Had an accident

[CantDecide]

As if the western law is so equal and great for all! Justice! Yay! The various constitutions. Yay!. Usually bollox. Fine as an ideal maybe. Try being poor and getting justice. It is what you can buy or what you can influence ALL OVER THE BLOODY WORLD (including Canada). And we have had a couple of hundred years of various systems of justice and legality to work on. Women were chattels not so long ago and couldn't vote. Now they can but still fight for equality. 'Blacks' were second class citizens recently, Now, the immigrants, the poor, the disabled, the less intelligent are still the 'blacks'. Not a perfect system for any of them. China has had what, twenty years? And they do not think or assume as you do anyway. Not their way. Be angry. Fine. Get real too. If it were just 'logic' we would all be wealthy and well-fed and loving and coffee-coloured.

You never jumped a fence? OooRa! You never drove drunk? Wahoo! You perfect? Marry me.

I'm not sure if this rant was 100% deserved, but I do 100% love the sentiment!

The closer you are to the type of people in power, the " better " the justice system works. That's a truth no matter where you live.

[soberpete]

When he couldn't beat me, he punched my 40kg gf twice. The rule with fights is they take damages from both parties, split by half, and both parties pay damages. I came out with a few cuts, he got 16 stitches. I wound up paying 10k to him for something he started and was clearly self defense for me.

Wrangler
He got 10k out of you because you did more damage to him even though he started the fight? If that's true then we should just try to take and deal as little damage as possible and make sure that the other guy threw the first punch.
What about him hitting your gf twice? Did the police just ignore that?

I feel terrible about what happened to you. It sucks that he topped it all off by getting those four guys to jump you outside the police station too. I would have thought that 10k would have been enough for him but most of these guys just have to get the last punch in.

[slabo]

If you are talking fault from a liability standpoint, sorry, from experience, have to disagree. Last year I got jumped by a Shandong guy. He threw first punch, it was documented by videocams. I beat him down and he kept getting up to attack me. When he couldn't beat me, he punched my 40kg gf twice. The rule with fights is they take damages from both parties, split by half, and both parties pay damages. I came out with a few cuts, he got 16 stitches. I wound up paying 10k to him for something he started and was clearly self defense for me.

You are right about the multiple attacker scenario though. The guy hired 4 anhui guys to jump me - outside the police station.

But back on topic, aggression from foreigners is seen by locals as an attack towards everyone. I think there is a lot of deep resentment towards foreigners (especially whites) that are vocalized in an instance where it seems the foreigner has done some wrong or "chi-fu" a local, that resentment comes out. They would never say it to your face though. Maybe it's the past history of colonialism/occupation in China. (BTW, have you asked some of the locals how they feel about the earthquake/tsunami in Japan? Some have actually openly expressed happiness).

Anyways, bottom line, we always need to watch ourselves. No need to piss the locals off as the police have the right to revoke visas. Locals, especially the little punks with the funny hair cuts and riding the loud scooters, can easily disappear into another province if they wanted to. Sorry Slabo, I think I strayed from the subject of this thread...

I didn't mean it that way. Not everything is resolved according to the law here. I was talking about the general code of conduct, the common agreed upon ethic. The Chinese tradition is to reach a compromise in case of any dispute. If you throw the first punch, it means you did not try to compromise. A bystander who has no idea why you two started fighting, will see you throw the first punch, and immediately you're in the wrong. Most of the times it's counter intuitive to us, we have something called self-defense, among other honorable reasons. That's the theory anyway, most of the time, the law is the mob, the mob is the law.

[Wrangler]

Soberpete, yes the police just ignored it. She had a swollen face but nothing permanent so the police ignored it.

Slabo, you are right about Chinese tradition reaching compromise. It's amazing how in negotiations everything is about you give a little, I give a little. In western society it's about this is the "fair" price or this is my list price. Either pay it or not.

I have faced the mob mentality too. I own a store, who my gf (the one got punched) was hit in the face again by a mentally deranged customer who started throwing a fit at the store over a disagreement with my sales girl. The person sat in the middle of the doorway blocking foot traffic and screaming that the store sales people hit her. A mob started forming around her shouting at our store people how we shouldn't abuse our customers (though none of the mob people were actually our customers and no one in the store touched her). Very funny... I just realized why the chinese government rules with an iron fist in a velvet glove and are so nervous about the jaz-min revolution happening here. Can you imagine a mob of 1 billion people uprising?

Ha, I've strayed again. Keep us posted on your situation Slabo. Best to you!

[CantDecide]

Be careful mentioning flowers here, its a small forum, but we've heard stories about people going away to unknown places for simply disagreeing with flowers on twitter.

[Wrangler]

Did I mention Jazz-min? I meant Jizz, man. (Hopefully this will throw them off)

[moilami]

I will have to take back the word we have in Finland angry mobs.

[ChinaV]

Just want to spout a little more of my bullshit western arrogance and take another shot at the Chinese.



Cheers!
ChinaV

[GJN]

Jape,

Honestly, you need to learn to control that temper of yours. Calling people arrogant, mongrels, pricks, etc. isn't that constructive when holding a conversation. Also, learn how to debate. You resort to over generalized romanticisms of an Eastern Orient that really doesn't exist in China. Again, this whole thread is dedicated to how Slabo was forced to pay unfair/unjust compensation to a Chinese woman when at most he was only 40% at fault, yet somehow you've managed to run full speed ahead on some unassociated tangent firing your mouth off as you see fit. In spite of your age and life experiences, it seems as though you never gained any wisdom. I'm going to use some foresight and recuse myself from this little chat of ours because you and I are arguing about apples and oranges. Hope my friendly advice proves useful on your future trip out East!

[CantDecide]

Just want to spout a little more of my bullshit western arrogance and take another shot at the Chinese.

That's awesome... I love China's "Civilization Campaigns". I want a T-Shirt to wear around on the subway that says "First Off, Then On" in characters, with a big smiley face. Since I can't ride bikes in China, I'm going to make it my personal mission to get everyone trying to get on a subway car to wait while everyone trying to get off has a chance.

I can imagine Slabo's bike coming in from the left-hand side of the photo. :(