Charles at ChinaGeeks pointed me to the following video in his most recent post, “What an Idiot Foreigner Shows Us About Xenophobia and Sexism in China.”
The video shows an extremely drunk foreigner stumbling down the street, having an incredibly patient cop try to help him out, exclaiming he loves China, hugging said cop, kicking at his father-in-law, falling off one of those coin-op children’s rides outside a shop, showing the children’s ride who’s boss, and then getting violent with the police before being carted away.
Charlie goes on to translate a number of comments from Sina that all fall into either a “xenophobic” or “sexist” category — a couple gems:
“Foreign devils acting wild in China, it all comes from the Manchu period of backwardness and humiliation.”
“Don’t let the next generation of Chinese be mixed-race! This is not only tarnishing Chinese families, but it is a humiliation to the great traditions of the Chinese people!”
Here’s the thing that chaps my ass about this net-driven fiasco — obviously the guy is a drunken douche and deserves no quarter from the online community — for being a drunken douche. But the comments from the Chinese community create a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I think it could be agreed that perhaps the fact the guy is (literally) fall-down drunk in the middle of the day is an “in-China” thing, but that he’s belligerent to the cop and his father-in-law isn’t localized to any nation or nationality.
Charles says it well:
The fact that this video is even popular in the first place is evidence that foreigners are treated differently by many Chinese. After all, drunken idiots being hauled off by the police is something you can see on any street corner in China (or anywhere else in the world). And the fact that everyone feels the need to say “this foreign guy” instead of just “this guy” shows us that there’s a clear interest in keeping him separate from anything “Chinese.” He is the Other.
To attach such behavior as “foreignness” illustrates a huge amount of ignorance on the part of the Chinese commenting on the video, and then to insult this guy’s wife — not for making the poor decision of marrying a drunk, but of marrying a foreigner — well, it’s just plain insulting. Thus, if such insults seem so deeply ingrained into the fabric of this dear nation, is it too far to assume that perhaps he was drunk and belligerent because he lives under that yoke of racial discrimination and hate?
I’ll let you guys talk it out. I’m sure there’s no shortage of opinions on the topic.
Am I wrong or does the policeman ask where he wants to go, and the drunk guy responds that he wants to go home? Why then not just do so–either find him a taxi or other ride home, instead of leaving him there to make an ass of himself? I guess it’s better to let him become more belligerent, as all drunk assholes do, so that it becomes the Drunk Foreigner show. Obviously he’s a jackass, and not just for getting so piss-drunk in the middle of the day and then walking around. When my friends get so inebriated, however, I don’t just point and laugh at them and let them get increasingly aggressive to the point that they have to be arrested. It seems to me that the policemen in the video aren’t doing their job. It’s not your job to just talk to the guy and try to figure out what he wants. DO something, idiot. You’re not just the local heckler, responsible for gathering a mob. It’s obvious that he’s not in his right mind, so remove him from the scene. That’s what you do with Chinese folk. Why should you treat a foreigner so differently? Why intentionally allow him to create a scene? Why allow the father-in-law to suddenly get involved in what is apparently a police matter? Drunken idiots lash out at everybody, regardless of whether it’s their family. Are people really surprised that he acts like all drunk assholes do when prodded? Yay, let’s all stop and watch the foreign idiot… C’mon guys, you can’t work like this.
This comment further proves your ignorance. It reflects that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the methods of Chinese police and Chinese society in general. 大事划小，小事划了。This is the way things are addressed in China. When some shit goes down in China, foreigner or not, a crowd gathers and watch. As a foreigner, your not in a position to make value judgments on these methods. This is another country with their own set of rules and methods. Unless of course, you feel that western civilization and its methods are supposed to be some kind of standard for the world, which is a delusional mentality of certain westerners with superiority complexes.
What your doing is similar to me coming over to your house and begin making comments non-stop on how your furniture should be laid out and how things are not the way they should be. I’m a guest, I’m not in a position to tell you, the host, what the rules and customs are. That is called being rude.
Instead of completely forgiving the drunk by saying “thats just what drunk people do” and putting the blame on the police and calling him an “idiot”, perhaps you should evaluate your feelings towards the country your visiting and if they aren’t so fuzzy then maybe its a good idea then to fly your ass right back here to southern Maryland before you lose more face for the States.
I think your comment is also very short-sighted. Tradition and culture are nothing more than something you have gotten used to. These things change.
Just like spitting on the street is a lot less accepted now in modern China. I wouldn’t say spitting on the street is ok, just because you label it culture.
The fact that crowds gather on the street is because people don’t respect each other privacy. That’s because they are not used to any. And that is the result of needing to share fewer resources with more people. Once that changed, other behavior changes as well.
So calling someone an idiot because he criticize a countries habit is also not showing a lot of intelligence I think.
@ jimmy: people also sto on the sptreet to look in Western countries when something like that happens.
come on
it’s in china, you say the cops not doing right.
but have you ever thought about another reason that the white guy do not even speak Chinese.
you live in here, you should speak the language,i think this is a respect.
and that cop,according to what i hrd,he dont speak English well, so the cop cant do what he gotta do, cuz they cannot communicate at all.
and whose fault is it?
ok, i think , this is in china,and you speak no chinese, so shit happens..you cant blame no one
Well put, Meng, just the kind of ‘professionalism’ that one might expect from the police here.
What this video needs is a laugh track and some sound effects from America’s funniest videos.
I think it would be a mistake to judge the sentiments of the chinese people by video comments. Just imagine if the rest of the world judge america by comments made on youtube by american accounts. Spend any amount of time reading these comments and you’ll lose faith in the goodness of people in a hurry.
The fact of it is the comment sections on video hosting sites are cesspit of humanity. This is a place where all responsibility for one’s actions are thrown out and any semblance of decorum is absent. It make one wonder if maybe Hobbes and Locke were right about ‘the state of nature’.
and please…Meng I really not trying to lay into ya but you just make it so hard not to. Can I propose an alternate explanation of what happened? A single foot-patrol officer stops drunk before the idiot walks into Beijing traffic(they won’r stop you know), struggles in English to get the man indoors. Situation becomes a little ludicrous with gawkers trying to “help”. This makes it worse, the 6’3″ giant man-child becomes unmanageable for one Chinese policeman and backup is called. During the response time for other police officers and a van, the man-child-bear does more stupid things (all caught on tape). —> police officer gets blamed by Meng for orchestrating a public humiliation. sigh…
Look Meng, the policemen seems to me to be very helpful, the guy is after all twice his size, and he’s not use to dealing with drunk foreign giants in the middle of the day, and probably doesn’t want to risk hurting a foreigner by being rough with him. A Chinese person might well get into trouble for behaving like that by the way.
An to however wrote the original post, blaming the “yoke of racial discrimination and hate” for the foreigner’s behaviour seems to me a bit pushed. After all, the guy certainly wasn’t forced to live in China, and didn’t come to China because he was fleeing poverty or war at home. No one forces him to stay here. And as a Westerner living in China, I really don’t feel I am oppressed by “yoke of discrimination and hate”, although of course prejudice does exist. Very often I feel I am treated much more nicely then the locals are, and again I repeat that a Chinese person behaving like that would not be treated so gently by a policeman. If this is discrimination, it’s positive discrimination towards foreigners.
Lets switch it around. A black Kenyan man marries a white woman from Mississippi (sorry Mississippi, I really have nothing against you, just Google returned you for “most racist state”) and they move back to her hometown. After a couple years of an ever-present judgement being placed on him due to the colour of his skin, he turns to drinking to numb himself to the feeling of isolation and overt racism.
Surely we wouldn’t excuse the Kenyan’s drinking if it manifested into public stupidity, but we could easily understand or empathize with his situation. Sure he could have risked the breakup of his marriage, or forced his wife into a similar situation in his home country, but he didn’t and he ended up making a fool of himself in public.
My admittedly convoluted point is simply that not everyone is semi-detached transient in the country they live, able to just leave when the “being foreign” gets to be too much. Being married to a national is considerably different than having no ties to the country at all.
And you could probably leave any time you wanted. I’m not at all judging your reasons to be in China, simply pointing out that not everyone has the same mobility — despite likely arriving here without the motivators of war and poverty in their home country.
ok i get the point, but still using the expression “the yoke of discrimnation and hate” for Westerners in China, who usually have far more money and privilege in comparison to the ordinary Chinese, seems to me a bit far-fetched. Especially seeing how the Chinese police treat us with kid gloves in comparison to other Chinese people.
So we’re assigning a back story to the drunk guy now? Without knowing the guy, you’d assume that it was discrimination against him and his marriage that drove him to get drunk, then clinically diagnose him with alcoholism and depression.
please give me a break, Mississippi? It was a slave state, fought a war to keep its slaves, extended virtual slavery with sharecropping and jim crow and even now has a enormously differential incarceration rate for blacks. You’re cheapening what african americans went through by the comparison. This constant I’m the victim shtick is getting old. I went to high school in North Carolina and I can’t even count the number of fights I had because of racist slurs. The only difference is I didn’t blog about it and I didn’t blame my white american friends or society as a whole.
This might sound harsh but growing up with only one perspective is likely your problem. You seem to have this overdeveloped sense of entitlement that gets offended wherever you go. The vast majority of the world live without the privileges that you think is automatic and they make the best of what they can. It wouldn’t surprise me if you make things hard for yourself in real life by pushing the point in conversation with chinese people outside of the expat/expat-oid chinese bubble. Instead of dismissing me as some kind of nationalistic idiots do me a favour take 30 mins out of your day and do a thought experiment, try thinking about the world in a relativistic way instead of absolutes, that your way of life and values is just another in a group many with no final arbiter to rank or grade them.
@Gabriel: I agree, the phrase is entirely far fetched. I only used it to push a point in the opposite direction. And you’ll get no argument from me that expats in China generally live a life of relative privilege. Perhaps a debate for a different thread, but I don’t know if the kid gloves are so much a foreigner thing or just a presumption of money and influence. I’m pretty sure they’d also treat the guy being driven around in a BMW with kid gloves too — for misdemeanours at least.
@Justin: I specifically chose a black Kenyan for my example to negate the argument you so quickly jumped on in your response. A black Kenyan would have next to no stake in the plight of African Americans in the southern US states. He simply is being judged by local stereotypes that have virtually nothing to do with his history, culture or person.
As for a back story, perhaps I should have spelled it out a bit more clearly, it was 100% an exercise in perspective. I am not presuming anything about the guy in the video.
That’s a pretty big assumption. What is an expatoid Chinese? I’m picturing some sort of expat android that assimilates among them and gains their trust, am I close?
Naw, my values are Number One!
I’ve said it before man, and I feel a bit of a prick for saying it again, but lighten up. You seem very bent on making presumptions about me and my view of the world that are based more on the colour of my skin and your assumptions about what that means for my thought process than on any sort of reality. Re-read the last paragraph of your comment and ask yourself, if your first sentence is erroneous, what does it say for the rest of the statement and who is being absolute in their thinking? And that thought experiment wont even take 30 minutes.
K I think I understand the Kenyan example but I’d like to know which sentence of mine in the last paragraph is erroneous.
ps -oid : greek suffix or meaning like, resembling, in the form of. Just as an android is a robot that has the form of a human. I’m trying to say an expat-oid chinese is a chinese that resembles an expat, speaks english fluently, much more affluent than the national average, familiarity and preference for western culture.
You said:
This not only assumes that I grew up with a single perspective, but that it’s somehow my problem. Two huge assumptions. I can’t say that it’s in error absolutely, as what you deem “my problem” and what is really a “problem” are, ironically, completely a matter of perspective. Also, what you have decided represents multiple perspectives (and thus not your problem), may not truly be multiple perspectives, but simply a single perspective with multiple facets — which everyone grows up with. Basically, your whole assumption is based around the lynch pin of me growing up in a close-minded society/family that solidified my thought process to a point where it never evolved past my childhood. That’s a huge assumption.
PPS: It was fairly fucking obvious how you intended it man. It was a joke.
again sarcasm is hard to catch in text form but any whoo…
I actually retyped that sentence a couple of times. I realized “problem” is an inadequate word and causes offence where I didn’t mean to (that’s why I bothered prefacing it with “It might sound harsh”)
but I had a brain fart and couldn’t think of a better one (perhaps handicap or something about blind spots is better idk I’m not an english major)
and you’re right I know nothing about you or how you grew up. It was a risky assumption to make but I still don’t think I’m wrong. I wouldn’t have made the suggestion for you to re-evaluate if I didn’t see the evidence of confirmation bias.
I’m not saying you’re closed minded, on the contrary you are much much more more open minded than most people I meet but those people I wouldn’t even bother talking about cultural relativism with, I gave up the habit of moving that mountain even before I gave up arguing with religious people. It’s only that you’re trying to understand China, that I’m interested in reading what you’ve wrote.
I wanted to be a scientist ever since I was little and objectivity is my god. I’ve worked hard over the years to learn to never hold absolute truths and be grateful when someone can convince you that you are wrong for they bring you a step closer to reality. I am very much open your or anyone’s opinion as it is back by sound logic due rigor and as a courtesy I expect the same openness.
Well explained. I guess I’ve always seen “this might sound harsh” as a euphemism for “this is going to sound harsh, and I want impunity for the rest of what I’m about to say.”
Hey Ryan, Benjamin Franklin once said if someone starts a sentence with “without pomposity, I…” they are bound to say something pompous, but in my case I really didn’t have the vocabulary to say something less offensive, such is my plight as a chem major. I really do hope that you’d consider my point about confirmation bias.
A group out of berkley once did a study where two groups divided based on a idealogical survey were asked to read two sets of studies about capital punishment. Both papers were comparable in its rigor and thoroughness of its evidence but one proposes negligible benefits and another to major benefits to the death penalty punishment. The two groups evaluated the basic validity the two papers drastically differently. Now why how can they both be right if the amount of evidence is comparable? Such is the uncertainty of the human perspective and I’ll put forward you that maybe you find certain evidence more convincing because of your background and upbring in Canada.
Btw I love Canada and I think it is more than likely the best nation in the world for all its faults (much better than China).
How are you, Ryan? Been a long while.
That video made me shudder more than it did laugh. I usually don’t care much for cops (of any country), but that one was especially kind and did his best to help out the retarded yangren. Hope he gets some kind of award or badge or whatever cops get when they actually do good things.
Do we know what ever happened to said laowai? Visa revoked, I hope. Either that or he’s going to be invited on to all the CCTV talk shows to represent China’s expat community
I wish people here would stop making excuses for the cop’s behavior. Don’t get me wrong–nobody’s making excuses for the white dude’s behavior. He’s an idiot and deserves to sleep it off in a padded room. Once he starts getting belligerent, yeah, he should be carted off to spend at least the night in jail if not more. Being drunk and disorderly in your own country is one thing, but in another’s is completely out of line.
However, denying that the cop is refusing to do his job is ridiculous. In the first place, physical force wouldn’t have been needed had he removed him from the scene right off. That’s what happens to Chinese folk here. I certainly hope that nobody’s saying that, when Chinese people get drunk, they never get belligerent.
Yes, people love to rubberneck, not just in China but everywhere. “Hey let’s all stop and stare at this beautiful catastrophe.” That doesn’t mean a cop should just cater to the crowd and allow the situation to continue to where it gets out of hand.
Recently a guy climbed up on the roof of a 6-story building, I believe in Ningxia, and threatened to jump. A large crowd gathered and after an hour of watching, starting shouting at him to jump already, because they were bored of waiting. The police did nothing, and he jumped to his death.
This sort of non-action is fairly commonplace for Chinese cops. I don’t want to hear the excuse that he’s too big to control, either. If they can’t do their jobs, can we get somebody who can? They have mace and batons and all sorts of tools. Plus most of them are taught Sanda, which is admittedly a pretty laughable fighting style, but still effective against drunken idiots. Honestly, I’m not a tall guy by any means, but I could take that fat drunken moron down pretty easily and quickly, so I don’t see how a cop with tools and the law behind him could be afraid to go after this guy. I’m not blaming the cop for causing anything, I’m just blaming him for letting some jackass let it get out of hand.
It doesn’t matter that he’s a westerner in China, I blame cops, both here and anywhere for inaction all the time. I’m not going to stop complaining about it just because I’m not in the US anymore. Deflection only goes so far. I see so much police corruption and inaction here, just like anywhere else. Take, for example, the refusal of Chinese police to take any action against prostitution unless they absolutely must. Once a month, to fill their quotas, they perform a raid on a brothel they had previously been regular customers of. Oh, sorry, they’re not brothels, they’re just hair salons that run 24/7 and don’t actually give haircuts. My bad.
Meng,
Not sure if your comment is pointed at mine. As I wrote, I feel this was one of those rare times when a police officer is to be commended for actually handling the situation well. What he was doing was offering that drunken retard numerous opportuities to save face and “get out of jail free” pardon the cliche. His treatment of the foreigner was exceptionally fair, but unfortunately the boozer was too wasted to realize it. I’m unclear, then, what corruption and quotas have to do with anything. Chinese policemen visit xiaojie…yeah, and?
I should also like to add that I am surprised that the police officer allowed the camera man (mobile phone?) to continue recording as long as he did. His first official duty actually should have been to order the camera man to immediately turn off his device. Strange that he didn’t.
Meng you’re ridiculous. Your compliant is that the policeman didn’t immediately to clubbing the guy, using martial arts on him or macing him. What is so wrong with trying to resolve the issue without force? and what happened to a use of force continuum?
no, Justin, why don’t you read a little more carefully before jumping to such ludicrous conclusions? The issue that you have put into question is that I stated that the cop lets it get out of hand to the point that physical force is necessary. He actually doesn’t try to resolve anything, which is his job. There are so many things he could do, but he basically just eggs the guy on, prodding him with stupid questions, laughing at him, and then finally just walking away. If an American cop did shit like this, and I’m sure it happens every day in the US as well, I would criticize him equally. I’m living in China now and it doesn’t make me feel safe that the police here can’t handle one fat drunken idiot properly.
Couldn’t resist jumping in here (again).
Meng, not sure how long you have been in China, but you ought to know that it’s not in a beat police officer’s job description to make you “feel safe.” Beat police in China are about as effectual as those super market aisle girls who just stand there all day picking their noses and when you ask them where the Oreos are they just shrug their shoulders and keep picking.
Moreover, it is not customary in China to haul away drunken slobs. If it was, then half of the male population would be behind bars. Punk in drublic is a way of life here; I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen Chinese men passed out on the sidewalk at noon. Japan shares a similar nonchalant attitude towards drinking in public, but I digress.
My point is that Chinese police aren’t paid to solve crimes and catch the bad guys, nor is it their way to throw belligerant drunks in the tank.
This policeman was exactly in line, and given his limited English and the embarrasment he must have felt being video taped, I thought he handled it commendably.
Commendably for Chinese standards yes. But can’t say that I feel it’s ‘enforcing the law’ or making other people feel safe (as you already pointed out).
Seeing it from Chinese perspective though I guess the policeman felt his face was on-the-line and the best way to behave is just not to do anything drastic. Doing nothing is better for the face than risking doing the wrong thing.
“Doing nothing is better for the face than risking doing the wrong thing.”
Precisely! That is the general Chinese attitude towards society, work and relationships in 13 words.
Actually, making people safe is exactly what a cop’s job is. What else do you think their job is? I mean, that’s why it’s such a commonplace joke in the US that a cop’s job is to sit on their ass, drinking coffee and eating donuts. Everything you wrote proved my point, so thanks. Not doing their job, check. Standing around and collecting a paycheck, check. I have been here for a while, but I’m sure there’s enough cops who actually do their jobs that it’s not like breaking the rules to actually try and keep the peace.
I don’t even think this has to do with foreigners and the police, but more of the police behavior in general.
Two nights ago I was waiting out of a bar in Xi’an. 3 Chinese (drunk) girls come out kicking and screaming and they start beating the crap out of each other. One of them was on the floor while the 2 others were on top of her hitting with full force.
Right next to that were 3 security guards (with helmets, sticks and all) looking at the scene and not doing a single bit.
I was shocked to say the least.
Jimmy,
Ha ha, the exact same thing happened to me while I was backpacking through Chongqing. Had my ass severely kicked by three drunk guys (at a hotel, not a bar) while 2 security guards just watched us like it was a TV program. I wrote about it for an article in Beijing Review:
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/eye/txt/2006-12/17/content_51150.htm
But that’s the censored, CPC-approved version of my experience, leaving out all my personal opinions about Chinese security guards and PSB officers
I think all this fuss is because we dont have enough foreigners in China. IF we do, like in US or Europe, guess foreigners will not be treated differently.
When I was in a far-away small town in Germany I feel rather unconfortable because there arnt many foreigners there. Unlike in China, foreigners are treated with kind curiocity, there it is bit hostile.
come on
it’s in china, you say the cops not doing right.
but have you ever thought about another reason that the white guy do not even speak Chinese.
you live in here, you should speak the language,i think this is a respect.
and that cop,according to what i hrd,he dont speak English well, so the cop cant do what he gotta do, cuz they cannot communicate at all.
and whose fault is it?
ok, i think , this is in china,and you speak no chinese, so shit happens..you cant blame no one
I got really scared when I saw the headline/intro to this video/post. I figured it was going to be a video of me that I somehow [beer] forgot about. It’s a relief to finally watch it and realize that it’s not a video of me, just my dad. He didn’t even tell me he was in China!
Idiots come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. The drunk 老外 didn’t do himself any favors. I hope after he sobered up, that he’s ashamed of his behaviour. I’m sure his 太太 gave him an earful for kicker her dad.
As for those Chinese bloggers, I would hope that they are not representative of most Chinese. I’ve found most Chinese to be very friendly and gracious to me as I attempt to learn the language and culture.
what an idiot
come on guys!
the foreigner was wrong to act like this but when i see some racist comments towards the foreigners.. then I think that is bullshit.
I’ve been living in China for 5 years and I saw chinese drunkard in the streets doing ”almost” the same stupid things but nobody make a big deal out of it… so please cut the crap!
Wish I could see the vid! Don’t have a VPN, so it’s not coming through. Any other way to see it?
Is its possible to get drunk in China like this guy ? I tried but it was never possible. I am going to open my own destilery.
Jesus….why even bother staying in china since you completely dont understand chinese, plus obviously that’s a drunkard, what the hell the cop was thinking???
where can I down load this video?
Load up Firefox, install the Download Helper add-on (http://www.downloadhelper.net/) and reload this page. You’ll be able to download the .flv file (and if memory serves, you should be able to also convert it on the fly to other formats using that add-on).
I think it is unfair & ultimately self-defeating,to try to conjure up any sort of general validation and enduring truths no matter which side you take, when all the evidence we have is “one” video. The moment we chose to judge a whole country or race over “one” presumably offensive video, we are in danger of being the very subject we condemn.
I think whoever put this video up obviously wanted some e-debate going on. But honestly, this is not even news to me. What is the big deal, either way? Lets not dwell. In the future, whoever is responsible to this website, please put up some news-worthy videos with integrity and responsibility. We don’t need any more people in this world trying to create dissident. In all you do, try to bring peace between people, country and race.
He is Swedish.
Wow, in the U.S., that guy would have been arrested immediately. Chinese cops are soft!
Well, China isnt a country that has welcomed immigrants/foreigners to relocate to their country … for many, many years. Accordingly, it shouldnt be a surprise that people refer to him as “foreigner”. I’ve experienced my fair share of xenophobia in Asia and someone referring to me as “foreigner” has been the LEAST bit of my concerns compared to the more outright-racist actions I’ve experienced.
they should have a holiday where everyone gets drunk, i mean everyone from the president, to the common labourer. Then we should all watch the cctv cams and see who gets more crazy. I have a video of a guy (Zhong guo ren) in ningbo who just went “Tyson” on his wife and then after she was TKO he started to kiss and hug her repeating he loves her the “WO AI NI”. POINT is there IS NO POINT – this is JACK or TSING TAO or even a little bit of crack that was talking not this guy. Im sure you all agree if you met this guy on a “good day” he wouldnt be soo whack. This just goes to show that we all have some similarities whether chinese or from the abstract country called foreign
or the second country Africa we just need to rely on Jack or Jingzhou or corona to bring it out.
It’s a different country with different rules, different laws, and different traditions. Watching what happened as a westerner it would seem that this drunk should have been dealt with immediately, but we can’t force our ideas on another nation. It would be like someone coming to the US and saying its o.k. to hit women because that’s how they handle things where they are from.
We may not agree, and its OK to have an opinion, but remember in different parts of the world, the rules change.