This is an interesting topic and one which highlights the darker side of Chinese culture.
In Hunan, where I live, there is a local TV channel dedicated to what seems like 24Hr broadcasting of domestics. Have yee al' seen it? Perhaps not. My girlfriend loves it and it's pretty much prime time. The Chinese love it. Well, we all know, they do love gossip!
But this reveals -along with my own experiences- a scary and almost mob-like attitude from the Chinese which I will go into now.
But the thing to bear in mind, is generally (and of course each situation can vary dpending on who is being victimised) do not get involved in any way with any disturbance in any way.
Sounds callous and cowardly doesn't it? But yes, many situations 'back home' would warrant an immediate hero-like intervention, especially if a girl is being clearly abused or attacked. But I have seen so often how locals just stare or keep on walking by here. They believe you shouldn't interfere in anyone elses business or you'll share their grief in some way. There is an ancient proverb on that, which I now forget. This is a culture of see no evil, hear no evil and so on.
The story:
Back in Xinjiang (Hami) I was riding my bicycle along a very well marked bike lane at a reasonably slow speed – very slow in fact. Both hands on bars and all seemed fine, until, in a split second, a toddler fell into the path of my tyres! Naturally, I screeched to a halt and managed to run over the baby’s arm but avoided his head by an inch. Sweaty and perplexed, I naturally got off and asked his grandmother if he was OK – she’d been sitting idly at the side, while she let her grandson straddle the kerb – with these obvious consequences.
In moments, the father and a swathe of family arrived and immediately demanded I go to hospital with them. So I did. The baby looked fine, just bruised – but his crying of course elevated the situation. On the way to the hospital (five min walk and within sight) I suspected something wasn’t going to go to plan and called my girlfriend to ‘help translate’. She arrived at the hospital and they’d just seen the doc who’d given them various simple medicines and of course, the bill. That’s when it kicked off. They demanded I pay, despite doing no wrong. They argued and screamed –security was called and did nothing as usual- with my girlfriend giving granny what for. Almost fists and certainly some spitting. I was shocked at this whole situation.
I called my FAO but she was unable to come. Eventually we huffed out of the hospital and they’d threatened to see our bosses. Fearing they might contact the local PSB I went to the PSB first, told them my side and to look out for ‘their crazy lies’ if they came knocking. They took a note but seemed more interested in giving me cigarettes and talking about Beckham. The family did visit my school and director and ‘to keep the peace’ I was ordered to visit their house and apologise with a basket of fruit. I said in rather harsher terms… ‘no way mate’. In the end I never did go – over my dead corpse and the issue withered away, luckily.
My girlfriend also told me that if the police/courts had been involved, the norm is that both parties pay half all cost of whatever. This applies to almost any kind of case (but of course, it saves everyone hassle if the foreigner is just ordered to leave the city within 48hrs! – I’ve heard this happen). There seems to be no interest in finding out the truth! So beware. Especially if you’re foreign, people are friendly until they can find any crappy reason to shout, argue, grab you and march you to the police all to get some money from you. Scary eh?
It’s an underlying form of racism that is definitely here – like all countries in some way or another. Now, as much as I love China, that helped me understand this kind of ‘don’t get involved’ attitude (very sad isn’t it?). I heard other foreigners on bikes who’d had rougher times before me… for example, riding along, a local woman rides the opposite way talking on her mobile, and they crash. Immediately, the guilty one shouts and yells to everyone it was this foreigners’ fault and in no time at all she was surrounding by a group, mob, of locals yelling at her… with racist comments.
Pity isn’t it? Such a wonderful nation – but beware the dark streak of mob-ish-ness. If you are a foreigner, doing the right thing or not, you’re putting yourself into a huge firing line if you intercept in someone’s trouble.
It’s the dark side Luke! Beware the Force!