Brawl @ the Xinzhu Pig & Whistle - 7 Foreigners injured

May 23, 2004

Sunday morning around 3:30am at the HsinChu Pig&Whistle several foreigners got attacked by locals. I saw several Chinese guys get up from their table and rush toward the dance floor. They attacked 7 foreigners including a girl from S. Africa. The Chinese guys used fists, chairs, an ashtray and a bat. The guy with the bat even used it to bat the S. African girl on the head. The bouncers did nothing and waited for the police. The police got there as the attackers were driving off in their car.

There was blood everywhere. It wasn’t just a normal brawl. I mean there were cuts up to 9 inches in length. The foreigners had blood all over their faces. I mean these gangsters were really out of control. The foreigners tried to get away but they couldn’t make it to the door. Six sustained quite serious injuries to the head and chest. Cuts everywhere.

Later on at hospital I met one of the attackers. He claimed that he did nothing wrong attacking and in batting the foreigners including the girl… He claimed that he was the bouncer at Pig&Whistle and that he is a powerful gangster.

The foreigners,to my knowledge, will not press charges against the attackers. They fear further attacks by them.

So…nothing will be done about this and I think that the attackers will think that they can get away with attacking foreigners anytime again.

Scottie, the manager at Pig&Whistle, said that everything will be settled by the police. But nothing will be done without charges being filed by the foreigners.

I almost got hit too. I was standing a little too close to the dance floor where the fight was taking place. I almost became one of the injured.

Pig&Whistle has no real security. Anyone could get killed there.

I will find out whether the attacker that claimed to be the bouncer there is really the bouncer there. If that is true the foreigners can sue the pub instead of the attackers for compensation(being afraid to sue the attackers).

The foreigners are from S. Africa, Canada and America.

Are foreigners being targeted by local gangs for attacks? Violence against foreigners seem to be on the rise. One of the reasons might be foreigners not pressing charges and/or the police not doing their job in apprehending the assailants. Also poor security if any at many of these disco pubs.

These foreigners got attacked while they were dancing. I mean they weren’t picking a fight with the locals. They didn’t know why they were attacked and I was there watching and didn’t see any reason for the attack.

Share some of your views on pressing charges. Whether that is something you would do or not.

Wow, terrible story! I am really, really curious to find out why these local guys attacked the foreigners. Since I have been in Taiwan, I have never had any major problems from the local people so I wonder what happened to start things? Perhaps the locals were just angry and drunk or perhaps one of the locals had a problem with one of the foreigners and simply got his friends to attack all the foreigners they could see.

I hope this is not an indication of some local people starting to resent the foreigners here in Taiwan. Recently, Bassman wrote of some very hostile comments directed at him for no reason. Let’s hope this is not some kind of trend among the local people.

In the states, I have seen foreigners get attacked by locals simply because the locals believed that jobs were being taken away by the foreigners, at least that was the excuse they used. However, I believe that predjudice is often at the heart of such problems.

I am not too surprised that the bouncer would not get involved. After all, he has to live in this society well after his shift ends,and he probably fears incurring the rath of these gangsters. Thus, he may have felt powerless to do anything and just made up an excuse as to why he didn’t try to stop things.

All in all, a very disturbing story.

Of course no one deserves to be attacked so viciously but something must have triggered the attack. I don’t believe the reason was simply that they were foreigners.

As a fully paid up member of the Self Preservation Society I avoid pubs with drunk gangsters. They’re like pit bulls; they can turn nasty all of a sudden.

Maybe they were tall or maybe “proud”. It could have been because they were with a Taiwanese girl…nope, they were with a Western girl. That’s the reason. :unamused:

No. The real reason is that they are cowardly punks, brave only when standing behind their victims with their pengyou to back them up. Shitheads. :raspberry:

This is Taiwan, there are a lot of fascists here. Many Taiwanese harbor a deep-seated resentment of all foreign presences; english-speaking foreigners are just another form of colonialism, and we just top the list of colonizers – dutch, portuguese, english, japanese, etc… Nothing new under the sun is going to make the character change. The xenophobia of the people runs deep. If they want to hit and run, they will. I suggest the victims go to a temple and burn some strawmen, like Chiang-Kai-Shek, at least. I would definitely press charges against the morons… It’s such a sad reality, sometimes, being here, when the rest of the world lives so freely. Nobody gets called names, everyone can reach out and find someone to love… SUE THE BAR IF YOU CAN’T PRESS CHARGES !

just curious :s How does a guy have a bat in a night club/pub?

I am very curious what the gang situation is like in Taiwan.

How often would people come into contact with gangs and what sort of gangs are they?
Are they young thugs that do a bit of extortion and theft, or more serious stuff like murder and gun fights?
How big are these gangs?
Are there gang names to watchout for?
Do people believe they will be killed if they fight back or press charges?

Didn’t the Taiwanese colonize Taiwan?

Yeah, right. You’ve never seen what violent people can do in retaliation to their victims when they try to press charges. If it happened to you and you knew that worse awaited you should you file a report, would you be quick to do so?
The rest of the world is such a free place? In some countries, the girl would have been stoned to death for being out in the company of men who were not her male relatives. Even in the US, in some circles she’d get called some rather nasty stuff for going to a pub with a group of men. I think it’s time to lay the bong aside and come back down.

[quote=“danny”]The foreigners, to my knowledge, will not press charges against the attackers. They fear further attacks by them.

So…nothing will be done about this and I think that the attackers will think that they can get away with attacking foreigners anytime again.

Scottie, the manager at Pig & Whistle, said that everything will be settled by the police. But nothing will be done without charges being filed by the foreigners.[/quote]
If they don’t press charges, they will be partly responsible for the next attack on whomever.

People like that don’t need an excuse to attack anyone.

[quote]If they don’t press charges, they will be partly responsible for the next attack on whomever.
[/quote] We all know that too but what can we do? We can’t do anything but put pressure on the pub to improve security. Maybe persuade the victims to sue? I think that you’ll see them around in Taipei.

Anyways the foreigners can still press charges against the assailants within six months(according to Taiwan law). So they can still change their mind anytime within the following six months.

The gangster that I was talking to said that the one of the foreigners had hit his friend and that’s what his friend told him. That’s when they decided to jumped the foreigners and beat them.

But according to what I saw and what the foreigners told me…the local gangsters were just looking for a fight.

The dance floor is pretty crowded and getting bumped by the person beside(anywhere) you is unavoidable. I think that this could’ve triggered this vicious violence. Local gangster can take a “bump” and say that you “hit” them. And rough you up. But the violence that I saw at Pig&Whistle was very vicious.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen so much blood everywhere. I had some on my shoes and face. I guess that I got some blood flying off the bat as he was batting the girls head.

I’ll get some more answers from the gangster when I see him again and keep my ears open to rumors circulating around town.
I’ll ask the manager, Scott, whether the gangster’s claim as being the bouncer at the pub is true or not. Because if it is true… Pig&Whistle beat their own customers.

These foreigners came down from Taipei to have a good time in HsinChu. From what I’ve seen these foreigners are nice people and not like the ones that are obnoxiously rude and shove people around. They said that they can forgive their assailants. Well…I don’t have that much forgiveness and love in my heart for any vicious criminal that would do such a thing.

It’s sad to see nice people get hurt.

I guess their week is pretty much spoiled. And they’ll always have those scars to remind them of the GOOD times in Taiwan.

pig and whistle hsinchu is wide open. the first floor closes early and the dancing happens on the second floor. just a simple walk up. oftentimes, no one is at the door at all. getting a bat (or worse) in would be a breeze.

This is disturbing…

But a group of 7 people should be able to hold their own against locals of twice their number…Did they fight back? And are you positive the group did nothing to provoke this?

The victims in question have a right to compenstion from the gangsters themselves. They broken some serious code here by attacking these people with no provacation. You need to find out who the ‘Da Ge’ is for these little punks and present your case…There will be money and apologies to be had. Hitting a girl with a baseball bat?..Them’s fightin words where I come from. Go back to the bar, get some information, talk to your ‘friend’, contact the Taipei foreign affairs police, and find out who the Da Ge is!..Don’t let this slide!

Which comes to my last question…Call me old fashioned, but when a woman gets attacked in my presence by a man (with a bat no less!), the man in question is going to do some heavy hospital time regardless of what happens after! You said you were ‘almost injured’ and that ‘you had blood on you’…But yet you stood by and did nothing? You made no attempt to intervene on the womans behalf? I realize that we’re not on home turf, and fighting can be scary, but some things are too cowardly to ignore. This is not meant to offend,and I also realize I wasn’t there, but reading this is making me angry :bluemad: :bluemad: :bluemad:

Does this mean that once we move to Taiwan our sense of chivalry dies?

??? :s

Most people would buckel under the threat of violence. Fight or Flight. Most would choose flight in some form or another. The foreigners had no chance for either.

As for taking on a local…most would never pick a fight with anyone…it’s the one who does want to pick a fight that can whoop most peoples asses. He knows it that’s why he’ll do it. Case in point last night. They knew that these guys would be easy to beat. If not they wouldn’t have done it.

Ski

Has there been any local media coverage? Are some of them in hospital?

Most of the Taiwanese bouncers which I have seen were pretty useless.
Back home in N.Z. bouncers are usually hard bastards;They basically just come in two models: your defuse-the-situation hard bastard and your “wanna give someone a kicking” hard bastard.

As for the foreigners fighting back, I’m not sure that they had a chance. It might have happened too quickly for them to react - all over in a couple of seconds. It takes only one half-decent punch to drop a person.

[color=red][Moderators note: For technical reasons, this thread has become too long and is continued HERE][/color]

[quote=“almas john”]Has there been any local media coverage? Are some of them in hospital?

As for the foreigners fighting back, I’m not sure that they had a chance. It might have happened too quickly for them to react - it could have all been over in a couple of seconds.[/quote]

No media showed up. There should be a coverage to get the attention of the government on issues like this. The assailants could’ve been charged with disrupting the peace or something(whether or not charges are filed by the foreigners)…but they are free. They weren’t even taken in for questioning and the foreign affairs police didn’t show up. The local police didn’t contact them. The police didn’t even look at the IDs of the assailants when I pointed them out. Anyways I still remember their faces and Hsinchu is such a small town…I’ll see them around and will be able to assist in identifying them.

I left the emergency room after each victim decided not to press charges. Some of them wanted to press charges but were persuaded by another foreigner not to…fearing attack by gangsters.

As for foreigners fighting back…no chance at all against chairs and a bat. The fight lasted around 3-5 minutes. A lot of damage was done in that time.

The license plate number for the assailant with the bat: LW-9515 or was it LW-9151. Silver Mitsubishi.

If you are one of the victims and change your mind about not pressing charges and need a witness PM me.

I thought you said the assailants fled prior to the time that the police arrived. ??? In your initial post you stated:

I’m confused.

Why were you at the hospital? You also said that you spoke with one of the gangsters at the hospital… why was the gangster at the hospital? And why would they be speaking with you after you pointed them out to the police???

That is a long time for a fight. Especially one in which one group is attacked by surprise with chairs and bats.

How were you able to get that?

This is all very confusing.

Point taken…But these folks had no choice for flight from the sounds of it. Also, the priority should have been protecting the girl, no matter what your feelings about fighting may be.

In 1992, A gangster punk hit me over the head with a brick. Despite filling my shoes completely with blood, I finished the job at hand and took the stitches afterwards…I myself would choose flight over fight if flight presents itself, but what happens when it doesn’t? Do we sit back and allow ourselves to be subject to a whipping?..Maybe I’m too much the simpleton but it seems to me if you got no choice, take a couple with you. They got their asses stomped anyway, and there can’t be anything more satisfying to a gangster punk here than taking down a foreigner. The little bastards will be gloating over this for weeks.

I’m not a badass or a tough guy…But if you throw the first blow or hit a woman in front of me, there will be a fight. Like I said, I’m an old fashioned simpleton, but I believe and endorse the right to protect oneself if all other options have been exhuasted. For the three times I’ve had to do it in Taiwan, the fear is mostly just before it starts, the unknown factor. Once it starts, it’s not that bad, you either get your ass kicked, or kick somebody elses…It never really hurts until the next day anyway.

And ski, I agree with you 100%. Most locals won’t hassle a foreigner that potrays an attitude of ‘mess with me at your peril’. My advice to the rest is to stay out of bars frequented by gangsters. I play in pool tournaments with gangsters every week and don’t get hassled by anyone.

Funny no one seems to share my indignation about the girl getting whacked with a baseball bat. Maybe attitudes really have changed in the west. Maybe men don’t stop and help women anymore when their car breaks down or when they are hassled by unsavory characters. I haven’t been home in a looong time (ten years), have attitudes changed that much?

Is the white knight dead?

Just my two cents…

I went to hospital to assist the foreigners if they wanted to press charges. The local police will not contact the Foreign Affairs Police for you. It is your own problem. I was willing to contact the Foreign Affairs Police for them and be the eyewitness. Other foreigners just didn’t want to get involved in anyway so I felt obliged.

The assailants went to hospital to where the foreigners were threatening them and at the same time saying that they were friends. I pointed them out to the police keeping my voice low. I then told the gangster that I was just translating for the two groups. One being the foreigners and the Chinese(police and gangsters) being the other group.

The first attack was with an ashtray, fists and some chairs. Then I followed one of the assailants out and got his license plate number. I then saw him get a bat out of his car. He walked toward the entrance and wait for his first bat. A foreigner came out and got wacked on the head. Then he proceeded to the second floor(disco pub) and wacked the South African girl on the head. Her face was just so bloody!

My actions aren’t heroic in anyway…I could’ve help them fight those bastards but I had no guts against chairs and a bat. Even the other foreigners in the pub didn’t help. Everyone was scared sh*tless. I thought that at least I could get a license plate number to help aid in apprehension of the assailants if they should flee the scene. Usually if you have nothing the cops won’t really look for them unless you are murdered.

I still feel bad about just watching and being a coward!

No one could protect anyone. Everyone was getting hit …even the girl being protected became the target for the batter. They were tearing the group from all sides. Like wolves circling the sheep and going in for the kill.