Did a kid get beaten to death recently?

Legal Human Rights
1

My 5 yo and I caught something on chinese news recently that showed a boy about 10 who looked like he’d been burned or beaten. I didn’t understand, and J kept saying the boy had been burned but he looked bruised to me. There was a hysterical woman, and she was yelling at a man who was smiling.

Did anyone catch this? My neighbor says this boy died but I don’t know if we were talking about the same story.

On another note, Discovery’s got a really neat series on babies… last night you could see a face, fingers, toes, on this tiny little being that was just 3-1/2 inches long. Do they have a website with Taiwan sked?

Jennifer

2

His step father beat him to death… basically he didn’t die though until after 3 days on life support

3

Anyone know what happened to the stepfather?

Jennifer

4

chinapost.com.tw/entertainme … covery.asp

U should find ur program here, Jennifer.

5

Why is it that Taiwan “news” that consists of nothing but car crashes, burning buildings, arrested prostitutes, and suspects in motorcycle helmets, along with your boy beaten by his step-father? Sure we all like sex and violence, but don’t even the locals get tired of such trash and wonder what else is happening in the world?

6

I don’t know… you tell me.

But in my opinion, I don’t think a child being beaten severely, spending 3 days on life support and dying, is garbage. The stepfather was laughing at the boy’s mother, not far from where he was lying naked on a table, covered with bruises.

I’m just surprised that it wasn’t discussed here.

Jennifer

7

Of course, Jennifer, I agree the case you described is despicable. And I agree that the bastard should be punished severely. I don’t lack empathy. In my first month in Taiwan I walked into a shop and stopped the shopkeeper from beating his daughter. Everyone told “me you don’t understand, it’s a different culture, corporal punishment is ok here, yada yada yada.” I also heard a woman being beaten in my hotel, about the same time, and I went roaming the halls listening to doors to find which room it was so I could bang on the door and stop him, but I couldn’t figure which room it was. Another time an old man on Hsin-yi Road was yelling at his grown up daughter and tearing at her clothing as she tried to escape, and again I stepped in. Of course, every time people are shocked that this foreigner would have the audacity to interfere, and they tell me it’s none of my business and I don’t understand. But I disagree. If a person is being mistreated I believe it’s everyone’s business to try to stop it but unfortunately most people just look the other way.

So perhaps my comment about the crappy “news” in Taiwan should have been in another discussion. Yes, the kid beaten to death is horrible and the bastard who did it should be in jail. Yes, people should be aware of abuse and do something about it. But it would also be nice if more Taiwanren were interested in reading or watching something other than tintillating sex, violence and how to make money.

8

I’m curious how many others have seen events like those describe by Gao. I’ve never witnessed any violence the entire 5 years I’ve been here (other than auto or scooter accidents). I don’t mean to suggest that you are making this up. I remember when I was in Sweden for a month I saw more violence than in 5 years in Vancouver. I saw drug- crazed teenagers attack a bus driver, a drunken man punch his wife in the face in a high class restaurant. I even had someone pull a knife on me in my girlfriend’s apartment complex. Not the usual impressions people come back from Scandanvia with.

9

Mucha Man, in my 3 years, I’ve yet to see anything either.

I have though, and too many times, witnessesed the Taiwanese argument. You know the one? It’s ALWAYS happens outdoors, both people screaming at the top of their lungs at each other, drawing the crowds. If there’s a girlfriend or wife, she’ll be whacking the boyfriend or husbands face, 12 or 13 times. Although sometimes it’s the other way around. If there’s a cop, somebody’ll be yelling at him uncontrollably. I’ve seen too many of these to count.

10

Haven’t see anything like that described above either. Like Amos and Mucha man I’ve seen a few arguments, especially at traffic incidents, but nothing of the level described by Gao Li Tsai.

11

I’d suggest it’s more common down south. In my few years down there, I saw things similar to what Gao talked about (fortunately nothing too ‘severe’ - mostly men being way too ‘rough’ with women in my opinion, but I didn’t see any actual hitting - luckily for them :smiling_imp: ), and barely avoided a fight with about five people that almost happened mostly I think because I am a foreigner. (BTW, I did so by not acting scared but rather by getting in his face a bit. Not something I recommend normally, but many of these types

12

I had an interesting experience some years back. I had been teaching a corporate English class for Nanshan Insurance for some time, and we decided to take a class trip to Kending for the weekend. Well, on the way back, we stopped in Pingdong County in a little village (I think it was called Wanru) to get some pig knuckle, a local specialty. Well as we approached (on foot) the small lane where this commodity could be had, we saw there was quite a commotion. It turns out an elderly man (not a day under 75) and his wife had parked their car momentarily in the middle of the narrow lane while they ducked inside to buy something. Not exactly stellar road etiquette, but still nothing deserving of the beating the old dude was getting from some 30-something hotshot in a Honda Civic who was unable to get by the old dude’s car.

There were maybe 50 people watching, including able-bodied men. I, too was rubber-necking, until I realized what was going on, and the old dude’s wife was crying, trying to pull her husband away from the attacker. At this point I said “fuck it” to myslef and stepped in. (At the time, I was 27 or so, in good shape, a 2nd degree black belt in TKD, 6 ft. tall, 185 lbs, and most importantly I had 2 years not-too-distant experience working as a bouncer in a fairly rough nightclub in my hometown while I was in university. Not exactly Steven Seagal, but not exactly Peewee Herman, either. :sunglasses: )

I got in between them and told the young guy (in Mandarin), “hey, let the old guy go, it’s no big deal, he’s old, come on, forget about it.” He put his arms down, utterly confused, and I dropped my arms (outstretched to put some distance between the two) down also. He recovered to immediately shoot a fist past me connecting with old dude’s face, knocking off his glasses, and possibly breaking his nose. (There was lots of blood, and I could hear a crunch.) I pushed the guy’s arms down and he shoved me in the chest hard. I then shoved him back ten times as hard and sent him skidding on his ass. He turned beet red, mad as fucking hell, :imp: and came charging at me. I stepped forward and brought a forearm under his chin and slammed him down on his back on the hood of his civic (I dented it, I think) I then hissed at him, “You don’t hit women, you don’t hit children, you don’t hit babies, you don’t hit old people. Got it?” I relaxed my arm enough to let him breathe a bit, and he didn’t say anything so I leaned down on his windpipe a bit more and repeated myself. Once he finally muttered the words I wanted to hear, I got off him, he got up and ran to his car.

I was quietly praying that he didn’t have a gun in there, cause if he did, he would have surely killed me, he was that mad. :pray: He took off like a bat out of hell, tires screeching madly. In the meantime, the old couple had beaten a hasty retreat. I can’t say as I blame them, as the old dude’s nose was a bit of a mess, and they were very frightened.

After that, the boss of the pig knuckle shop presented me with a bag of that incredibly greasy-but-delicious meat. And my students decided we should beat it before the guy came back with every xiongdi (gangster) in the county. They were pretty shocked. :astonished: I was pretty upset.

“Listen”, I said. “Right now that guy hates foreigners because I schooled him in front of dozens of people. He still has no idea that what he did was unacceptable behaviour in the eyes of society, because noone in his society did anything to indicate otherwise. There are 8 able-bodied men in this group. Why weren’t you guys in there? What were you thinking?”

They said that it was impossible to tell who was at fault.

I was having none of that. “The old guy was at least 75 years old, right? He was getting beaten up for bad parking, right? The attacker was a young guy, right? What else is there to know?” :unamused:

They said I did the right thing, but they were worried that maybe the guy would turn on them. I let it go, because they were embarrassed. :blush: The funny thing is, we never talked about it, but at least half of the class sent me private e-mails later thanking me for what I did. Publically, the whole event was viewed as something that somehow shouldn’t be talked about. Weird. Good one for the memoirs, though. :wink:

13

Good for you, Maoman. :laughing:

I’m not one for use of violence either but think that often some use of physical force is necessary at times like the one you mentioned.

This is one thing that I saw a few times that really puzzled me, the lack of concern for others in need. I once saw a gnarly accident involving a young man on a scooter and a taxi. It happened in an intersection on Roosevelt Road and the boy was injured terribly. He had a clearly exposed compound fracture on one leg, had hit his head damn hard on the road (thank the Gods for his helmet!) and was wailing in pain. No one, not even the driver of the car cared to do anything for the lad or assist him in any way, but you could find gawkers in every direction. I didn’t even notice a single person on the phone to call for a medic. I was utterly appauled by such a lack of care and concern and felt there’s truly something wrong with people.

I recently saw a man wipe out on his bicycle on a sidewalk in Seattle and he took a nasty spill. I happened to be driving alongside him to witness the entire scene and stopped to help him. Within seconds there were at least 10 other cars that had pulled off the street and people flooding out doors from nearby business to help the guy.

Anybody know why there’s such a difference here?

14

Lack of concern for others in need: were you here a couple of years back when countless “rescue workers” evaded responsibility for four hours while four stranded workers trapped in the middle of a river begged for help, and TV crews filmed good footage for the evening news, until finally the victims were swept away and drowned? :unamused:

15

That’s just sick! :imp: I’m not familiar with the story, although I wasn’t there a couple of years ago for more than a few weeks visiting. From the sound of it I didn’t miss a good story.

16

By Gao Li Tsai[quote]Lack of concern for others in need: were you here a couple of years back when countless “rescue workers” evaded responsibility for four hours while four stranded workers trapped in the middle of a river begged for help, and TV crews filmed good footage for the evening news, until finally the victims were swept away and drowned? [/quote] Actuallly, if this is the same one I remember, the problem there was that the stream was too strong to save them.

17

I’m certainly not making excuses, but my Taiwanese friend says that many people here do not help in accidents because the victims are likely to implicate them in the accident when making police reports. Also, I guess it’s more fun to watch and hey, they’re not family and are therefore unimportant. It really pisses me off, this lack of accountability in what is supposed to be a “developed” country. Taiwanese people today have enough resources that their “self-preservation” ethic can evolve to something more humanitarian, don’t they? Now it’s not “self-preservation”, it’s “selfish”, especially when lives are at stake.

18

The river was strong, and that’s why the four died. But a long delay was caused because several employees at different agencies all shirked responsibility saying it’s not our duty and passing the call from one agency to the next. Then, when someone finally decided to do something they discovered that no one had the proper tool. After the incident they supposedly acquired guns to shoot a rope a long distance. But I refuse to believe that the four would have died if the first person to answer the call would have accepted responsibility – they had four hours to figure a solution.

Isn’t this related to what people say about chinese culture – that people look out for themselves and their immediate families, but the western concept of looking out for the greater society is less well developed. Capital punishment – not my problem. Torture of criminal suspects – not my problem. Guy lying in the road with bone sticking out of his leg – not my problem.

19

Stories like this are quite common in HK as well. I remember one in particular about an Englishman on business who had a heart attack and died on the street in broad daylight in 1998 in Central. No one bothered about him. I had been there that day, at roughly the same time, and it kind of made me think. Anyway…

20

Disclaimer for my Taiwanren friends: Even if it’s true that people in chinese society are less concerned with the welfare of strangers than westerners (How many times have people stepped in front of you on the sidewalk, almost poked your eye out with umbrellas, almost run you over in the crosswalk? Not to mention public shouting on cell phones, or the fact that people don’t put their weights away afterwards in the gym as they do in the States.), that is not to say that their concept of proper behavior is wrong, it’s just different (though I prefer consideration for others). Of course they may find it barbaric that Americans abandon their parents or send them off to care homes or that old folks don’t care for the grandchildren while the parents are working.