A possible abuse of police power is being investigated.
In Guizhou province, a Party chief and police officer are accused of handcuffing a 13-year-old girl last month after she allegedly splashed water on a government car. She was then paraded around town for 20 minutes. Reports Xinhua:
This would be a rather chuckle-worthy lede from Reuters if it didn't cause us to sigh so loudly:
Ethnic minority people in China's Xinjiang are far more fond of dancing, singing and being good hosts than making trouble, a top official said on Tuesday, dismissing the idea that the far western region is a hotbed of unrest.
The official who said it was the autonomous region's deputy governor, Shi Dagang, who was addressing reporters from Beijing (and not, obviously, thinking his comments would become the laughingstock of the greater media world).
This Shanghai Daily article is just slightly jaw-dropping:
Police are searching for a woman who flushed her newborn boy down the toilet in a dormitory building on Saturday afternoon in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, local media reported today.
The baby, however, got stuck in the L-shaped pipe and his cry alerted other tenants in the building. Firefighters arrived after receiving a call and spent two hours to saw off the pipe to free the baby.
We know laowai song-and-dance videos are passe -- thanks, Jesse Appel, et al. -- but the effort in this latest one is simply too rich to ignore. Matt Sheehan -- who you recognize around these parts as the China Eastern airport rumble writer -- teamed up with his friend Matt Allen to write, direct, shoot, and produce "We Livin in Xi'an," and the result is a perfectly outlandlish little paean to the capital of Shaanxi province, and perhaps the foreigner experience in China.
The facts behind this video are unverified, but people on social media are claiming that a gang of hired goons was recently released on the relatives of a deceased patient at Maoming Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in Maoming, Guangdong province.
It's not clear exactly what grievance, if any, the patient's relatives are filing (or trying to), or what set off the fracas (fists start flying at the 50-second mark, after a chaotic buildup with lots of shoving).
Oh geez, more adventures on buses. In Suzhou, Jiangsu province on Saturday morning, an old man began striking and kicking a young woman he felt should have given him her seat. Of course it's traditional in China for passengers to offer their seats for elders -- we are constantly reminded of this via prerecorded messages on public transit -- but why was this one particular girl singled out?
In Jiyuan, Henan province on Friday, a 26-year-old woman bumped into a 10-year-old girl, which in itself shouldn't have caused a near-riot if not for the words that came out of the driver's mouth...
"I come from an influential family."
Reports SCMP:
An 83-year-old man was riding bus No. 606 in Tianjin on the morning of May 22 when he missed his stop. Instead of doing what normal people might, which is to get off at the next stop and backtrack, he threw a massive fit, lost control, and berated the bus driver, "I didn't see you stop at all!"
And then the old man seized the driver by the shoulder while the bus was still moving -- something no one should do.
The French won gold, silver, and bronze at the European Mahjong Association's French MCR Championship in Toulouse, France on May 18-19. Italians finished fourth and fifth. A Dutch player finished sixth.
The Chinese, who invented mahjong, only had two players place in the top 13 -- Yang Zhang and Cao Lihua finished 7th and 8th, respectively.
What gives?
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