage?
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/34 "2011-10-16T16:28:37Z")
> [@jz78817](#):
>
> Sorry, all I can go on is what I see. That someone who calls himself “China Guy” thinks it’s fake isn’t enough to change that.
I lived in Mainland China for 15 years, including 3 years in the countryside in the 1980’s.
1. Video looks faked. The kid walks at the beginning but the impact and running over look edited to me. YMMV
2. There is no way a crowd would not form in China. Just the way it is
3. You have a Hong Kong “news” broadcast in Cantonese showing the film. Hong Kong is full of biased reports on China (as well as legitimately showing things that are not allowed in the mainland). But there is no logo or station identification.
Color me skeptical. :dubious:
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### Author:  [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/35 "2011-10-16T17:57:28Z")
> [@psychonaut](#):
>
> The video claims no one helped, but the article says that four people called 911 upon witnessing the accident. That sounds like help to me, particularly if the callers didn’t know any first aid or how to otherwise deal with the situation themselves. (Perhaps the least they could have done is to walk into the street to divert traffic around him until paramedics arrived. Then again, look what happened when the victim walked into the street to begin with.)
Seriously, it took 1 minute for a cop to show up. People were clearly concerned. They just didn’t know how to act in the situation.
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### Author:  [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/36 "2011-10-16T18:04:27Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#):
>
> I lived in Mainland China for 15 years, including 3 years in the countryside in the 1980’s.
>
> 1. Video looks faked. The kid walks at the beginning but the impact and running over look edited to me. YMMV
> 2. There is no way a crowd would not form in China. Just the way it is
> 3. You have a Hong Kong “news” broadcast in Cantonese showing the film. Hong Kong is full of biased reports on China (as well as legitimately showing things that are not allowed in the mainland). But there is no logo or station identification.
>
> Color me skeptical. :dubious:
I was going to stay the same thing. That’s what post #4 was going to be, but I didn’t want to be that guy that says everything is photoshopped.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/37 "2011-10-16T18:42:49Z")
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that the economic incentives for producing stuff like this are different in other countries. In the US, the best a fake news story could hope to be would be a briefly viral YouTube video, so nobody really has any good reason to produce realistic fake stuff like this.
But in other places, news stations will pay good money for airable sensationalist footage, without worrying too much about veracity as much as how well it makes for good TV. There are a lot of incentives to produce convincing fake news. There are often fake “outrage” news stories- such as the now pretty much debunked story that street vendors were stuffing dumplings with cardboard processed to resemble pork.
If this were the US, I’d ask “why the heck would anyone fake something like that,” but in China, not so much.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/38 "2011-10-16T18:52:19Z")
> [@Isamu](#):
>
> I’m not one to bash on China but there is a Chinese guy who works on the same floor of the building that I work on, and we hang out sometimes after work for a few beers or what have you. He’s a pretty switched-on guy and he says there are places in China where you can eat human babies as the main course of a restaurant. I really hope he’s just pulling my leg, but he didn’t seem to be when he told me.
You haven’t considered the most likely possibility—he has heard this told to him as true (news) but in fact it is a folk narrative (legend) or rumour and is not true. In other words, he believes it, but he’s wrong.
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### Author:  [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/39 "2011-10-16T19:02:40Z")
I don’t think this is fake, but I don’t think it condemns Chinese society as a whole.
But I don’t get these two sentences.
> [@China\_Guy](#):
>
> That looks extremely fake. The toddler was fine but the actual running over, come on sheeple.
>
> The commentary is in Cantonese. Eg, very likely to be sensationalist “news” in Hong Kong.
What do you mean the toddler was fine but for the running over? Did you not see the footage of her in the hospitable? Did you not see her unable to sit up when someone tried to sit her up and pull her out of the road?
I know that Mandarin and Cantonese are the two main versions of the Chinese language. (Don’t get into the fine distinctions of this) are you saying that Cantonese are all a bunch of liars and we should take your word on that?
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [October 16, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-is-one-f-cked-up-society/599782/40 "2011-10-16T19:14:00Z")
Looks fake to me.
While much of the detail is always blurry, the area around the “kid” at the point of impact gets really fuzzy and the “body” does not appear to move the way that I would expect a real body to react to being hit. (I have hit deer and seen others hit deer and the motion of the “kid” does not look right.) Then, when the truck moves on after stopping, the “body” is thrust back by the rear wheels in a way that might be possible, but is not plausible.
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