October 24, 2010

Anti-Japanese Crowd Forces Chinese Girl to Publicly Undress

Apparently this article (biased judging by the choice of words) contains sensitive material because many of the re-posts have been censored. As far as official media is concerned, only an opinion piece on Netease remains.

The event allegedly took place on October 16, when Chengdu citizens marched the streets protesting the Japanese government. One of the Baidu tieba posts containing many supposed evidence to prove that Sun Ting was not lying has been harmonized. So judge for yourself whether this is true and how much of it is true.

Chengdu girl Sun Ting (alias) had an infuriating encounter yesterday afternoon (October 16th). While eating out at a Dico's restaurant near Chunxi Street (春熙路), she came under attack from a group of college students. They forced her to take off the Han robe she was wearing at the time. As a result, she could not leave the place until a friend borrowed some clothes for her.

Sun Ting told this blogger that yesterday a girlfriend and she went to watch a movie near Chunxi Street. Both of them were dressed in Han Chinese clothing. Because of the place was crawling with people, they decided to eat at Dico's, located right across the street from Pacific Cinema. A group of college students began pointing at them once the girls sat down. Sun Ting did not pay attention at first, but soon enough, the restaurant became very noisy as the students rushed upstairs to where the girl sat, hysterically demanding that Sun take off her clothes!


The Han robe that Sun Ting wore on October 16

It took Sun Ting a while to realize that these youths had mistaken her Han robe for Japanese kimono, and she proceeded, with little success, to reason with the group. "It was like they all got high on meth. These people became mindless and kept on shouting 'take off your robe', 'you can't leave unless you take it off', 'burn it'."

Sun Ting believes that some fenqing had noticed their mistake, but by then, it was very difficult to reverse the situation. One student in the lead said: "I don't care. We have the pacify the emotions downstairs."

Bowing to the threats, Sun Ting heeded her friend's advice and took off her Han robe in the restaurant bathroom. However, this was not enough, and the group ordered her to hand over her pants as well. These fenqing disbanded after Sun obeyed. By that time, Sun was only wearing a T-shirt. A kind-hearted person finally lent his girlfriend's pants to her so that she can leave the bathroom and go home.

Sun Ting told the reporter yesterday: "I did not want to make a big deal out of this, mainly because I was publicly humilated, and letting more people find out will make me lose more face and bring harm to myself." But she was finally persuaded by friends and the blogger to expose the entire incident through media. She also uploaded screenshots from a video that someone took at the scene.

Sun Ting described the fenqing: "These youths know nothing about the culture of their country. As college students, they lack even the most basic qualities. After receiving so many years of education, they are still unlearned and uncouth, doing rude things though they possess an esteemed college diploma. Such incidents have very negative impact and must be made widely-known to educate the public.

It was reported that onlookers at the scene captured the violence on video.


One of the protesters holding the robe

Burning of the robe



Related links:
My personal account of the Han robe incident (in Chinese)

15 comments:

  1. Yes, if a Chinese crowd goes mad, they really go mad!

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  2. "Madness is the exception in individuals, but the rule in groups" Nietzche

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  3. It's sad that despite having a high level of Chinese nationalism, these fenqings do not even know their own roots.

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  4. Is this the propaganda from one of the enemies of China that is very jealous of China's GREAT PROGRESS today? This enemy is out to spoil China's reputation, so that it can bully,harass, torture & kill the Chinese as in the past. Like the great Massacre of Nanking, BLOOD DEBT should be paid by BLOOD from that egoistic & arrogant country responsible.

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  5. @ Oct 27 Anon. poster.

    I think you need to find your sense and THEN re-read the article. Just in case, I will do it for you: CHINESE people burned CHINESE clothes and humiliated CHINESE history and CHINESE people.
    It's one thing to recognise the good and bad parties in history. It's another to blatantly use incidents with clear perpetrators, and blame someone else, just to keep your flame going. It gives all of us a bad image.

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  6. Any sensible human beings understand that if there is NO Fire, there is NO Smoke. Of course
    the Japs had started the Fire in the hearts of those Chinese youth by denying their Jap grandfathers' cruel crimes on the young Chinese grandparents & their families had been destroyed by the Japs. Japs' such attitude & behaviour could easily turn anybody crazy to do silly things.

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  7. Who would wear a Japanese kimono in China who wasn't a waitress in uniform? Duh.

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  8. In my country, we would call this a FAIL.

    China really needs to educate itself on its own history and its subtle cultural wonders. What a shame for them.

    www.edreformer.com

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  9. Uh... yeah. Japan doesn't deny wartime atrocities, just a handful of rightwingers. They make apologies every year, and every textbook IN USE mentions Nanking and so forth. Those controversial textbooks were barely ever used in any schools. And there are no enemies of China, people just pretend there are to bolster nationalism. Come to Japan and see if the average person is your "enemy".

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  10. Not long ago, ONE nasty Jap General of the Army said that there was no Nanking Massacre in China by the Japs & said it was ONLY the Chinese's fabrication. How can the victims of the Japs accept such hurtful remarks? It will surely deepen the hatred of the Japs by the Chinese and anyone with a sensible mind. With lots of evidence that the world know of and yet these Jap leaders still giving out such nonsense & baseless remarks. Having such Japs around, there will never be any good Sino-Jap relationship!

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  11. If the Japs still think that they are of the MOST
    powerful nation in Asia today that had easily invaded & brutally occupied China like cutting cabbages in the past, may do so again to see what will happen to them. Will they be the Masters of Asia, if not the world, as they are arrogant & egoistic. They have to know, they are NO MORE the SECOND LARGEST ECONOMY in the WORLD today.

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  12. The world today is very different from that of yesterday. In the past NOBODY in China ever think that they can have the opportunity to go abroad as Students,Investors and Tourists. Now they even have the capability to go up to space, with their improving technology and economy. This time the Chinese have really made a successful GREAT LEAP FORWARD. Not like last a great leap backward.

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  13. @ Anonymous.

    You've just established yourself as one of the people in the nice picture of an advanced China, who is three steps backwards and will remain that way. War atrocities are one thing, but they are not the point in THIS article. The point is ignorance and the fact that certain people like to blame others for things that are not their fault --- if there was no Sino-Japanese tension (pretend the Wars did not happen for one second), the people in the article would still think the woman was wearing Japanese clothes, not Chinese. While it is true the emotional response is because of real history, actions are what people choose to make themselves. Certain generals of Japan chose to deny their atrocious acts. Certain people choose to dwell on the past in such a way that perhaps the only way to get over it is for a nation to disappear, or the individual him/herself (whoever goes first). Certain people choose to take their anger and hatred and ignore explanations of people they are harrassing, even though the explanation is "this is Chinese clothes, the clothes of our ancestors." Of which, apparently, certain people choose to think that pretending earlier ancestors don't exist is better than forgetting recent generations, and they also choose to think burning their own ancestral clothing is a valid way to ease the anger of the living and the dead. Very nice.

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  14. i am canada-born-chinese...it's hard to not dislike mainland chinese ppl...

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