In China, Money > Life…
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
…which, to be honest, is actually pretty much true everywhere…but many of us just like thinking how barbaric the Chinese are when they provide a fine example of this regretable truth.
So, as many some of you already know, there was a Chinese guy who got his ass beat to death by some government representatives (”city inspectors”). He was driving by when he noticed about 50 of these “city inspectors” (think pseudo-police) beating up some villagers who objected to having truck-fulls of trash dumped near their homes. So, he took out his cell phone and began snapping some pictures. Apparently, the 50 some bastards were somewhat displeased with him documenting their ruffian tactics and decided to kick his ass for a good five minutes before he passed out and died on his way to the hospital.
As soon as this news broke, Wei Wenhua (pictured), the dead guy, was hailed as a martyr for being a “citizen journalist” around the China blogosphere and amongst Chinese netizens. A few days ago, it even received some major coverage by CNN, thereby showing yet another sore sight of China’s to the ever critical West.
Having not visited CNN.com recently, I happened to catch the article yesterday while hanging out with a good friend of mine. Bemused by the news hitting a layman’s news portal like CNN, I pointed it out to my friend thinking we’d connect on this bridging event between China and, well, the outside world. Much to my dismay but perhaps not to my surprise, she barely glanced at the CNN article on the screen and nearly interrupted me to have me to switch windows over to her stock ticker and graphs.
You see, yesterday was something of a Black Monday here in China, with the index dropping over 5%, and much of her stock investments suddenly saw losses (which are depicted in green here instead of red, because, well, red is a more prosperous color than green for the Chinese). Now, that’s a big deal for sure, for her and for many people, and far more important and close to their lives. Wei Wenhua and the tragedy that surrounded him was old news, January 7th news. As far as she was concerned, knowing how bad the market was doing now was more important than his death, the abuse of power by low-level government employees, and how such news would further give ignorant Westerners a bad impression of China.
I’ll be fair: Her more immediate concern with yesterday’s stock market performance doesn’t necessary mean she doesn’t care about human life or systematic corruption and abuse or the global image of her beloved nation. Likewise, simply not caring about the Chinese stock market sinking (for good reason) doesn’t automatically mean I care more about life than money and I’m somehow more human than she is. In fact, this turn of events ultimately says nothing about either of us.
I want to say the Chinese are far too quick to dismiss some horrible tragedy or injustice as being out of their control or none of their business. Saying so would let me hop on a soapbox and condemn them for really just being lazy and apathetic. Part of me even might pity them for being so demoralized with their own self-worth and individual potential for “doing something” and pontificate on the subjugation of the individual for the collective. I’d even throw in a few mockeries of “mei ban fa (???)!” for good measure.
