Picture via Beijing Youth Daily
The violence and protests have been stowed away like a jack-in-the-box, some novelty toy to be brought back out at another politically opportune time. The carnival’s over, folks. Time to go home.
But there’s a thing about violence. You might know it. Violence owes fealty to no one and nothing, and can as quickly turn against itself or its source, or innocents. Last Saturday in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, 51-year-old Li Jianli was bludgeoned over the head by a steel implement just because he was driving — with his family — a Japanese car. He is now partially paralyzed. The story comes via Beijing Youth Daily, and the details, as relayed via Wall Street Journal, are difficult to read:
Mr. Li, his wife, one of his son’s and the son’s fiancée, were on their way back from a shopping trip when Mr. Li’s white Toyota Corolla was set upon by an agitated anti-Japanese mob brandishing sticks, bricks and steel implements, according to the Beijing Youth Daily.
Mr. Li’s wife urged the demonstrators not to damage the vehicle. “It was wrong of us to buy a Japanese car. We won’t buy one ever again, OK?” she was reported as saying by Beijing Youth Daily.
But the gang beat Mr. Li anyway, striking him on the head with a steel shackle and causing him to lose consciousness. Later, he was rushed to hospital where he was treated for open brain injury and then moved to an intensive care unit. He remained there until he regained consciousness three days later.
Mr. Li can now move the left-hand side of his body but the right side continues to be partially paralyzed.
There is no “bright side” to this story. Fuck silver linings in the form of protest repudiations, as if collective guilt expressed on social media could restore a father and husband’s physical well-being. You hate Japanese products so much, you shitbags? Buy your own Japanese car and go nuts on it with a sledgehammer. Film it on your shitty aigo camera put it on Youku to show off your monkey-dumb patriotism, as if it were a skill to be rewarded with a fruit-flavored hard candy, you stupid fucking pieces of scum. Go kill yourselves.
