Sanlitun Saturday nights...ah the excitement!

This particular post somewhat ties in with what Cam has previously posted about the black men being targeted in a drug sting over the weekend.

I must preface this post with the honest contention that for the time that I have been living here in Beijing, I have never really felt unsafe. Sure, there may be the odd time when I'm strolling home down a dark alley and my imagination will begin to shift slightly into the macabre, but for the most part I feel I can walk down the streets of this city with the knowledge that no one is really going to mess with me. Not that I'm scary looking or intimidating by any stretch. The only thing I might have going for me is my height. (At 193 cm tall, I tend to stand out a bit) And even in 'seedy' areas of Beijing: AKA: Sanlitun, the fact that there are drug dealers abound and drunken fools out trolling the street at all hours of the night on a weekend, doesn't generally conjure up a sense of insecurity. However, that seems to have changed a bit this weekend.

I don't really know what it was... maybe a full moon or something, but there seemed to be a 'rambunctious' feeling in the air. I and three other friends took to the Sanlitun bar scene this weekend for a little fun and frivolity. Nothing that hasn't taken place in the past. So when two of my friends were later accosted on the street by a group of young, drunken Chinese lads...I have to say that I was a bit taken aback.

Now, to be fair, the confrontation wasn't particularly out of the blue. During our time in one of the establishments, one of my friends decided to make a bit of small talk with a girl sitting down at a table. This, while her group of male friends sat around at the same table, including the man who turned out to be her boyfriend. Ok...not the smartest maneuver on my friend's behalf. However, despite the initial protests and consternation of said boyfriend, I felt I had done a masterful job of diffusing the situation and talking to the disgruntled lover, rightfully pointing out that my friend had had a bit too much to drink, and that he didn't mean anything by it. The boyfriend was still obviously peeved, but he seemed to let it slide, and the fun and frivolity continued.

Becoming oblivious to the earlier tension, I continued on with my freakishly terrible white man dancing. But about half an hour later, two of my friends -- who had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at all -- returned inside the bar after stepping outside for a moment, furious at the fact that they had been jumped from behind by this same group of cowards at the table. One of our friends had a beer bottle smashed over his head and was kicked a few times when he was down. Our other friend then subsequently had this same bottle brandished in his face. Thankfully for my friends, these 'tough guys' turned tail and ran after the non-bottle victim stood his ground. Though there were only minor scrapes on his head, this friend of ours, who was actually a tourist in Beijing, was somewhat disturbed by the unprovoked attack.

So you combine this incident with the rounding up of black men on the same street on the same night, and you have to wonder whether this is a sign of things to come, or whether this was just a weird blip in the otherwise 'harmonious' life in seedy Sanlitun.