Last weekend's weirdness

[Norbert Radd]

My office neighbor just recently had this same thing happen to him. He brought it up today so I thought I would ask you all for feedback.
I lead this quiet little existence and only go out for gigs or office parties or little business ventures in Hong Kong. I only eat out in my neighborhood.
Coming back from a Friday night gig in Futian (Shenzhen) that I took a taxi to, I asked a Chinese on the street [That's the subway, right?] and the guy replied in the affirmative. What I was walking towards looked more like an underground garage but I saw many people walking in the same direction.
Still not quite at the subway station, this twentysomething guy asks me in English, "Do you speak Chinese?" His friend was this beautiful young woman. I just said [I'm busy. No time.] because it seemed like something criminal.
On Saturday night, I was coming back from a gig in Nanshan and this woman on the street asked me, "Xiao mei." I said, [Don't want!] and discreetly patted my key/cash stash in my front pocket with my paperback and felt my phone in the inside pocket of my windbreaker.
She then asked in Chinese if I wanted to buy her a coke at KFC and I said [Don't want!].
I got my phone stolen from me when I was sitting at the beach snapping pictures of myself with this new camera. When I told my Chinese coworkers about it, they all explained that their phones had been stolen too. Since then, I've been really keeping my wits about me but am usually only accosted by touts on my way to the train station. I take the subway there to avoid that problem.
I thought I would ask you all for feedback.
In Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Beijing, Wuhan, and Shanghai no one's ever approached me other than DVD sellers and salesman outside shops. The train station in Luohe Henan is bad but that's Henan.

[Lotus Eater]

The times I have had my mobile stolen have been because I have been stupid. In Xi'an I only get approached by beggars. Only once has anyone attempted to steal anything from me and I was acting like a tourist - sitting in a park reading a map because I had walked about 20 blocks in the wrong direction and a small child tried to unzip my camera bag, but luckily I felt it before he had it more than a couple of fingers open. After that I carried the bag with the zipper facing my body - and I now have a bigger camera and use the bag as my handbag, so it is always carried in front of me. I can no longer find anything in it - so I figure it will be way harder for a thief to find anything!!.

[gengrant]

norad, I have to ask...

what time is this happening to you? I have never been approached by anyone like this in Party Central...but then again either:
1. I am not out too late or
2. I am not as attractive as you are...

I'm leaning more toward number 1.

[Raoul Duke]

I've heard a number of sources claim that Shenzhen has the highest crime rate (especially prostitution, drugs, small-scale theft) in China. Not all sem to agree on this, though.

[Lotus Eater]

Death for city's purse-snatchers
Michael Sheridan, Beijing
06mar06

BAG-SNATCHERS are to face the death penalty after judges in a southern Chinese city responded to concerns over street crime with draconian sentencing rules.

An epidemic of street robberies, many of them by thieves on motorbikes or in cars snatching women's handbags, has infuriated the inhabitants of Guangzhou, a thriving metropolis that hosts thousands of foreign business visitors every year.

The city's rise to prosperity has been scarred by crime, and police blame the rise in street snatches on a booming drug trade.

While the suppliers stay in the background, their desperate customers are often responsible for the bag-snatchings, said police and court officials.

"Such things were unknown in Chairman Mao's time when I was a boy, but the authorities don't want to admit they are losing control," a local businessman said yesterday.

"Frankly, most Chinese people would be happy to see these thieves executed."

Several residents complained that life in the city's new middle-class apartment districts had become hazardous because of the street crime wave.

Keen to show authorities took such complaints seriously, the vice-president of the provincial people's court, Chen Huajie, announced on February 28 the court would impose a minimum sentence of three years' imprisonment and a maximum penalty of execution for bag-snatching.

Before the judge's announcement, the maximum penalty was three years' jail.

The decision attracted immediate condemnation from Amnesty International, which campaigns to abolish the death penalty.

"We recognise the duty of governments to combat crime, but this is a knee-jerk response," spokesman Mark Allison said.

A Chinese legal expert, professor Dong Likun of Shenzhen University, asked in an interview with The South China Morning Post: "Can we really give a death sentence to a purse thief?"

Although there is no reliable measure of public opinion in China, the state's actions show it wants to quell a rising sense of insecurity among the growing numbers of middle-class Chinese.

The police have announced that 24,000 officers have been deployed at kindergartens and schools across the country to combat a rise in robberies and assaults against children.

Secrecy alternates with lurid publicity in the Government's anti-crime strategy as the courts have a duty under the communist system to use sentences to exemplary effect.

Last October, the executioners came for Wang Binyu, a migrant worker who was sentenced to death after a case that generated nationwide comment.

Wang murdered four people after trying to extract unpaid wages he said was owing from an unscrupulous employer.

It was a familiar tale of exploitation and despair that inspired a lively debate on the internet between supporters and opponents of the death penalty.

But after Wang was shot in government-approved fashion, his name vanished from Chinese internet sites, online discussions were shut down by censors and all references to the case were purged from the record.

Nonetheless, the Government has permitted the beginnings of a debate about the use of capital punishment. China executes more people than any other country, with research suggesting about 10,000 people die at the hands of the state every year.

[Crippler]

Interesting reading whether you favor the death penalty or not. I am really neither for or against it in theory. However, many of the wrong people end up swinging while the more evil walk free. The purse snatcher dies while the head dope dealer never gets caught.

However, in Canada and USA where death penalties are actually quite rare, the whole penal system is just one more business. They cannot afford to bring in the death penalty on a big scale as there are too many people employed by the system. It is similar to the tax department in that if we did away with income tax we would create another welfare community in the laid off workers.

I do have problems when I hear of prisoners in the system getting better treatment, medical care and food than the people they vicitmize!!

[Hamish]

Writing as one who has worked in a prison, it would be the REALLY unfortunate SOB in the US who gets worse treatment, medical care, and food than a prisoner in American jails. For openers, the jail poisons not only the inmate, but the screws as well. In time, almost everyone there becomes an animal.

As you must know, my country imprisons more people per capita than does any other place on earth, and screws are not professional bleeding hearts. In fact, too many become professional despots and evil natured assholes.

[Norbert Radd]

Both times it was early in the evening, around 8:30. These were the only times I had this happen. Wednesday night this guy came up to us--3 non-Chinese--and asked us for directions. Go figure

[gengrant]

Writing as one who has worked been gang-raped in a prison

knew something was going on with all his references to 'screws.' Hammy...I've never worked in a prison, but I did visit one once...AS A VISITOR!...and although I don't know of what you speak, I completely agree...I did go to Grad School in Prison City, USAnia...Huntsville, Texas...(with 7 Prisons in one town...ask me about life there sometime)...and I must say, we USAnians sure know how to lock up people! No wonder our prisons are so overcrowded!!!


Norad, I've seen people steal stuff in stores (in Dongmen, a girl walked up to a small shop vendor, put on a hat, looked in the small mirror, then walked off...all while the shopkeeper kept her face glued to her mobile with her back to everyone...), and I've heard of the pickpockets, but I've never seen or been a party to what you've described.

Raoul, as far as the prostitution and drugs, I wouldn't know cause I'm too straight-laced to allow myself into those places where it might be probably is happening.

[Norbert Radd]

in Waikiki once, I saw this woman ask this old cashier for a bag and she walked out with a Diet Coke and a bottle of water. To this day, it is one of the most brazen things I've ever seen.

[Crippler]

hamish said:

Writing as one who has worked in a prison, it would be the REALLY unfortunate SOB in the US who gets worse treatment, medical care, and food than a prisoner in American jails. For openers, the jail poisons not only the inmate, but the screws as well. In time, almost everyone there becomes an animal.

As you must know, my country imprisons more people per capita than does any other place on earth, and screws are not professional bleeding hearts. In fact, too many become professional despots and evil natured assholes.

I have worked St. Cloud Minnesota Correctons as well as one in Tennessee! Food was pretty good and while crimes did happen, they were not as prevalent as the crime rate in the cities. And I also worked at the Florida Secure Sex Offender prison. Most of the time the guards were afraid that if they looked the wrong way a prisoner would have his lawyer bring a law suit.

[woza17]

Having hadmy bag stolen 4 times and 2 attempted robberies in Dongguan and most of the women I talk to have been robbed at least once. I can understand why the Goernment thinks it's getting out of control. No way would I want to see someone executed for stealing my bag. In Guangzhou I readthere are vigilante groups that have formed with the support of the government to help combat the problem.
I would really like to hear from the thieves and the reasons they are turning to a life of crime.

Now the people who really piss me off are the bloody developers who rip off the migrant workers. They go to the goverment offices to register their complaints with little effect.