Jan

New-born baby abandoned in street found dead in NE China

I have never underestimated the inhumanity of people. Neither had I been prepared to see them display in parents for there is an ancient Chinese saying that “even a ferocious tiger will not eat its offspring.”

However, I had been so naively to believe in humanity which clearly did not exist in some people and be slapped in the face by the cruel reality.

Local newspaper in Harbin reported that an abandoned baby was found dead in the street yesterday. Witness said the baby boy was put in a plastic bag and thrown out from a car driving-by. When a passer-by saw the baby and he/she removed him to the roadside. But it was too late. The baby boy has already been rolled over by other cars not aware of his existence.

Needless to say, I was outraged by this tragedy as soon as I read the news. But then, a few moments later, the anger became sadness and reflection.

Though there is no report on who abandoned the baby and why he/she abandoned the baby on a busy road, I assume this inhuman act was done by the parents or the next of kin. They are the most reasonable yet unthinkable suspects. Reasonable, because they were possibly the only people who could access the new-born baby. Unthinkable, because they were the least impossible people you would expect them to conduct this coldblooded murder.

I mean, on what earth will the parents or the next of kin murder their own baby? And why!!!

I can only think of several possible reasons of the malicious act: a) the baby boy was a bastard and his parent(s) wanted to be rid of him for various reasons; b) the baby boy was not the first child of the family and the parent(s) in fear of huge sum of penalty for violating the One-child policy wanted to be rid of him for financial reason; c) the baby boy was born with some disease or disabilities that his family couldn’t afford the money for his medical treatment;

But never will there be a reason to justify the inhuman act.

12 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

China/Commentary/Society

China/one child policy

Dec

adQilSxYkvo

You think if you can send for some foreign journalists to stir up the situation and paint a bad picture of me and then I will be in trouble and my supervisors will sack me. But what good does it bring if they sack me? They will send another municipal party secretary who does not necessarily be any better than me. Though this is a joke (and a wild guess), it has certain points.
If the foreign media can be trusted, she-pigs can climb trees.
Your demands are reasonable, but the way you handled it was unreasonable and the petition process has gone out of control.
I am not scared of the compensation. The government will pay for the compensation. Of course, all wools come from sheep.
If you don’t cause me any trouble, break any laws and can show the government that you are obedient and won’t do any extreme things, I don’t even need to send for those arm police. You think that keeping arm police station here don’t cost money? We now have hundreds police and arm police station here. Our Mayor Qiu’ wallet is getting thinner and thinner every day.
Only one group of people would feel their days getting more and more difficult year after year. Who are these people? They are the officials from the government, me included. Being a municipal party secretary was much less tiresome in the past. You don’t have to worry about everything. (But now) our power is getting less and less; our means of handling the crowd is getting fewer and fewer; and our responsibilities are getting heavier and heavier. The public’s stomach is getting bigger and bigger; they are getting wiser and wiser; and they are getting more and more difficult to rule.
I myself have been greatly influenced by the nation’s policies. How dare you not rely on such a responsible government but turn to those bastard media, bastard newspapers and bastard websites aboard? You people call white black. They (foreign media) will not be reliable. They cannot do anything. They can’t be happier to see you get into inflight and disturb our Socialist society construction.
If you have any problem, you should talk to the government instead of people from aboard.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Current Affairs/i-Share/Society

Dec

Beijing Film Academy student killed campus clearner

There are not many human rights you can expect when being a less posh member of the Chinese society. The right to live, for one, is not always guaranteed.

A campus cleaner at Beijing Film Academy (BFA) was beaten to death by an Audi-driving third year university student a few days ago because “the cleaner’s garbage tricycle was blocking his way”, the Global Times reported.

The student Gong Bohan later turned out to be a student union minister who had initiated and organised charity fund-raising events. He once proudly told the media that “there are some extreme cases happened among university students in recent years. Although these cases happened only on a few individuals, the lack of kindness and sense of responsibility and the extreme selfishness reflected on their behaviours are very shocking and worth our reflection.”

I bet when Mr Gong said those cases only happened to “a few individuals” he had never contemplated the possibility of himself being one of them. But who would have? We all assume that we are morally perfect until proved otherwise.

Judging from his social activity record, Mr Gong was faultless. He was in charge of the student union’s PR department. He raised money for children with disabilities. And he understood the importance of social welfare for the poor – he said in an interview that the civility of a society reflected not only on the development of its élite culture but also on the attentions and helps the less privileged got from the society as a whole.

Sounds familiar? That’s right. JFK once made the same claim. “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich,” the former US president said.

And were it not for this unfortunate misshapen, Mr Gong might land a job in the government and begin its path to high political positions after graduation. The party loves to recruit its royal supporters from student unions and campus Youth League Committees to run the government. And the fact that Mr Gong’s family might have a good fortune – he drives an Audi while most university students from less privileged background can only afford a bike – makes the case more likely.

I was a member of the student union once, but I quit when I found out what kind of organisation the SU was. I thought I could be a bridge between the university and the students by joining the SU. But it turned out that I was too naïve to have that thought. The SU is a just a miniature of the society, full of self-claimed élite whose greediness and hypocrisy disgusted me.

They talk the talk, but when it comes to realising their promises, you will suddenly know that they cannot walk the walk. However, it is this particular quality that makes them the perfect people for government officials and politicians.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Commentary/Current Affairs/Society

Education/Global Times/Student

Oct

Fatal car accident hushed up in Beijing

Chinese websites are under pressure to hush up a fatal traffic accident in downtown Beijing in which a high-ranking Chinese army official’s car has allegedly involved.

Pictures of the accident scene including a close-up shot of the license plate that read “Beijing V02709” were widely circulated and were later deleted from many websites, so did many Weibo (Twitter’s equivalence in China) tweets discussing the accident.

When typing “Beijing V02709” as keyword into Weibo’s search engine, the return displayed “accoring to the local laws, regulations and policies, the searching result is not shown.”

From past experience, it was a sign that websites were under pressure form the central propaganda department to remove information relating to the accident.

Tuesday’s Beijing Morning Post reported that a black Audi with a license plate starting with “Beijing V” hit a cyclist around 9:30 pm on 23 October.

The cyclist, a middle age woman, was said to bounce five metres and immediately lost consciousness. The woman, lying in blood, was later taken to hospital by an ambulance.

Beijing Morning Post’s report did not confirm whether the woman is dead or alive, but according to tweets from alleged witnesses the woman died on the scene.

Weibo user “Ximige” tweeted: “just walked pass Yonghegong Lama Temple and saw a car with Beijing V02 licence plate hit a passer-by… the passer-by died lying 10 metres away with her face down. There was lots of blood. The police was handling the accident, and there were some people taking pictures of the accident.”

Another Weibo user “Mengjinghui Shine” uploaded some pictures allegedly taken from the scene including a close-up of the license plate that read “Beijing V02709”.

Licence plates starting with Beijing V027 are known to be exclusively allocated to cars from central military departments and especially official cars for high-ranking Chinese army officials. In 2009’s National Day Parade, President Hu Jingtao reviewed the troops on a car with a “Beijing V02009” license plate.

By Luna

13 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

News/Society

Sep

Migrant Workers Remains to be Settled as Beijing’s Reconstruction Undergoes

More than sixty thousand migrant workers in suburban Beijing Shijingshan District are said to be losing their lodgings as the Chinese capital’s reconstruction project progresses, the Beijing News reports.

Migrant workers living in in-city villages are confronted with the dilemma: to find other lodgings or to return their home town.

Lu Jiehua, a professor from Peking University’s Sociology Department, warned that the accommodation and the employment issues involving migrant workers if not sophisticatedly and timely resolved could endanger the stability of the society.

Local government of Pingguoyuan Subdistrict (in Shijingshan District) introduced a new approach, the mutual helping service stations, to deal with the floating population in the area. The mutual helping service stations are self-governing institutes founded by local officers, landlords and tenants.

The services include registering Temporary Residential Permit, helping with free school children enrollment and giving out “Love Service Card” which entitles cardholders to free medical registration.

Despite the cheerful success of this new approach was neutralized by the reconstruction of in-city villages and the moving out of migrant workers. Prof. Lu admitted that the indisputable solution to this dilemma has not yet emerged.

In spite of Shijingshan local government’s effort of preinforming the relocation project and helping with the registration of Temporary Residential Permit and other license for the industrial and commercial sector, returning home has become an increasingly popular option.

Wei Yingyuan, a decoration work living in the relocation-involved village, feared that large scale relocation would bring about a wave of home-returning among migrant workers.

However, Ma Xiaoduo, an NGOer who set up a kinder garden for migrant worker kids expected most migrant workers would stay in Beijing for keeping accustomed life styles. These people tending to keep their renting expense relatively low ended up living in more distant areas, according to Ma.

“Thus, migrant workers in Beijing are more marginalized and impoverished,” Ma worried.

Though the local government promised that all students involved in the relocation project would be able to transfer to other schools, Ma said that frequent resettlement could affect children’s psychologically.

To solve the problem of migrant workers involved in the relocation, Prof. Lu suggested the government to provide career-training to migrant workers so that they could find other occupations easily after the resettlement.

Recently, more than 40,000 recent Chinese graduates who are living in Tangjialing Village have to find new lodgings as the Beijing Municipal Government started reconstructing 50 in-city villages, which have more tenants than local residents, to create a better living environment in the Chinese capital.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

China/News/Society

Beijing/Migrant worker

Sep

Children with Special Needs Face Cruel Reality

“When people around said that you’re a fool, I laughed, for only a fool would call other people fool. When people around said that you’re as dull as a wood, I wept, for I knew that you’re as good as anyone,” a mother wrote this poem for her son who has infantile autism, feeling bitter and helpless.

Children with special needs in China, mainly children with hearing\visual impairments and infantile autism, are still facing the cruel reality despite the successful event of the Paralympics and the Asian Para Games.

Li Xuexia, a special education teacher for the Little Sun Recuperation Centre said that the social prejudice existed in various forms of which the children themselves and their families are the victims.

Families, especially the parents of the children, are constantly being looked down upon or disrespected. Miss Chen, a mother whose daughter suffers minor hearing disorder complained that people would look at her and her child with a strangely sympathetic looking.

While the families of the children suffer different levels of social prejudice, the children themselves are being marginalized in the society.

“Ordinary schools are sometimes reluctant or even unwilling to enrol these children with special needs,” Li said regretfully though the government had long been advocating equal education opportunity in public schools for children with special needs.

China’s first fully public-funded school for children with special needs, Kangna School, was set up in Guangzhou on April 3^rd, 2009 and has a capacity of enrolling some 200 students.

However, it is nowhere near enough. According to statistic, the total of infantile autism children in China alone exceeds one million while there being merely some 200 recuperation centres nationwide.

Here lies the dilemma — on one hand, there are not enough education resources for these special children and needs many special education teachers urgently. On the other hand, the number of special education teachers is limited by the misconception and the hardship of the profession.

The director of the Little Sun Recuperation Centre, Zhou Liping, said the recruitment of new special education teacher is sometimes fruitless. “The job is demanding and the pay is relatively low. Few new graduates wish to enter the field,” she signed, worrying about the future of special education.

To make matters worse, some teachers recruited quit after only a little while. On one occasion, a newly-join teacher quitted within 5 days for she did not know how to explain the job to families and friends.

Those who stayed became very determined and tried to persuade and influence people around them.

“I once tried to explain to my family about some behaviour of infantile autism children, but they thought these children are fools. At this point, I felt that I could not communicate with my families. Perhaps, they would understand when they saw these children,” a special education teacher wrote.

Nevertheless, the insufficient teaching talent threatens the well-being of these children with special needs. So does social prejudice.

“The solution takes action from the government and society as well as political will,” Zhou paused, looking uncertain, when asked what could be done to alleviate the shortage of special education teachers. “We can only hope for the best,” she added.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Feature/Society

Asian Para Games/Autism/China/Paralympic Games

Sep

Zhao Lianhai: One Man’s Fight

It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times, it’s the age of reason, it’s the era of absurdness, it’s the age of justice under law, and it’s also the era of bias for power and wealth. Here he is, one man, holding faith and perseverance as his weapon, fights a lonely fight against all odds.

When Zhao Lianhai, 37, set up the website for contaminated milk powder victims, the home of kidney stone babies, 14 months ago, his only hope is that the website would help other victim parents share information and maintain rights. He had no idea what a lonely bitter fight was waiting ahead for him.

It wasn’t a lonely fight at the beginning. On the century, it were a huge success–over 4000 parents contacted him, thousands of netizens visited the website, the news coverage of the contaminated milk powder aroused heated discussion in the country and Zhao’s act earned him credits.

But none of these lasts long. Within the next couple months, the website was blocked, the QQ groups Zhao used to contact with parents and gather information were hacked and dismissed, and the attention of the public finally shifted away.

Police began to frequently visit Zhao’s place, making it “a resident bureau”. His families were asked to have a word with every now and then. Suspicious people wondered around his house from time to time.

Then came the national compensation plane, stating that victim families would be compensated for 2000, 30,000 and 200,000 Yuan respectively.

Zhao began to lose track with the victim parents. Phone calls were rejected, and the questionnaires sent out for victim babies’ health condition tracking returned merely dozens.

Once, after rejecting 3 or 4 calls from Zhao checking on victim baby’s recent health condition, a parent called back and questioned, “Haven’t you got anything else to do?” Zhao recalled, with tears held back in his eyes.

Alone and lonely, Zhao found himself trap in an unforeseen fight of maintaining rights. But he never quits. He picked himself up and fought on.

Although without much attention, he kept posting articles about new findings on contaminated milk powder or new victim cases he gathered, hoping this tragic memory would not wash away.

Despite low returning rate, he kept sending out questionnaires tracking on kidney stone babies’ health condition, hoping to build a database someday would be useful for victim families.

He’s also thinking about grouping a research team to conduct surveys on how contaminated milk powder would affect victim babies’ health in later stage of their lives for the time being.

Zhao, whose son suffered kidney stones after years of consuming dairy to prevent malnutrition, attributes his perseverance to his love and sympathy for the victim babies.

“We parents shouldn’t’ have just thought about ourselves at this juncture. We should think about our children, think about what this contaminated milk powder would affect them. There should be no fear of what would happen to us. After all, it’s our children’s right and health at stake,” said Zhao.

Zhao’s strong character also plays an important role. He fights whenever he sees wrongdoings. Zhao, currently self-employed, resigned from his administrative post in a state-owned enterprise years ago for “refusing to follow the co-op”.

Even though under pressure from many quarters, Zhao said he won’t let go until those who faulted were brought to justice. “I would not give up, and I would not give in to those powerful interest groups. They can trick, but they can never stop me.”

The road ahead for this one-man-fight is paved with hardship. Nonetheless, Zhao will stick to what he believes and fight alone bravely.

13 years ago Short URL Comments

Feature/Society

Kidney stone/Powdered milk/Zhao Lianhai