Traffic dispute at Nankai University turns nasty

Every so often, a traffic accident gets blown out of proportion in China, previously it was the Lexus incident, but this time its the students, and not the taxi drivers flipping cars.

Traffic accidents in China often draw large crowds who seemingly act as judge and jury until the police arrive to sort things out officially, however, the crowds often manage to incite more trouble, as shown here:

This post was taken from a Chinese BBS that was written by a student who was present at the scene.

This is how it was …

A female student was bicycling down the right side of the street on her way back to the dormitory, and a Buick vehicle came along in the same direction. The two vastly different vehicles collided with each other, and the bicycle left a scratch of 20 to 30 millimeters on the car.

At that time, the female car owner got out of the vehicle angrily and demanded an apology from the student. Furthermore, an apology was not good enough because there had to be payment for damages. So the student called her teacher for assistance. By this time, many students had gathered around the scene and one of them asked the car owner: “Where do you come from? Why are you on our school campus?”

The woman said something that was provocative: “If I produce my identification document, you should be scared to death.”

So the students began to confront the car owner while refusing to listen to the police. The police pulled the car owner aside and began a discussion. But the elder brother of the car owner has shown up with some friends. They talked tough and they began shoving the students around! The students were infuriated and there was physical contact. But since the car owner is female, the students restrained themselves.

Then a male student tried to make scratch marks on the car. The brother of the car owner assaulted him and they also demanded that the police take him in. According to rumors, the male students was severely injured (note: it was very chaotic at the time).

Then we called 120 (note: emergency medical service) and an ambulance came to take the injured male student away. The elder brother of the car owner saw trouble coming and quietly sneaked away. This became the focus of the story later on.

The woman was trapped. Her mother came. Although the mother was an elderly lady, she was just as unreasonable and barbaric. The campus security guards also came. But we chased them away. Then the security director came, and the students asked; “How did a car without a permit enter campus? What do you guys do for a living?”

A teacher showed up and promised that the chancellor will be here.

Before the chancellor could arrive, the students demanded that the car owner turn over the person who conducted the physical assault on the male student. That would be the elder brother of the car owner. But the car owner refused to say a word.

Then the security guards showed up again. We started cursing and yelling, and called them a bunch of pigs. Someone said that the security guards were letting outsiders without student ID’s come and go in the university. We now have proof that a vehicle without a permit could come and go on university campus. The security guards were speechless and they could only glare at us. At that moment, someone began to assault the car. First, they broke the windshield glass. Then they yanked out the registration plate.

A teacher came to mediate, but he was told to scram. The security guards tried to stop the vandalism, but the students would not budge and held them off. A teacher then said that the chancellor would come in ten minutes. We stood and counted ten minutes. He did not show up, and so we started to assault the car again. The police tried to stop us, but the students pushed them out. There was some physical contact. One police officer was hit and left holding his head in his hands. The police did not come back again.

The teachers who tried to intercede were dragged off. We asked the people on the other side to disperse, and then we overturned the car. The female car owner tried to stop us, but we dragged her off by force. The car was overturned and the chancellor still had not shown up.

Someone there said that he was from the Student Affairs Office, but the students told him to scram (and that applied to the teachers, security guards and police officers).

Then we broke all the windows on the car and nearly ripped the car doors out. It was quite a scene. But the car was solidly built as the front window never came off.

A student leader jumped on the car and tried to speak, but we couldn’t hear what he was saying. On one hand, his voice had gone hoarse from all the yelling. On the other hand, too many other people were yelling.

Then we Nankai University students got together and sang our school song! When the school song is sung, all Nankai people are united. Back then, the Japanese military bombed our campus but they could not destroy our unity!!! So this city bum couldn’t count for anything!!!!

Finally, Chancellor Zhang Jing appeared and promised:

1. The students will not be pursued for responsibility
2. Traffic within the campus will be improved
3. The instigator will be pursued in accordance with the law.

Pictures from the disturbance, click for bigger!

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Many thanks to ESWN for translating the original story from Chinese to English.

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82 Comments

  • January 20, 2008

    @ Ash

    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.

  • Ash
    January 20, 2008

    No Sir, I am an English Gentleman.

    Thanks!

  • February 24, 2008

    I pity the Chinese if they cannot stop the automobile movement before it is too late. For every incident like this where pedestrians vent their anger at automobiles, cars kill and maim hundreds of thousands of innocent pedestrians.

  • Matt
    September 5, 2009

    Jesus – what a bunch of animals.

  • Juls
    November 27, 2009

    best story av read for a long time. u gotta luv the spirit of the masses here…

  • nepaliman
    December 5, 2009

    good .. brave chinese student are true people .. its fucking irritating when someone inside drive too fast .. some fuckers think that when they buy qq car they think they are same president hujindao !

    fuck this rich and arrogant bastards !

  • sin
    January 15, 2010

    has anyone realised that the female driver wasnt injured? no one was seriously injured even with the car being overturned. think of the car as a protest against corruption… silver lining. n everyone cool it, there’s insurance cover in china, prob just get the insurer to pay for it.

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