CONTRADICTION: "Police state" and "lawlessness"

The grand bargain made between China's leaders and the guy on the street goes something like: "The big guys assure steady economic growth, and in return you agree not to rock the boat." Sounds surprisingly similar to the Emperor's rule by the Mandate of Heaven back in the day, no? Another key component of the bargain involves assurance of stability in the form of an expansive security presence, from police to plainclothes cops to the People's Liberation Army officers to the young guy in the guardhouse at our front gate. To live in China is to be surveyed, watched, kept tabs on. If you cross a certain line, particularly the line of trying actively to involve Chinese citizens in some kind of mobbish political behavior, or group people together for an event of any purpose, you run a risk of activating this surveillance force. This is how folks "get disappeared" (Chinese folks mostly, as the international outcry if this was to happen to a foreigner would add to the massive PR problem China has already).

There is, on the other hand, kinds of lawlessness here that are startling to Westerners. To drive in Beijing, or even to be driven in a cab or bus here, is to feel a fear possible only in the midst of total chaos. Recent government transition has led to recent enforcement of several traffic laws, but in general, lane lines and street lights are interpretive, backing up on a busy highway to get to the exit ramp you missed is a frequent occurrence, accidents happen all the time.

More recently, at a pond hockey tournament on Houhai Lake this weekend, the organizers overlooked the need for a good, accessible bathroom for use by the players slamming copious amounts of Heineken over the course of the day. Eventually, the guys started pissing through a chain-linked fence bordering the hockey rink area, directly onto the ice being overseen from shore by hundreds of tourists. In a place where infant children routinely crap on the sidewalk, unable or unwilling to wait until the nearest public bathroom, and with parents who are remiss to throw money away on diapers, this must not have seemed like too much of a big deal to onlookers--at least the Chinese ones.