“‘Uniform’ Has Been Transformed From a Noun Into a Verb”

A current altercation captured on video exhibits an off-duty, uniformed toll-booth worker in Yulin, Shaanxi province, berating a truck driver at a restaurant and attempting to drive him to eat meals from a rubbish can. The disturbing video has provoked a lot dialogue on-line in regards to the perceived impunity of people in uniform, the abuse of petty authority, and the way the downside of faculty bullying could also be a mirrored image of the prevalence of bullying habits in society at giant. 

An official assertion, issued on March 23 by the Yuwu Department of the Shaanxi Transportation Authority, confirmed that the uniformed man within the video is certainly an worker at a neighborhood toll-booth station, and that he has been suspended from obligation, pending an investigation. The assertion, nonetheless, appears to aim to reduce the altercation by relegating it to the extent of a petty quarrel.

The remark beneath, from Weibo person 落枫LF (luòfēng LF), sums up a few of the socioeconomic inequalities inherent within the bullying incident, the official response, and the comparatively gentle punishment imposed on the uniformed aggressor:

From the dealing with of this incident, we will glean three issues:

1. Within the context of up to date Chinese language society, “uniform” has been reworked from a noun right into a verb. [Implying that “to uniform” someone is to use the power of one’s uniform to force them to obey or comply.]
2. The crime of “choosing quarrels and frightening bother” is used solely to punish unusual folks, not officers.
3. It appears the [uniformed] man is on the state payroll. If he have been a short lived employee, he would have been fired way back. [Chinese]

Tales abound of safety guards, visitors police, and chengguan city enforcers leveraging the ability of their uniforms to overstep the bounds of their authority and to bully, intimidate, and abuse typically law-abiding residents. Earlier this yr, following two incidents through which supply males have been stabbed (one fatally, by a neighborhood safety guard), author Zou Sicong mirrored on the “capricious, unsupervised, and unscrutinized” violence inflicted by neighborhood safety guards. Chengguan city enforcers, ranked as China’s least-loved public officers, are significantly infamous for abusing the restricted powers bestowed upon them. They’ve been identified to harass and tough up native retailers, tear down vacation decorations for no good cause, intimidate reporters, and even face off with steel-pipe-wielding toddlers.

A WeChat essay by journalist and blogger Wang Xiaolei dissects the ability dynamics inherent within the current restaurant confrontation. The uniformed man’s threatening ways weren’t random, Wang writes, as a result of from the video, it’s abundantly clear that he first makes certain that his sufferer is somebody he can bully with impunity. Solely as soon as he’s sure that the opposite man—a long-distance semi-truck driver from a distinct county in Shaanxi—is just not somebody who outranks him does the uniformed toll-booth worker start threatening and berating the truck driver:

That is the entire reality of the incident: the person in uniform fastidiously chosen his goal, and recognized the person he would bully and humiliate.

That can be essentially the most ironic a part of the entire thing. The person is ferocious, aggressive, and domineering, however his evil is definitely fairly selective, for he takes nice care to determine and “vet” his goal.

Had the opposite social gathering not been a semi-truck driver, or a driver from one other county, chances are high that the person in uniform would have continued consuming his fried noodles in silence.

[…] Let’s take our considering one step additional. Why does the person in uniform, earlier than throwing his weight round, take such care to verify who his goal is? What’s he so frightened about?

He’s frightened as a result of he is aware of that whereas the driving force is of a decrease socioeconomic standing, he himself is just not precisely middle- or high-status in any respect. A canine’s standing will depend on the standing of his grasp, and the [toll-booth employee] is aware of that deep-down, he’s only a canine sporting an inexpensive uniform collar.

The uniformed man is aware of he can get away with humiliating and abusing the truck driver, however however, there are far too many individuals on the market who may do the identical to him. If he’s not cautious, he may get greater than he bargained for. Even a few of the more durable truck drivers could be able to giving him a dose of his personal medication. [Chinese]