Editor's note: The following was translated and edited from a special report that appeared on the Chinese news site iFeng.com's "i-talk" feature. It comments on several recent cases of violence between Chinese people escalating from petty disputes over airplane luggage and subway seats, and attempts to frame them in a socio-economic context, suggesting that traditionally non-confrontational Chinese people now live in an infectiously impatient era where fewer and fewer are willing to sit down and listen to reason.

From subway brawls to slaps in the face, coverage of a recent spate of public physical altercations have sent us wondering… what's gotten into Chinese people lately?

Flight or fight?

On October 6, a dispute over luggage escalated into violence aboard flight 3U8726 from Nanjing to Harbin via Wuhan, causing one young father to be beaten by a group of passengers, despite attempted intervention from the cabin crew who reportedly also suffered a few blows. It was only after other passengers called for police that the attackers decided to make a hasty exit.

Two days later on October 8, a photograph was posted on Weibo of two men literally at each other's throats over a seat on the Guangzhou metro, with no small amount of blood on the floor. The blood in the photo was evidently from the younger man's ear, bitten open by the older man.

Finally, in September, an assistant professor from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics named Han Deqiang caused a media stir after he publicly slapped an old man after he "tarnished the name" of Mao Zedong.

What's notable about the incidents above is perhaps not the degree of the violence involved but the paltry nature of what set them off in the first place: Luggage? A seat on the subway? An old man badmouthing Chairman Mao? Really? Apparently resorting to violence has for some people become an unconscious reflex, a reversion to our animal nature.

Anger may be a natural response to injustice, but if we let it take control and lose our moral bottom line, we can inflict some serious—and thoroughly preventable—harm.

Where's the fire?

 "Decorum and civility are luxuries of a full granary; honor and shame are luxuries of a full stomach", goes the ancient saying ("仓廪实而知礼节，衣食足而知荣辱"), so why does it seem that Chinese people have become less civil now that their bellies have gotten plumper? Here are some possible reasons why:

From not enough goods to not enough personal space, it's always been tense. With drastic improvements to the economy over the past few decades, we may not have reason to fight over food any more, but our massive population still competes for limited public resources, and the cutthroat energy still pervades in areas like housing, medicine, and education, and, more recently, travel.

Media personality Xu Wenguang once posted the following on her Weibo account: "Boarding the 55-minute fast boat from Singapore to Bintan Island; maybe 80% of us are mainland Chinese. Door opens, everyone's pushing and shoving on to the deck, and I hear two foreigners behind me go, ‘Uh, is the boat not going to wait? Doesn't everyone have tickets?' As the crowd—all holding tickets guaranteeing them a seat—swept me forward, I couldn't help but agree with those two foreigners: ‘What's everyone so afraid of?'"

Part of the problem may be the sense of impatience inherent in the psychology of Chinese crowds. It's not any one person that's the problem; it's the competitive mob mentality. As Hong Kong writer Liang Wendao put it, "We're living in a noisy, impetuous time. It's like we're all living in a big, crowded house together. Everyone's shouting and no one wants to listen."

In an age where everyone wants to get a head start on everything—getting famous, making money, getting a promotion—everyone tends to let impatience get the best of them now and again. And when that happens, people tend to not want to stop and listen, or at least, they tell themselves they don't have time to stop and listen. More examples are hardly necessary; just go outside, cross the street, come face to face with a car and see if the driver stops to let you pass. Or, to be fair, next time you get behind the wheel, see how willing you are to let those pedestrians pass in front of you. Impatience is contagious, isn't it?

Some find it especially surprising that in China, a country with thousands of years of gentleman scholar tradition, a college professor could wind up slapping an old man for voicing a contrary opinion. Did he momentarily forget the joys of intelligent discourse with proponents of opposing theories? Or did he simply find it quicker, and more convenient to let the palm of his hand do the debating?

The convenience of letting the law handle our disputes is one of the reasons why we have an organized society in the first place. When Chinese people take justice into their own hands, are they not wasting their own investment in a hard-won legal system? Letting our anger get the best of us surely wastes more time than it saves.

Ditching the "dog eat dog" mentality

Whether it's a small event of community interest, or a large-scale movement in the name of patriotism, violence shouldn't be simply written off as a matter of criminal activity, nor should it simply be accepted as part of our national personality. Interpersonal violence is something that deserves to be objectively studied, so we can sift through the conflict and understand the root of the problem.

In a civilized country, everyone should have the right to get angry even if only to benefit the individual, but anger that results in violence is a detriment to all.

Source: iFeng.com

Related links
Do You Feel Safe? – A Look at Violence in China
Gun Crime: Is China Safer than the West?
Turning to the Dark Side: Public Rage in China

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Keywords: Chinese violence Chinese public anger management Chinese fist fights