Thanks!

Cliff notes? You’re an American, aren’t you?

How’s this:

Students good. Driver bad.

Property damage no big deal. Continued repression of the underclass a big deal.

Justice first. Peace second.

Cliff notes?

Here we go, again, with the damn “mob rule” propaganda. Come on, y’all! Will you people please step back a little and take a look at the big picture?! Not everything can be so easily understood through a tiny western, bourgeoisie filter, and with such limited terminology to boot! Chinese “mobs?” That’s how you read this whole thing? Really?

Well, I can’t disagree with you more. As explained by Spirwin, the word “mob” can be used to describe a variety of groups. He suggested that the entire car culture behaves like a mob, a mob that regularly tries “using their weight to make others do as they want them to or do,” with an untold number of car drivers that “force their will on others.” Well said. And we could use “mob” in many other situations, as well. I’m sure an African-American or Latino man in Los Angeles, a city that quietly allows its police force to profile and pursue potential would-be criminals based on their physical attributes (i.e., race), would have no problem describing the boys-in-blue as a “mob.” Moreover, one could easily label my own American government a “mob.” After all, this is a gang of individuals who represent a small fraction of economic elites, and who frequently common standards of ethics and morality. They rig elections, lie to the public, break domestic and international laws, kill and torture indiscriminately, and persecute ruthlessly any dissenters who dares to challenge their rule. Sounds like a “mob” to me.

Regardless, this incident at Nankai University is merely one example of the myriad injustices taking place in China every day. It’s more complex than a bunch of angry kids dismantling a car, and so I urge you to stop with the simplistic, discriminatory language.

In my opinion (and experience), there is a thin line between so-called “mob rule” and to something I like to call “collective resistance to overwhelming oppressive forces.” Who’s to say that the students were actually exhibiting “mob” behavior? Couldn’t we just as easily take another look from another angle and end up calling them “civilian activists?” What evidence of their behavior do you have that so thoroughly convinces you that they were in the wrong? One battered Buick? That’s it? That’s how you summarize the endemic social struggles of a 5000 year-old culture, with 1.3 billion people, new to the car culture, new to capitalism (formalized, anyway), new to outside influence (Tang Dynasty excepted), and relatively new to concepts of individuation (hence the “xiao huangdi” phenomenon)? That’s as deep as you can get under these circumstances? They’re just a “mob” of kids?

Forgive my language here, but that’s just bullshit.

Generally speaking, the manner in which a person describes altercations of this kind often reflects his/her personal politics and social status. There are exceptions to this pattern, of course, but I have noticed that those who fear such supposed incidents of “mob rule” are usually the same people who ultimately fear losing their socio-economic privilege. Mind you , these people don’t have to be rich, they just have to be comfortable enough to turn a blind eye to the under-class, the poor and disenfranchised. These folks certainly have a vested interest in belittling the occasional real-world, gut-check reactions from the powerless. They simply want to stay on top, stay above the muck, so they quickly and readily malign those on the bottom . These people seldom look deeper for the root causes of such complicated situations, as it evident within this very thread from a handful of respondants.

For example, am I really supposed to have some kind of sympathy for you, Tony, because this relatively minor scene at a university in developing China might somehow undermine your Olympic vacation plans? Please. I mean, I’m sure there are very few if any Nankai University students who can afford those plane tickets, much less the hotel, the food, the games, etc. The vast majority of Chinese students are at the university because they worked hard and did well on the massively difficult college-entrance exam. They represent a variety of kids around the country, most of whom come from low-income families (I once had a student in Hubei, a young girl, thin as a rail, who was eating one, rice-heavy meal a day to make sure she had enough money to cover her rising tuition costs.). So, pardon me, but are we really supposed to fret for the success of your trip to Beijing or something? I didn’t realize a college girl on a bicycle getting abused and threatened by yet another crappy, ignorant, CORRUPT car-drive was such a monumental inconvenience to your lifestyle? Spare me.

As I alluded to in a previous post, we have to expect some degree conflict in a country where justice is at a premium. This whole thing seems overblown to me. They fucked up a car, that’s pretty much it. That’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. There was a guy in Hubei province who was beat to death last week for taking a photograph. His assailants, the very authorities who are charged with protecting him. Do you really think they would have rushed to the aid of a college girl on a bicycle? Or would they have sided with the power, the privileged, the corrupt? Come on… really.

In a few days I will leave China again, sadly. I am leaving with a heavy heart, as I always do, because I love this country and its people. My mother taught me years ago that when you love something you choose to be honest about its talents and its faults. China has many problems, of course, but I’m happy to say that a lack of desire for true social justice is not one of them. Those college kids at Nankai University are understandably angry about a great many things in China, and they are apparently willing to act to change the situation. Faced with this hopeful truth, the destruction of some damn Buick seems utterly insignificant.

Once again, justice before peace, my friends.

They are pretty decent cars, to be honest.

I don’t agree with the outcome but as a cyclist who has been hit a number of times by careless drivers I would have in the heat of the moment been part of that mob and probably the student who got his ass kicked. The power of the mob is amazing no matter what side you are on.
Nearly every great social change or change of ideals begins with an angry mob. The term “mob rules” doesn’t come about for any reason but this: If the mob is big enough you will have the mobs rules. In this case only for a short moment but still all the same in outcome.
On a greater scale its the car culture mob and its rules where people believe an idiot who hit a cyclists thinks the person should pay for a scratch on her car.
Soon China like everywhere else will hit the road in the masses in automobiles and if we don’t a viable alternative for fuel the car culture will die and wither away like all other bad ideas we’ve left in the past.
One other thing. A Buick in China? I can’t imagine that car would suck less there than it does here. Come on. You can’t find a better car to ship from halfway across the world so you can claim superiority over others?

Interesting as well is the counter point of pride.

Either way, no one won. Everyone lost. There was no middle way chosen, but that’s OK. You must be able to embrace the worst as well as the best in humanity.

I only wish this forceful reaction was evident when Tienanmen square had occurred.

Regardless, this is life. Do unto others before they do unto you or if they have already done unto you.

Peace I give you and wish for you.

I read this thread, and I think that in China there’s a powerful feeling among the people that they are being abused by a powerful minority. And there’s a powerful movement building to make them behave better, to force them to respect those who do not have the power or wealth they do.

As an American, a native of a country in which the rich and powerful are not allowed to get away with abusing the poor (though we do still have poor people), and where the poor have the law on their side, I cheer the aspirations of the Chinese people as shown by the students in Nanjing.

LMAO

I think that the car driver was driving faster than the cicle.

Lastly: force a poor student to pay the damages of your luxury car when you are wrong only because the car driver was VIP, can and must end like this.

The car did not had permission.

This will stop the “master and servants” minds only like the Bastille did.

If you can afford that car, you can paint it when you have an accident.