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)
 
Veggie Discourse - Blogged