A friend of mine who is an English teacher in Yangzhou, China, reported that two nights ago two of his fellow teachers were waiting for their McDonald’s order when a Merc being driven at high speed crossed the sidewalk and slammed straight through the front of the store and into the counter, pinning one of them against it.
Thankfully both survived, one with serious but not life-threatening injuries to his legs. My friend takes up the story:
Anyone who speaks Mandarin, I would really appreciate it if you could summarize the salient points of the news report. Was the driver drunk? What do they expect his punishment to be? Was the shameful aftermath reported?
I live in China, about a hundred miles from Yangzhou, and this is my first time to hear about this.
Why did one of the teachers smash the camera of a guy taking pictures ? The pictures could possibly be used as evidence of what had happened.
I am not surprised that the Chinese police refused to help. The crowd was encouraging an “us versus them” mentality, and the police would probably not be brave enough to go against the crowd.
Having a serious medical problem in China is one of my greatest fears. There are very few ambulances with equipment or trained staff, and the most likely way to the hospital is by taxi.
Bystanders often refuse to help out of fear of being held responsible.
Doctors in the hospitals are also afraid to help foreigners as many believe that foreigners are too different or are infected with AIDS.
I’m sure that wasn’t running through their minds. I’d imagine people would be angry and in shock and not acting rationally.
Obviously not attacking the gawker would have been a much better outcome, but I’m sure you’ve experienced bystander gawking yourself - it’s annoying and sometimes downright inhuman.
I have often witnessed the gawking during my walks in China.
A friend of mine calls it “street theater”, and it does seem to occur when anything
happens in public.
Why did the Chinese bystanders try to convince the taxi driver not to help the friends trying to go to the hospital? Is it racism, or resentment of foreigners because the common idea is that foreigners have a lot of money, or something else? Or was it just because they smashed the one Chinese man’s cell phone/camera?
I do not believe that resentment of foreigners being rich would have been a factor.
Many Chinese do not think of all foreigners being rich any longer due to the financial problems in the West.
Yangzhou is not a poor city, many of the Chinese residents are very rich.
McDonald’s is not a cheap place to eat in China, and most of the customers are at least middle class.
When China first start inviting foreigners to China to teach English many of the Chinese people were thankful for the foreigners for helping China.
Now that China is being flooded with foreigners escaping financial problems in their home countries and going to China seeking work, many of the Chinese people now resent the foreigners that they perceive as being financially irresponsible and bringing “Western problems” to China.
My guess is that racism and the violence of the smashing of the camera are the reasons behind the people telling the taxi driver to not help the teacher.
We’ve had a thread discussing China’s gawk problem before. People who’ve helped out at accident scenes have been held financially responsible for it in the past. So nobody does anymore.
When a toddling baby was a victim of a hit-and-run by a truck, many people walked past without stopping to help (they just looked at her). In fact, she got run over again by a passing motorbike–and he didn’t stop either. It wasn’t until her mom found her lying on the ground that anything happened at all. I’m fairly sure she died, and might have lived if someone had stopped to help. But there’s a very strong financial incentive not to help.
Ok, here’s a quick rundown of the broadcast from about 2:20
The driver was Mr. Yu from Yangyao city. He is 19, worked in a bar. The night in question the Mercedes owner was drunk so Mr. Yu drove him home.
The drivers own words under questioning:
Why drive so fast? “I was trying to beat the red light.”
Why did you hit the resturant? “I drifted left because i was nervous”
Were you drinking? “I only had a small drink”
News report highlighted that you have to be 21 to get a license. Then moral commentary around You can’t drink and drive, people get hurt, you ruin your own life too, etc
Nothing on the crowd. Reading your friends account: I’m not clear why the teacher smashed someone’s phone for taking pictures. Heat of the moment I suppose.
If you smash the mobile phone of a jerk with jerk friends and none of the foreigners speaking Chinese, I could understand how it could escalate out of hand. For people playing at home, one’s mobile phone in China can literally be the most expensive thing they own, and probably the most important thing they own. And picture taking/videos at the scene is common practice pretty much around the world these days, no? Not sure but I would also suspect that among the foreigners, none of them spoke Chinese fluently (would that be the case)? If you can speak Chinese, de-escalating a situation like this generally isn’t hard in my experience.
Once that crowd mentality takes over, and especially if you can’t really speak Chinese, then I can understand it getting so ugly. (I don’t condone it)
Another question I would have is if the driver really was the kid? Or the kid is taking the fall for the Mercedes owner?
Isn’t there a law against having any alcohol at all in your blood, in China? I think I’ve heard that anything above a zero BAC is a trip to the police station.
From extrapolation of what my friend has written, the guy was screaming, trapped against the counter, and the crowd were just standing there not helping. Then one of the crowd leaned in to take a happy snap, and one of the uninjured teachers lost his head and smashed the phone, leading to a nasty altercation.
Speculation: as far as I can tell, these are young British men and women who haven’t been in China very long, so are probably using their own moral compass: in the UK taking ‘ghoulish’ photos of an injured person without helping would be unthinkable, or at least the mob would turn on the photographer rather than a person who attacked the photographer.
However, the guy they’ve arrested is indeed the driver. He tried to run off (again the police did nothing) but one of the other teachers grabbed him. He punched the teacher, so the others jumped on him and held him down until more cops arrived and took him away.
It’s not just that. There’s something cultural too. Similar incidents of bystander neglect have also happened in Hong Kong where such laws don’t exist.
Yeah, I should point out that I’ve travelled extensively in China, and always had a great time; I’m a Sinophile, and individual Chinese people I know are the kindest, friendliest people you could ever want to meet. But I’ve never been in big trouble in big China.
However I’m not blinkered to some of the (what westerners perceive as) problems in the culture: the ‘bystander effect’ and mob mentality seems to be much stronger - and quicker to kick in - in China than in the west.
if you look at the phone smashing from a Chinese government media as a propaganda tool point of view, it is not surprising that this was not reported. As is, you have a drunk driving example that is very black and white. Foreigners got hurt but are being looked after with modern medical equipment. Justice is being served, a message about a social ill sent out.
If you then change it to smashing a camera, a mini-riot, trying to prevent injured people from going to the hospital, well, then no one looks good. It’s hard to report, and difficult then to make the message of “don’t drink and drive.”
if it is a mob, it appears to be a reasonable one. they did not stop the one with the injured legs from going to the hospital and did not try to help the mercedes driver when he was forcibly detained.
