Comments on: an incident in Xi’an

By: Krista Ely

Krista Ely — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:39:24 +0000

I am an expatriate social worker working at the Xi’an Philanthropic Child Abuse Prevention and Aid Centre – a local grassroots organization that is starting to address the issue of child abuse in Chinese society. We provide FREE medical treatment and counseling for kids who have been physically or sexually abused.
While we are still thinking about ways to work with kids that are caught up in the gangs – we do what we can to help the kids we hear about.
Please call us when you see stuff like this, and help get the word out!

Child Helpline is: 88072188
Office Tel: 85368194 (Speak Chinese, or ask for 晓惠/Krista if you need English)

Thanks friends!

Krista Ely,
Xi’an Philanthropic Child Abuse Prevention and Aid Centre

By: Manuel

Manuel — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:45:55 +0000

That’s a “terribly interesting” story. Watch out guys if you drive a car around here.

Manuel
ND Magazine Xi’an
http://newdynasty.com.cn

By: wangbo

wangbo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:29:37 +0000

They witnessed the incident, and they’ve seen many similar incidents in the same area, so yeah, I understand the cynicism.

Actually, I’ve heard plenty of similar rumours about beggars here, even witnessed one change into his beggar clothes on the subway train (not that his ordinary clothes were much better, but still…)

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:21:30 +0000

I wasn’t really trying to comment on whether or not the cynicism is warranted — just that it’s there, for various reasons.

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:17:39 +0000

definitely, I mean, the witnessed the whole thing, right? But just that these things happen, and the stories get around — i imagine that must feed cynicism. Reminds me of stories from the U.S. of panhandlers bringing in 70k/year, and how that encourages people to have less generous attitudes toward the homeless.

By: wangbo

wangbo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:08:02 +0000

Cheers, Joel. Although in this particular instance, the location and frequency of this particular type of incident seems to have played a very large role in the cynicism of the bystanders.

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:54:01 +0000

I've added a link to this because this fleshes out a side of the powerful Chinese cynicism/distrust that I hadn't touched on. I'd talked about cynicism regarding the motives of would-be Good Samaritans, but not cynicism toward would-be victims.

By: The Good Samaritan with Chinese characteristics (Pt.2): explanations, excuses, & scapegoats | China Hope Live

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:45:28 +0000

[...] victims as well. Playing for public sympathy is apparently something of an art form in China. In this example translated from the Chinese internet, a crowd of onlookers sides with the out-of-town driver of an [...]

By: wangbo

wangbo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:51:44 +0000

Thanks, Jim. I wasn’t sure what to do with 弱势, and I guess I misinterpreted it. I’ll go and correct it now.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:40:22 +0000

One bit of the translation that leapt out to me as possibly somewhat misleading was doing 一个看上去很弱势的本地妇女 as a “weak-looking woman,” as that makes it sound like a physical condition. I tend to do this as ‘disadvantaged’ or similar, since it’s ‘weak’ in a social status/power sense. In the context here, maybe “A poor and down-trodden-looking local woman, a shiny out-of-town white BMW and a crowd of local onlookers – on the face of it, not a good situation for the owner of the BMW.”