Tianjin 2008
Minor bump between a car and a cyclist in China turns into a riot
Jan 9th 2008
What happened to the Buick you see above didn’t happen in the car accident. The woman driving this Buick through Nankai University campus bumped into a bicyclist, leaving her car with a scratch. That was the accident. She got out and demanded an apology, and then demanded payment for damages. Other students began to gather, and because the woman’s Buick didn’t have a permit to allow her to drive on campus, their first question was where was she from and what was she doing on campus. Her response was « If I produce my identification document you should be scared to death. »
The police came. The driver’s mother and brother came. Campus security came. Teachers came. And more — a lot more — students came. After the driver’s brother assaulted a student who tried to further scratch the Buick, that’s when things got, as they say, « blown out of proportion. » The amassed students had their way with the car, and a 10-inch scratch turned into something more like a salvage title writeoff. Click the link to get the full story. And if you make it over to Beijing for the Olympics, try not to upset the students.
Traffic dispute at Nankai University turns nasty
China Car Times Explaining the Chinese Car Industry and Chinese Cars
This post was taken from a Chinese BBS that was written by a student who was present at the scene.
“This is how it was … A female student was bicycling down the right side of the street on her way back to the dormitory, and a Buick vehicle came along in the same direction. The two vastly different vehicles collided with each other, and the bicycle left a scratch of 20 to 30 millimeters on the car.
At that time, the female car owner got out of the vehicle angrily and demanded an apology from the student. Furthermore, an apology was not good enough because there had to be payment for damages. So the student called her teacher for assistance. By this time, many students had gathered around the scene and one of them asked the car owner: “Where do you come from? Why are you on our school campus?”
The woman said something that was provocative: “If I produce my identification document, you should be scared to death.”
So the students began to confront the car owner while refusing to listen to the police. The police pulled the car owner aside and began a discussion. But the elder brother of the car owner has shown up with some friends. They talked tough and they began shoving the students around! The students were infuriated and there was physical contact. But since the car owner is female, the students restrained themselves.
Then a male student tried to make scratch marks on the car. The brother of the car owner assaulted him and they also demanded that the police take him in. According to rumors, the male students was severely injured (note: it was very chaotic at the time).
Then we called 120 (note: emergency medical service) and an ambulance came to take the injured male student away. The elder brother of the car owner saw trouble coming and quietly sneaked away. This became the focus of the story later on.
The woman was trapped. Her mother came. Although the mother was an elderly lady, she was just as unreasonable and barbaric. The campus security guards also came. But we chased them away. Then the security director came, and the students asked; “How did a car without a permit enter campus? What do you guys do for a living?”
A teacher showed up and promised that the chancellor will be here.
Before the chancellor could arrive, the students demanded that the car owner turn over the person who conducted the physical assault on the male student. That would be the elder brother of the car owner. But the car owner refused to say a word.
Then the security guards showed up again. We started cursing and yelling, and called them a bunch of pigs. Someone said that the security guards were letting outsiders without student ID’s come and go in the university. We now have proof that a vehicle without a permit could come and go on university campus. The security guards were speechless and they could only glare at us. At that moment, someone began to assault the car. First, they broke the windshield glass. Then they yanked out the registration plate.
A teacher came to mediate, but he was told to scram. The security guards tried to stop the vandalism, but the students would not budge and held them off. A teacher then said that the chancellor would come in ten minutes. We stood and counted ten minutes. He did not show up, and so we started to assault the car again. The police tried to stop us, but the students pushed them out. There was some physical contact. One police officer was hit and left holding his head in his hands. The police did not come back again.
The teachers who tried to intercede were dragged off. We asked the people on the other side to disperse, and then we overturned the car. The female car owner tried to stop us, but we dragged her off by force. The car was overturned and the chancellor still had not shown up.
Someone there said that he was from the Student Affairs Office, but the students told him to scram (and that applied to the teachers, security guards and police officers).
Then we broke all the windows on the car and nearly ripped the car doors out. It was quite a scene. But the car was solidly built as the front window never came off.
A student leader jumped on the car and tried to speak, but we couldn’t hear what he was saying. On one hand, his voice had gone hoarse from all the yelling. On the other hand, too many other people were yelling.
Then we Nankai University students got together and sang our school song! When the school song is sung, all Nankai people are united. Back then, the Japanese military bombed our campus but they could not destroy our unity!!! So this city bum couldn’t count for anything!!!!
Finally, Chancellor Zhang Jing appeared and promised:
1. The students will not be pursued for responsibility
2. Traffic within the campus will be improved
3. The instigator will be pursued in accordance with the law.”
anthropologie du présent 