The case bears strong similarities to a series of racially tinged assaults alleged to have recently occurred in several foreign-centric districts, including Sanlitun, Houhai and Wudaokou, in which foreign witnesses reported being attacked without provocation by local men carrying weapons and traveling in a vehicle. The incidents were widely reported on WeChat and discussed on local forums, such as Reddit, where many expressed concern about possible hate crimes.

Michael (left) takes an image of his injuries shortly after the attack

An Australian student, who asked to be referred to just by his first name, Michael – for fear of possible retaliation – was returning to his BLCU quarters at “around 2am” on 21 December with his Korean girlfriend, Christine, when he says the pair noticed a grey BMW parked ahead.

“We were about 200 meters away [from the university] when [the men inside] yelled out something… they came around in their car and stopped us at the gate,” Michael recalled. Aware of the rumors that a group of men were targeting foreigners with Chinese females, he confronted the gang in an attempt to defuse the situation, explaining: “My girlfriend’s Korean, not Chinese…”

Three men  then attacked him with bats and rods. “Once they started hitting me, I grabbed one of the bats and hit one of the Chinese guys back in the head” – an act he was to later regret –  “and then approached the other two guys… yelling at them to leave and they backed off. I smashed the bat in half,” explained the former rugby winger.

Before he could check the third man, Michael said, he got up and, as the trio approached again, both students decided to run for help but “As we almost got in the dorm, my girlfriend fell down,” and the men renewed their assault. Michael claimed he remembers little of what happened next but CCTV footage shows him being battered on the head, then disarming another of his metal rod.

Inside, a large amount of students (including “a lot of Russian guys”) assisted the pair while others called the police. “One of the attackers who I’d hit tried to come in… the Chinese had gone to their car again and tried to escape” but fortunately a quick-thinking Russian had removed the keys, according to witnesses. At this point, police arrived. A member of the gang accused the Russian of attacking them, and all four were detained.

One of the alleged assailants at the police station is said to have been a US citizen with Chinese parents (his face has been obscured as he has not been charged)

In a similar December incident, detailed over at the World of Chinese, a foreign student who requested anonymity told a reporter he was approached by a group of six or seven men in a “wagon” and carrying “metal sticks,” who questioned his companion’s ethnicity. “They started asking if my friend was Chinese,” he told the magazine. After being assaulted several times, the man handed over a small amount of money and made his escape.

The magazine spoke also to an eyewitness to “a separate incident in Wudaokou, who said that he saw ‘four Chinese holding bats chasing a black guy, shouting at him,’ along Zhanchunyuan West Road, at around 3 am the same morning.” The location of the latter incident is close (1-2km) to where the attack on Michael and his partner took place. Although extreme violence is rare, attacks on foreigners do occur in the nightspots of Beijing for a variety of reasons – examples from Sanlitun being not infrequent, and not necessarily involving Chinese.

Back at the police station, a bloodied Michael says he was threatened by one of the men (to wit: “I know where you guys live, I’m gonna come get you and stab you”) and endured racial slurs, and both he and his friends were accused of instigating the fight. The Russian was detained and later released the next day, while Michael received five stitches; his passport is now with police as the case continues.

“All three are now in jail,” said Michael. “However, if we can get more witnesses, they’ll serve a longer time in jail.” In legal terms, the men have been detained pending investigation. They can be held for up to 28 days without charge and should police decide to press charges, a case will be sent to the “procurator” for consideration. If the case is accepted, a trial will be set and the assailants can look forward to tackling China’s 99.1% conviction rate, instead of unarmed foreigners.

An image taken at the hospital shows Michael’s head wound, which required five stitches

Michael praised both university authorities and Wudaokou police, who he described as “helpful [and] good” but added that the embassy was “useless.” The investigation is ongoing and “slow.” One potential difficulty might be “the injury suffered to the other man, he was in hospital for a while and looks like he is permanently a bit deformed.” The man is alleged to be an American citizen, though both his parents are Chinese.

Readers who have any information about the case, know of any other incidents, or were themselves victims of one of a similar spate of attacks involving a grey BMW in the last two months are urged to contact Wudaokou police, or email us at the usual address (and we’ll pass your details on). Said Michael: “All I want is this not to happen again.”

You can follow the author of this piece @MrRFH on Twitter

Picture by Cameron Frecklington

Yeah, it’s full of students, and yeah, its bars cater mostly to the 19-year-old frat boy set. But there are at least a couple reasons to visit Wudaokou.

Zaogao Wang (Date Cake King)

If you’ve lived near Wudaokou for more than a few months and haven’t noticed that every third person is walking around with a bag full of steaming, brown date-cake bricks, you need to step away from the five-kuai, dance-club hooch you’ve been swilling.

Same goes for if you haven’t seen the line snaking around the corner just east from the Dong Sheng building (Lotus, Nirvana Fitness) and leading to a storefront window set up a bit like an inner-city liquor store (transact through a half-moon in the bottom of the bulletproof glass, quickly and in cash). If you fumble with your wallet or are too slow at the window, the throngs behind you will almost certainly fuck you up.

During the National Day holiday I waited in a line three and half hours to take a bus towards the Great Wall. I watched as a few jerkoffs ahead of me jumped the queue and were met with quiet grumbles and fist-shaking.

Don’t try that shit in the zaogao line.

Once, I saw a well-dressed office worker type try to sneak to the front of the line as he passed on the sidewalk. It was rush hour and the line was huge. The reaction was like a Red Guard-era student rally. People erupted – screaming, cursing, and dropping their handbags, ready for a revolution. If he hadn’t walked away, I have little doubt he would have been bludgeoned into cake batter. And for good reason. The zaogao here is awesome.

Some people say waiting in line for 30 minutes isn’t worth it. They’re wrong. I don’t care if the secret ingredients are migrant sweat and Tongzhou top-soil, this stuff is a mile better than the crusty, dried-up shit that you’ll buy anywhere else in the city (and is 10 kuai for a “jin and a half” – about eight pieces).

For extra fun, give a hunk of zaogao to one of the beggars making the rounds with a limp and a tin cup (not the ones with the comatose puppies, fuck those guys), and watch his eyes light up.

He Jian Donkey-Burger Shack 

Yeah, shack. Step inside this crumbling, street-side dive just north of the 7-11 across from Tsinghua’s main gate (by the KFC) and you’ll see a poster of the main attraction: a solitary donkey happily eating grass on a rolling, green pasture under a blue sky. Presumably, that was before he was slaughtered, chopped up to bits, and squeezed into a flaky pastry. That’s what this place serves – donkey burgers – and they do it better than anywhere outside of Hebei.

First, to clear up any misunderstanding, these things are delicious. The meat is slow-boiled, seasoned perfectly, and interspersed with just the right amount of marrow and fat. The buns – crispy, thin pastries – are always freshly made and come out piping hot. It’s also dirt cheap – four kuai for a burger. Like Zaogao Wang, this place is always packed. I once saw a man driving a Mercedes SUV pull off from the highway onto the sidewalk in front of the stand and urgently shout an order from his window.

When you’re inside, no one gives a shit if you wear a shirt, shoes, or pants. During the summer months, the four or five tables are always crowded with sweaty construction workers, letting their paunches out to breathe while they smash a dozen or so burgers and some white booze.

Out back, there’s a poor-man’s patio with a couple of fold-up card tables, stools, and plastic lawn furniture. The service is reassuringly surly. If you ask for napkins, the waiter (tattooed scorpion on his hand) is just as likely to tell you to go fuck your mother as he is to throw you a fistful of toilet paper.

There are abundant cold beers and complimentary vinegary cucumbers when the waiter feels up to it. In the cooler months, when the patio is closed, the inside is cozy with steam from a barrel of perpetually simmering donkey. If you’re lucky, you catch flecks of flesh as you breathe in the wholesome goodness. PM Donkey 2.5.

Nick Compton is an American journalist living in Beijing. You can reach him at nickcompton1@gmail.com.

Picture by Cameron Frecklington