After attempting in vain to resolve the situation between the hotelier and police in Wen’an, we begrudgingly set off on the road south out of town for another late start. Power and politics in China has a way of making you feel completely helpless, and it cultivates a natural instinct for self preservation and nourishes it until it becomes a way of life. This often means that a car accident victim will lie on the ground, bleeding from the head, while a crowds will simply look on. It is tempting to identify the phenomenon as part of Chinese culture, but after observing it for some time, I now feel that it is much shallower than that. Rule of law is secondary to the power of people here, and the legal system is not developed enough in most places in China to ensure your own protection if you choose to help an injured person. If the police are involved and the injured is someone of means, you could be arbitrarily punished because they are looking for someone to blame quickly. If the injured is a commoner, a laobaixing, he likely doesn’t have the medical insurance to pay for his rehabilitation and is looking for someone to blame for the accident (the guilty party has probably already fled the scene), and I have heard of numerous cases of someone stepping in to take someone in dire need to the hospital only to be blamed for the accident later. “I was just trying to help!” is met with the response of “What business is it of yours to help this person? You don’t even know him!” by the authorities.
So it is with this background that I recommended from the beginning of our incident at the hotel to try to stay uninvolved. Morally, it is difficult to watch an innocent person suffer, but in the context of power and law in China, it is much safer to let events simply unfold around you.
