There are a lot of things we like about this 35-second video. There's the automated voice -- which we've heard so many times that it now exists in the realm of our subconscious -- telling us that the train is nearing Dongdan on Line 1. There's the shouting: Waarrrrgh! Aaarrrrrgh! There are the passengers nearby, especially the man in the white shirt. There's the voice of the woman off-camera who, as if beseeching children, says, "Stop fighting. Just stop." And is that man on top trying to stuff the other guy into a box? Pure joy all around.
This video is from April 1 of this year, but was just released on Youku five days ago. It shows at least two female employees of a KTV in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province getting attacked -- innocently, says the video description -- by ruffians just after 10 pm. One person was sent to a psychiatric hospital following the assault, and three others were injured.
The more of China you see, the more you understand to not take things at face value. But not knowing a thing about the lead-up to this brawl in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province on Monday -- maybe the villagers were being really annoying, I dunno -- we wonder: how big is the budget for chengguan at this place? I see several dozen of them on the scene, fighting about, oh, six to eight people. (We're not completely sure what's up with the uniformed men in white hard-hats. The Youku description says there were 50 to 60 chengguan.) One villager gets stomped while he's already down.
Flight delays are frustrating, and if you, in the midst of a four-hour delay, have never allowed yourself to think barbarous, shamefully uncivilized and cruel thoughts, it doesn't make you a better person: you're just that smug asshole everyone always wants to punch.
But no one actually does punch you, and have you ever wondered why?
Citing "extremely bad influences," the police bureau in Tangshan, Hebei province has fired two traffic wardens who were caught on video fighting in an intersection, completely neglecting their job.
A young woman got into a fight with subway security last Friday at Beijing Subway’s Changping Line. According to the video description, the scuffle began when she refused to put her bag through the X-ray machine, reportedly saying, “My bag costs twenty-fucking-thousand bucks, can you afford to touch it?” She then began cursing the poor security guards, with her male companion joining in.
Two spicy women came to blows on the Chengdu subway after reportedly bumping into one another, or something. Check out the woman in green who takes a seat next to one of the lassies at the 40-second mark, and immediately regret it. Her spot is vacated 15 seconds later.
The summer heat -- and it's been damn hot in Beijing -- is getting to people. Here, two female passengers on Bus 680 get into a bit of an entanglement. We commend the conductress who tries to break things up, and even picks up a dropped item (pearls?) and asks who it belongs to.
And the guy filming -- good job to you as well. Your video has 203,000 views on Youku.
Thunderstorms in Shanghai on Friday caused massive flight delays and more than 100 cancellations in the city's two major airports, Hongqiao and Pudong, and as you might expect, tempers boiled over. We don't know how many dozens of arguments broke out in terminals around the city, and how many of those turned into fights, but at least one was caught on camera. It involved -- yes, once again -- China Eastern Airlines.
Certain people in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province have been petitioning for more than a year for legal action to be taken against corrupt Party members in their small village (this was before the government's latest enabling of online petitioning, of course). Recently, authorities responded: by sending in the goons.
It could be that I have absolutely no understanding of Taiwan politics, but holy catfight! "Members of the ruling party and opposition party fought for control over the rostrum, ahead of a scheduled discussion on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant referendum," Taiwan-based The China Post explained.
Taiwan's legislature is notorious for its brawls between legislators -- i.e. elected adults who are supposed to be the representatives of a democratic, civil society -- but this recent fight brings politics to a new level: pinching, shrieking, hair-grabbing, pushing, crying. And whatever is happening here:
The latest case of chengguan violence comes from Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, where officers reportedly beat up the boss of a restaurant and his family and acquaintances.
On June 9, after a meal, chengguan went to the parking lot and found a car blocking its way. They demanded that the vehicle be moved "within three seconds." The restaurant's boss came out, but unable to move the car within three seconds, he suffered a beatdown.
Even while bashing the institution of urban management and enforcement -- so neatly summed up in one word, chengguan -- we acknowledge that the officers tasked with urban bureaucracy -- keeping street peddlers X meters away from the curb, making sure businesses have proper licenses, etc. -- do unenviable and difficult work. Keeping in mind that every time we see a video of chengguan beating the snot out of someone, the chengguan have their side of the story, too (and their side of the story probably has another side as well), let's examine one particular case from a few weeks ago in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, featuring a chengguan jumping on the face of a bike shop owner who was wrestled to the ground.
Check out the dude casually smoking a cigarette at the 7-second mark. There are at least two jumping kicks, so this is good entertainment. Alas, the fight ends much too fast. The spectators probably didn't get their money's worth.
On the afternoon of May 31, chengguan in Yan'an, Shaanxi province reportedly got into a scuffle with merchants. The video that was posted to Youku shows the civilian eventually being surrounded by urban management officers, with one particular chengguan -- the fat one, natch -- delivering a terrifying two-footed stomp on his head. Witnesses say the chengguan smelled like he was drunk.
When you live on government land, what's yours isn't really, since it can be taken away in a whim. Of course, all land in China technically belongs to the government, so no one, in effect, can claim for him or herself that most basic of Maslow's needs, shelter. Which is perhaps why the issue of demolition in China is such a tinderbox, ready to explode with cries about fairness, justice, and -- forbid -- a government's scope of power.
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).
Fun fact: three of the stories we’ve posted in the past two days have been from Shenzhen. It’s where Alicia and I happened to be this weekend (for Ultimate Frisbee), and on Sunday we attempted to fly back.
Attempted and succeeded — but barely. A separate Shenzhen-to-Beijing airline ended up being delayed until 2 am, while our flight was only set back two hours, to 11 pm. (To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t because of bomb threats.)
