Nasty China Workers

Weather: Cloudy
Mood: Pissed!!

It was a beautiful Sunday when my family (hubby, 2 kids and me) returned home after a tiring morning out, to realize that there was a major road repair in our residential compound. We were a little taken by surprised because as residents of the compound, we were not informed that there would be on-going construction work on Sunday.) And because of this "illegal" construction work (since there is a law in Shanghai that construction work should not be carried out during non-official hours), my hubby got into a dispute with the construction workers...........

When my husband tried to drive us home using one of the entrance leading to our apartment block, we were told by workers to use another road as there was on-going road repair work. So, my hubby turned the car around and drove towards the alternative entrance, only to discover that it was blocked by frilly temporary blockade made by chairs and ropes. Since at this side of the entrance, the road work seemed to have completed, and thinking that the construction workers must have forgotten to remove the temporary blockade, we proceeded to drive the car forward towards our apartment block.

Half way from arriving our apartment block, 2 construction workers rushed towards our car and stopped us from proceeding forward. My hubby wind down the window to explain that we were trying to drive home but the other road entrance was blocked, so we had to use this alternative road. The workers accused us of bypassing their blockade and commanded us to turn back. When my husband asked for alternative way to drive home, he retorted that, “Well, I don’t care, we are working and you cannot come in, go find your own way.” And told us to get lost and come back at night when the road work has been done. When we reasoned with them, they even scolded us in rude words like, "What big deal we own an apartment", "So what we drive"…….
My husband, seeing that the kids were upset, was very annoyed with the workers rude attitude and decided to drive forward without having further meaningless negotiation with them. And guess what? One of the workers used himself to block the car and punched on our car with his fists when my husband attempted to drive forward (in snail speed). And he accused my husband for attempting to knock him down with our car. My kids started crying and I was scared too. My husband got so furious that he got out from the car to confront the unreasonable worker. But before my husband could say a word, both workers started pushing my husband. Fearing for my husband, I got down the car and shouted for help, "有人打人啊!"

Before long, we were surrounded by a whole bunch of construction workers. At this moment, a security guard arrived, but the young security guard made no attempt to interfere, he only advised me to call the police. So I did. And after that, I warned the rowdy workers that I would take their picture to report to the police for wanting to beat up my hubby. One of the workers challenged me to take his picture. But when I tried to take picture with my Nokia N73, all of them turned to their backs (left picture was taken when the police arrived), and another worker knocked my hand and sent my Nokia N73 flying into the air and landed hard on the floor. I was shocked by this sudden attack and started crying. My hubby got so mad that he wanted to beat up the guy who bullied me, but a few construction workers ganged up together to push my hubby around. The kids were terrified then, and they cried even louder. I was alarmed to see my hubby being surrounded, and I picked up the phone to call the police again, crying hysterically in the phone for help.

The stiff situation kept up for a few minutes before the police finally arrived. My husband spoke to me in English to let him handle the matter, so I entered the car to try to calm my crying children.

After a couple of minutes, my husband returned to the car and told me that he decided not to report the construction workers since they have backed off after the police arrived. And a middle-age man approached us, claming he was from the management office, and said he would direct us to the underground car park (which was not in operation yet) that could lead us to our apartment block.

While the management office guy led us to the car park, my husband reprimanded him for keeping silent the whole time while the construction workers terrorized us. He simply excused himself by saying he had no power over those workers since they were brought in by the developer to work on the road. He even claimed he did not know that the road construction was supposed to be happening that day.

Anyway, after we reached home, my husband pacify me by explaining he did not report the construction workers because they were a fierce ruthless bunch, and he did not want to risk revenge by them. And these people were from the poor provinces and they could harm us easily without due consideration. Afterall, he added that we were not in a desirable circumstance since the estate has such weak management and poor security.

Till now, I am still petrified by the entire occurrence yesterday. However, after the incidence, it suddenly dwell on me why some of my foreign counterparts treat the locals like shit.... because majority of the local Chinese are really like shit. They are selfish, inconsiderate, money-greedy proud undeserving humans that shame the existence of human kind.

I rest my case.


Adding on to my frustration, my blog is being blocked by the Chinese ISP again. It only goes further to prove that China is a shitty place. (Not to confuse you, I added this post using work-around method, meaning... I can add, but I won't be able to access and read it since my blog is blocked! )