Explanation here.

Here is what we all should do: Tomorrow, take a little time out of your day and go leave flowers and/or positive messages on the ground where it happened. We have to change the mentality here, enough with this “If I help, I’ll get in trouble” or “China doesn’t value people’s life” excuses. You can be black, white, yellow red or blue it doesn’t matter, bottom line is this, if you are in China YOU are CHINESE, you want to make China a better place then make it happen. 

 

Sina Weibo’s watershed came in 2011 after two high-speed trains crashed in Wenzhou: as officials bungled the response, and then censored news stories, netizens stormed onto Sina’s microblogging platform to voice their outrage and fill gaps of knowledge with educated speculation. Four years later, just as Weibo has seemingly run its course, a different program is stepping into its place as the prime facilitator of unfettered discussion in this country of shackled exchange.

As far as watershed moments go, WeChat’s was notably less newsworthy in the classic sense: it was a sex scandal. Yet it was significant because the sex only became a scandal after — or the exact moment when — a message was transferred from one man’s phone onto another’s via this Tencent chatting platform. By the time the now-infamous Uniqlo sex video reached traditional media — traditional, these days, referring to the Internet — practically everyone who cared had seen it, or knew it existed.

This brings us to the horrific stabbing yesterday morning — outside, of all places, the Sanlitun Uniqlo that nestled into our collective consciousness only a month prior — details of which revealed itself almost exclusively on WeChat. Perhaps this seems unextraordinary, considering how fully WeChat has uplinked with most of our lives. But let’s pretend, for a moment, it were not possible to dart in and out of six separate chat rooms, to easily compare discrepancies in different tellings of the same story, to pose questions to dozens of people at the same time. How many instant messaging windows would you have opened? How many text messages sent? Phone numbers dialed? There was a time not long ago when we’d have to go to the scene to sniff for answers, if that’s what we wanted. Upon being stonewalled by official sources, you’d have to inquire of strangers, and then you would still only have a small piece of the puzzle.

Consider how many of us learned about the victim, the Chinese woman who was stabbed in the back (and how did we know it was the back?). It was likely from the following message, currently going around WeChat, sent from a person who knows both the woman and the foreigner who knelt over her:

Guys, it is very bad news. Our captain roro s wife has been killed by a crazy guy using a 1 meter long knife (“sabre” in french) a few hours ago in sanlitun. They were coming out of the embassy to officialize their wedding when they came accross this crazy chinese guy who told roro he did not like american people. He replied he was french. They left and he inserted his long knife inside isabelle s back.. Trying to defend her, the knife went inside roro s belly twice…. Isabelle died right after she made it to the hospital. Romain is going through an operation now because it was bleeding inside his body..This happened exactly 2 years after the murder of an american citizen in joyce city..
I can t find the words… Huge shock

Hours earlier, “My friend knows someone who knows the girl,” someone may have said in a group you’re in.

And those videos from the aftermath of the attack? Found on WeChat, of course.

As human beings we are inclined to gossip, and WeChat is currently the best tool for our time and place. It has tapped into our instinct to share and learn. Once upon a time, in a bygone age, we would gather around TVs for the 6 o’clock news, thus was our instinct to know and to know collectively. Well, China doesn’t air real news — nothing we can trust, I mean – and who has time for the television anymore? With WeChat, we get all the angles, sometimes simultaneously. We gather sources that we deem credible, and ignore those a bit too eager to forward rumors. We build a story, confirm or deny that story against the observations of others, and pass it into other groups. The transference of knowledge, from one bubble to the next, is seamless and swift. If we thought print media was slow before, print journalists are practically tablet engravers in this age of the intranet. No story published tomorrow will contain information that a smart and plugged-in smartphone user won’t have already obtained from multiple sources tonight.

The service won’t render the Internet obsolete, but it makes certain parts of it less vital: Sina Weibo, with all its ghosts and overseers? Who needs it. Twitter, that echo chamber with character limits? It’s fast becoming a place where the oldest of old-media hang out, those who haven’t ingratiated themselves into enough group chats. Facebook? LOL.

But WeChat, of course, did not rise out of pure innovation. Sure, it’s faster than microblogs (which are faster than blogs, etc.), and more tailored – you can choose who to follow, what groups to join or leave — but it would be much less useful if it were restrictive. That is, if messages were routinely censored, and certain topics disallowed. In other words, if it were a mobile version of Sina Weibo, which has been punished often enough that it will gladly stifle user participation to avoid offending sensibilities.

Finally, WeChat has the ability to create action, similar to 2009-11 Twitter (before Twitter became suddenly dead). A person — any person — can propose an action, and if it makes enough sense, creates enough momentum and gains enough support – all organically, of course, like a snowball — it will translate into movement. Ultimately, for as comfortable as virtual spaces have become, users still seek to translate their virtual conversations into real-world activity. For an example, check out this message currently making the WeChat rounds:

Here is what we all should do: Tomorrow, take a little time out of your day and go leave flowers and/or positive messages on the ground where it happened. We have to change the mentality here, enough with this “If I help, I’ll get in trouble” or “China doesn’t value people’s life” excuses. You can be black, white, yellow red or blue it doesn’t matter, bottom line is this, if you are in China YOU are CHINESE, you want to make China a better place then make it happen. So tomorrow let’s all show that we care, that life matters and that we are concerned by deposing flowers. People might look at you, judge you, ask you to leave but keep in mind that it is because you are doing the right thing. Let’s all make sure that tomorrow by the end of the day, all wechat moments are filled with pictures of flowers, and trust me, by night, people will light candles all over the place. This is how you change mentality, this is how you show you care about something, by doing something as simple as deposing a flower. So what’s your excuse?

I’m not saying there will be “candles all over the place” by nightfall tomorrow, but I’m willing to believe a few people will lay flowers. We’re just talking flowers, by the way, but authorities will notice. They’ll think, Next time, what if it’s not just flowers commemorating the innocent victim of a random attack? What if it’s, say, to commemorate a self-immolation at Tianamen? (Guess where I learned about the man who purportedly set himself on fire at Tiananmen last night?) What if it’s… something bigger?

It seems almost impossible that WeChat escapes official censure. It’s too easy to use, and thereby too dangerous. And this is how an innovative piece of technology that’s born in the People’s Republic of China dies there. Eventually, the only thing left to destroy will be censorship itself.

UPDATE, 4:16 pm: Flowers.

We have two videos from the stabbing this morning, in which a man wielding a meter-long sword attacked — seemingly at random — two people outside Uniqlo in Sanlitun, Beijing. The first video, above, is graphic, and I wouldn’t recommend it if you’d rather not watch a woman bleeding from stab wounds.

We’d like to point out this guy, casually strolling by the scene of two bloody stabbings:

In the video below, the attacker, when approached by police, simply gives himself up by laying down his sword and getting on his stomach.

UPDATE, 8/14, 10:54 am: How this story unfolded on WeChat.

The man is said to be a 25-year-old named Mr. Gao. Via Guardian:

Police said the attacker was from Tonghua, a city in the north-eastern province of Jilin.

Friends of the woman, who is thought to work as a tattoo artist in Beijing, posted messages on social media expressing their shock. Addressing the female victim one wrote: “You have to wake up and make me a tattoo, bless, my thought is with you.”

@prchovanec @zhongnanhai Victim was friend’s friend’s fiancee. Motivation was apparently nationalist — “Chinese who sleep w/ 老外 should die.”

— Jordan Phillips (@jordanp) August 14, 2015

As heard on social media, there was a stabbing this morning outside the Uniqlo in Sanlitun, one of the busiest areas of foot traffic and commerce in Beijing. Police appear to have subdued the assailant and roped off the area.

Sina Weibo is still all about the Tianjin explosion last night, but more information to come on this stabbing as it becomes available.

For now, some pictures culled from Twitter:

UPDATE, 1:13 pm: Um, is that a katana?

Police seem to have the situation under control:

Some more pictures:

UPDATE, 2:10 pm: Here’s a video of the moment the man is arrested after stabbing two people. He appears to simply give himself in.

Here’s another video taken just moments before the one above. It’s graphic.

UPDATE, 8/14, 10:54 am: How this story unfolded on WeChat.

The man is said to be a 25-year-old named Mr. Gao. Via Guardian:

Police said the attacker was from Tonghua, a city in the north-eastern province of Jilin.

Friends of the woman, who is thought to work as a tattoo artist in Beijing, posted messages on social media expressing their shock. Addressing the female victim one wrote: “You have to wake up and make me a tattoo, bless, my thought is with you.”

@prchovanec @zhongnanhai Victim was friend’s friend’s fiancee. Motivation was apparently nationalist — “Chinese who sleep w/ 老外 should die.”

— Jordan Phillips (@jordanp) August 14, 2015

Take note: if you go on a slashing rampage in public, you’ll be shot and treated like a rabid dog, held down by metal poles. Take a look at the video, which shows police manhandling a knife-wielding suspect who wounded six passersby yesterday at Guangzhou Railway Station.

Initial state media reports said four people were involved in the attack, but as Reuters reports, “Guangzhou police said their initial inquiry found there was just a single suspect. He had been shot and wounded.”

Xinhua news agency said that the attacker had been hospitalized, and that police were not immediately able to identify him as he had no documents on him.

State television said that reports police had picked up another suspect near the station were also wrong, and that a person who had been detained had nothing to do with the case.

The area has returned to normal, reports the Guardian:

The area was back to normal by Tuesday night, though one armed policeman could be seen near the spot where the man struck and others wore helmets and bulletproof vests. A security guard carried a large U-shaped metal implement on the end of a long pole, of the kind given to guards to incapacitate attackers following previous stabbing incidents in China.

Meanwhile, fears of extremism are again on the forefront of everyone’s minds. Last Wednesday, a knife and bomb attack at a Urumqi train station wounded 79 and killed one civilian. On March 1, 29 were killed and 130 injured in Kunming Railway Station. And last October, an SUV exploded in Tiananmen in what was described as a suicide attack.

Reuters again:

Speaking while on a visit to Hong Kong, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel expressed “horror, outrage and sympathy” at the attack.

“We oppose terrorism in all forms, and in those instances where the available information or the information shared by the Chinese authorities pointed to terrorism by a group or individual, we have condemned it as terrorism,” he said.

Six people were injured by knife-wielding attackers around 11:30 am today on the plaza in front of Guangzhou Railway Station. They’ve been sent to the hospital, but their conditions are unknown. A People’s Daily tweet from 12:54 pm claims there were four attackers. State media reports that police fired shots at the attackers, hitting at least one of them.

The pictures that appear here are via Hexun and social media. More info as it becomes available.

This is the third attack on a Chinese train station since March, and the second in the past seven days. Last Wednesday, three were killed and 79 wounded in an attack reportedly by religious extremists at South Railway Station of Urumqi (two of the dead were apparently suicide bombers). On March 1, knife-wielding assailants, later identified as Xinjiang separatists, killed 29 civilians and injured 130 others in Kunming Railway Station.

UPDATE, 3:34 pm: A gentleman surnamed Yang witnessed both the March 1 Kunming attack and today’s attack in Guangzhou. As Nandu reports, he had just arrived from Kunming to Guangzhou via train K366 this morning when a young man in a white cap brandished a knife and lunged toward him. He ran. Two hours later, he was “paralyzed” on the plaza, dazed and not sure what to do.

UPDATE, 5/7, 1:21 pm: More on Yang, via The Nanfang:

When interviewed by Nanfang Metroplis Daily afterwards, Yang said: “I don’t know why I am so unfortunate. On that day (of the Kunming attack), I was seeing my friend off at the train station when I heard people saying someone was attacking people. Today, just as I walked out the station, the same thing happened again.” The attack was so traumatic that Yang ran and hid in a branch of the China Post located in the west corner of the station. Yang sat there for two hours before he recovered. “I saw the attacker slash a man’s neck. The man covered the wound with his hands, but it was dripping with blood,” Yang recalled.

Also, here’s a video of police subduing the attacker (apparently only one, not four):

State media is reporting that at least three are dead after a knife attack this morning in Changsha, Hunan province. There were multiple assailants, one of whom was reportedly shot dead by police.

UPDATE, 9:17 pm: Via Reuters:

One suspect in the incident worked as a bread vendor and was involved in an argument with a customer, traffic radio in Hunan province said on its official Weibo microblog, citing the Changsha police.

Xinhua said a knife fight broke out between businessmen Hebir Turdi and Memet Abla – whose names suggest they are ethnic Uighurs from Xinjiang – at a market mid-morning.

“Abla was hacked to death by Turdi, who later stabbed four passers-by as he ran away. Police shot Turdi, killing him. Two of the passers-by died at the scene. The two others died in hospital,” the agency added.

UPDATE, 3:58 pm: Via AP:

Five people were hacked to death, and one person was fatally shot by police following a dispute at a market Friday in southern China, local authorities said.

The killings in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, come two weeks after a knife attack in another southern city involving members of the ethnic Uighur minority from the far west region of Xinjiang, raising concerns the latest violence was ethnically motived. But reports from Changsha indicate it stemmed from a dispute that erupted between two food sellers.

Here are some pictures via Sina Weibo:

The above, posted 17 hours ago to Youku, purportedly shows a female attacker being captured on the night of the Kunming Railway Station massacre that left at least 29 dead and more than 140 injured.

Sinosphere adds that the video, naturally, spread to news outlets including Hong Kong-based ifeng.com and Yunnan Television. Unlike previously reported, it seems that only four of the 10 attackers were killed and one captured.

Other coverage has focused on the numerous small acts of kindness during the attacks. Passengers fled into Dico’s, where employees tended to the wounded with what supplies were on hand. Hundreds squeezed into a hotel, where they were ushered to safety upstairs. A nearby grocery store also offered shelter. Taxi drivers gave free rides to the hospital.

Also, there’s an editorial from Xinhua, posted less than two days after the attack, which we’ll just gingerly leave here and back away from: “US double standard on terrorism encourages slaughters.”

At least 10 men wielding long knives began indiscriminately attacking pedestrians in the waiting hall of Kunming Railway Station yesterday around 9:20 pm. The initial death and injury count vary, but the latest from Xinhua places the number at 29 dead and more than 130 injured. (Others put the number as high as 33.) Official reports say Xinjiang separatist forces are responsible for this “3-1 terrorist attack.”

Police reportedly shot dead five attackers at the scene and are searching for the others. Chinese president Xi Jinping put out a statement calling for an all-out effort to find and “punish the terrorists in accordance with the law.”

The attack coincides with the arrival of deputies from around the country to Beijing for the second session of the 12th NPC, which opens on March 5.

Some graphic photos have been collected on Liveleak.

UPDATE, 3/2, 3:42 pm: Since more than a few people have brought this up, let me address this above the comment section: the quote marks around “terrorists” are not meant to imply the attack somehow doesn’t fit the literal definition of terrorism. It plainly does. But if the marks are guilty of making any implication, it’s that there’s a conversation to be had, at the appropriate time, about the word itself — how we use it, how governments use it, how the media uses it. Of course, many other issues are at play. Kaiser Kuo has begun a compelling conversation on Facebook, which you can join here.

Some breaking news here (in that it happened three days ago and we’ve only just learned about it): a foreign man has been hospitalized and another injured following a stabbing around Sanlitun Bar Street in the early morning of Tuesday, February 25. Information is scant.

The news was first posted at 4:32 am by a man claiming to be an employee of the Village edition of Starbucks, and he sounded pretty shaken up about it.

“How scary Sanlitun is at night!” wrote @小红鞋爱TATTO. “I went to the fried chicken vendor [known to long-term expats as the ‘African Embassy’] for a bowl of noodles and there were two blacks stabbed to death, right next to me.”

Sources in the African community suggest only one of the stabbings may have been fatal. “It wasn’t one of ours,” one Nigerian, who prefers to remain nameless, told BJC. The source suggested the victim was Gambian and worked at the actual embassy. (We recommend exercising skepticism.)

A Beijing News report has more, including a statement from a shop owner called Wang, who says he “saw a black man lying on the ground ‘with his intestines out.’” Sounds pretty bad, but now he’s fine apparently: the reporter claims that the victim was quickly treated at the PLA hospital nearby and “had no life-threatening danger.” His friend, known only as “Richard,” told the reporter he had no idea what that was all about.

As for the attacker: he looked “kinda like a foreigner but kinda like a Chinese,” according to one waiter who saw the whole thing. We won’t speculate on the possible reasons for the altercation, but the area is known for trades other than chicken and beer.

It’s also worth reiterating that, for all its hectic nature, Sanlitun is not that dangerous, usually. In 2012, so far as we know, no one died. In 2011, no one died (there was a rapist though. He’s still at large). In 2010, someone died, in shocking circumstances, but it was covered up, so that’s OK (details here, and more stab-happy folk here). In 2009, no one died. In 2013, more people allegedly got gang raped. We could go on…

Readers can contact the author with further information at rfh@beijingcream.com or leave comments below.

A 37-year-old mother, Li Qiaozhen, and her four children, ages 9, 7, 5, and 1, were stabbed to death inside their home on Saturday night in Brooklyn, New York. At least one of the victims may have been decapitated.

The murderer has been identified as Chen Mingdong, 25, reportedly an illegal alien from China who was staying with the family. (He is apparently Li’s husband’s cousin.) The New York Post reports that, according to a police source, Chen said he killed the family because they “had too much.”

“The family had too much. Their income (and) lifestyle was better than his,” the source said.

More disturbing details:

Inside, cops found a house of horrors in which all five victims were hacked to death and one — a 1-year-old boy — was decapitated, the source said.

Chen also assaulted an officer while in custody at the 66th Precinct.

But he became violent at one point during questioning at the 66th Precinct station house, punching a detective while cuffed to a table by one of his hands, a source said.

Earlier, he also threw a pair of eyeglasses at a sergeant who serves as a Chinese-language interpreter, then kicked the table and knocked the sergeant to the ground, the source said.

Li’s cousin said that Chen was “crazy” and that he has stayed before with the victims.

New York’s chief of police Philip Banks III spoke Sunday about the incident. Here’s Metro New York:

Responding officers arrived to find four young children and their mother “cut and butchered with a kitchen knife” in their Sunset Park home, Banks said.

“It’s just a scene that you’ll never forget,” Banks said. He called the killing “an unspeakable act.”

In total, Chen has been charged with one count of murder in the first degree, four counts of murder in the second degree, assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and five counts of weapon possession.

Banks did not confirm whether Chen was staying illegally in the US, nor did he officially reveal any motive.

Officers have been assisting detectives with translation, Banks said.

Banks said the NYPD does not know if Chen had any documented history of mental illness.

“But we believe if you commit such an act like this, you cannot be too sane,” Banks said.

(Image via NY Daily News) (H/T Andrea P.)

A 20-something year-old man reportedly disgruntled over the results of his “beard implant surgery” resorted to violence on Monday morning. Xinhua reports that the man armed himself with a knife and walked into the plastic surgery department of the Affiliated Hospital of Hunan Academy of Chinese Medicine and attacked three nurses, one of whom was pregnant.

None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries, though the aftermath was very bloody, as pictures confirm (disturbing content warning). All three of them appeared to suffer face wounds.

The attacker, amazingly, got away. Police are currently trying to find him.

Xinhua explains why he was so upset:

According to the hospital, the man told the doctor on Sunday and Monday that he bore a red mark near his lips and was not satisfied with the surgery result.

Although the doctor replied that the mark was just due to follicle inflammation and that it took about six months to a year for the surgery to take effect, the man made the attack when the doctor left to check other patients, the statement said.

He just wanted a beard. When doctors couldn’t give him that, he lost his mind. Poor guy. He just wanted a beard.

Founder and CEO of the Hangzhou-based Wahaha, Zong Qinghou, was reportedly assaulted with a knife on Friday and had tendons in his hand slashed.

Via SCMP:

Shenzhen-based Hong Kong Commercial Daily earlier said four tendons on Zong’s left hand were severed during an attack near his home at downtown Jiefang Road on Friday morning. It said Zong underwent reattachment operations in Hangzhou’s Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, quoting a nurse of the institution.

More details will be released later. In the meantime, a source told SCMP that Zong was back in the office as of this morning.

Zong, 67, is the second-richest man in China, according to this year’s Hurun Rich List, behind real estate tycoon Wang Jianlin — “despite Zong’s wealth growing 50%.” He ranked No. 1 in 2012.

China’s former richest man Zong Qinghou injured in knife attack (SCMP)

UPDATE, 2:27 pm: A suspect — a disgruntled job interviewee — has been arrested, according to Xinhua:

The suspect, a 49-year-old man surnamed Yang, was captured around 3 p.m. on Friday.

Police said Yang, a resident of Suzhou City in neighboring Jiangsu Province, came to Hangzhou earlier this year, hoping to find a job there.

After his failure in this regard, Yang hoped to seek a job in Zong’s company, according to the police.

On Friday, Yang came to the residential quarter where Zong lives and met him. After being declined a job opportunity, Yang committed the attack, police said.

A 41-year-old man identified as surnamed Li stabbed and killed four people on a bus on Sunday night in Chengdu, injuring 11 others. Officers on the scene, after firing warning shots, fired and Li and wounded him.

Reports SCMP:

Chengu police confirmed that Li was originally from Jintang county, and said he may have committed the attacks because of financial problems that resulted from “family discord” and the long-term stress of working away from his hometown.

Li’s attacks are a blow to Caojia Alley, a formerly more industrial area that is now a key region in Chengdu’s commercial redevelopment and restructuring program.

This incident follows a similar bus stabbing in Anyang, Henan province on August 20, when a man randomly stabbed 15 people and killed three of them.

Here are some graphic photos of the aftermath via Sina Weibo. Second warning: graphic.

UPDATE, video:

UPDATE, 8/28, 11:20 am: We were amiss to not comment on the heroics of the bus driver. This via China Daily:

The driver stopped the bus and opened both doors to allow passengers on board to flee. As the suspect fled, he also stabbed passersby.

Holding a mop, the bus driver chased the man, and some people in the street tried to stop him.

Assuming China Daily means “tried to stop the knife-wielder.” Chased him with a mop.

Yesterday, we saw a CGI reenactment of a man in Anyang, Henan province randomly stabbing 15 people on a bus on Tuesday. Today, we have real-life footage from outside, and it’s much more harrowing: passengers scramble away, but some turn back around to help out the injured.

The attacker got out of the same bus — you might even see him if you know where to look — and fled.

Three people, ages 18, 10, and 10-and-a-half months, would die. The suspect was captured on Wednesday while trying to buy watermelon.