Mid-week during Spring Festival I called an American friend to ask how his Chinese holiday was going. Dan (not his real name) has been living in Suzhou more than seven years, and owns a duplex in the northern suburbs of Suzhou, where he lives with his Suzhou wife and baby daughter (and Chinese father-in-law and mother-in-law; or rather, where they live with his nuclear family). The day before, he explained, they had all had a street fight with the next door neighbor, a local Chinese: very new money.
Dan explained, “I walked down to the garage to drive the car out to the airport. A friend was coming in from Dalian for the weekend, and I was going to pick him up from the airport at Shanghai Hongqiao. The driveway was blocked again; the neighbor had once again parked his car in front of my garage.” It was the third time the neighbor had done that. Though the neighbor also had a garage, and the garage was supposedly empty, he seemed predisposed to parking in front of Dan’s property. Presumably, the neighbor did not yet fully comprehend just what the use of a garage was. Or else, he was just lazy and couldn’t be bothered with getting out of the car, opening the garage door, getting back into the car, driving into the garage, then getting out to close the door of the garage. Likely the latter.
So Dan for the third time went next door, knocked on the man’s door, told him to move his car from in front of Dan’s driveway. The Good Neighbor made excuses for yet again blocking Dan’s car park, and took his time meandering toward the car. Of course, I’m sure he felt little Face in the process as Dan’s wife and father-in-law were berating the man in Suzhounese about the infraction. Petulant, the man got in the car, turned it on, and made to pull out of the spot. Despite the wide berth, he was able to go out of his way to knock Dan’s Chinese sister-in-law with the car. Though she did not fall down, it was clearly an unwelcome bump in the thigh.
Dan said, “My first thought was to protect my family.” Now, Dan is a big man. Played linebacker or some such for an American mid-west college team. He also has a temper to match his mass, though to meet him one has only to think pussy cat: big pussy cat. A great deal of potential energy, then, to be unleashed.
Dan punched in the hood of the neighbor’s car. It was at that moment the neighbor realized he really had crossed a line of no return with Dan and his family. Dan threw open the door to the driver’s side of the car and reached in to pull the neighbor out of the car. As Dan describes it, “the guy was scrambling to get into the passenger side of the car, but got caught on the gear shift. It was pretty funny, actually,” Dan chuckled at the telling.
Still, Dan was able to catch The Neighbor as The Neighbor tried to do an end-run round tail of the car. Dan wanted to punch the man, but his wife called out for restraint.
Meanwhile, The Neighbor’s family members leaked out of the property next door ready to rumble. Before Dan could put The Neighbor’s feet back on the ground, The Neighbor’s wife was hitting at his father-in-law, and two other family members from the The Neighbor’s posse were making for the sister-in-law. Dan threw the Neighbor to the ground and went for the two guys, at one point picking them by their collars and bouncing them off the nearest concrete wall. Dan saw that his father-in-law and wife had The Neighbor’s own wife on the ground, and were kicking her. He turned to see another couple of family members from the Neighbors make for his wife and father-in-law.
It had been clear to The Neighbor’s family they were not going win. They had already called the police. Not to break up the fight; but to press their right to park their car and to be abusive to whomever they pleased in the narrow lane that defined the neighborhood. Dan walked back home when the police arrived. He refused to speak with the police. He told the police in no uncertain words they were useless: his home had been recently broken into and the Keystone Cops and done nothing more than poke at the up-ended sliding door through which the thieves had broken in, and then filed a report.
In most instances in China when the police are called they stand silently aside. As another American friend confirmed, “The police in China usually come in mid-stream, after an argument has been going on for some time. They’ll usually get involved only when the two parties break into a fight, which is often the case.” And, of course, whatever the police adjudicate there on the spot does not carry any weight after the altercation, unless - in a matter involving a small amount of money - the transaction is carried out there on the spot.
A few minutes later a representative of the Property Management Company came by Dan;s home to see if there was anything he offer to smooth things over. Dan told the representative he was useless, too: for two years Dan had been complaining about the water problems in the basement due to poor construction; he had had his property broken into because the security guards and overall security level of the area was sub-standard; he had complained about the neighbor’s parking his car where he wasn’t supposed to be. Dan was not about to give the representative any Face. Dan said the representative “left with his head down, a broken man.”
“My biggest concern now is that the The Neighbor and his family are next door cooking up some kind of retribution. I’m afraid this is going to turn into a Hatfield and McCoys style family feud. I told my wife just go over there, pay them some money for the [damaged] hood, get this over with. But she insists, no; it would only show weakness.”
Sure, feuds between neighbors happen all the time throughout the world. But without institutions that ordinary citizens can trust - Management, Security, Police, even a civil court system - China faces an increasing number of property rumbles.
Ownership is not new to China; civility is.
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