There are rules.
Beijing is the place every good Chinese citizen longs for. Every good patriot (and that would be more than one billion people outside the capital), wants to stand at on Tian An Men Square, at least once in his or her life, and attend the flag-raising ceremony.
But there’s more to Beijing. With luck, a traveller may be in for an impressive demonstration of what’s going on behind the scenes.
The BBC:
A Chinese tourist was badly beaten up after being mistaken for a petitioner who wanted to lobby the authorities in Beijing, state media report.
Zhao Zhipei and three others were dragged from a hotel and bundled into a van before being dumped in their home province of Henan.
Mr Zhao was later found unconscious on a road in Luoyang city [that was back in Henan Province]. The case caused anger on China’s social media sites.
Six local officials have been punished for the beating, state media said.
According to Hangzhou Web (杭州网), five others were beaten up along with Zhao Zhipei (赵志斐), by unidentified persons (不明身份人士), who reportedly were a security company’s employees.
Police in Luoyang told Beijing News that “perhaps the wrong person was caught”.
MyLaowai, aka The Mother Teresa of the Blogosphere, would hardly agree. After (reportedly) being unfair to some fellow travellers on a plane, he defended his conduct this way:
Well, you’d be right. But this is the Chinese Way. It’s the basis upon which their entire society is structured. I merely played their own game, though of course, as a Laowai, I played it better than they did.
Hopefully, Zhao made it to the flag-raising ceremony on Tian-An-Men Square before re-epiphinating in his home province. His trip reportedly ended on the second day of his stay in Beijing, before the crack of dawn.
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Related
» Gang then, Dynasty now, May 12, 2010
» One of BeiDa’s Humorous Professors, April 11, 2009
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