28-Mar-2004
28th March 2004
UPDATE:
Before you guys get mad and complain to your friends/family in China, the source of this ‘article’ is Weekly World News. Uh..the same stuff that you guys see at the stands that claim Elvis was really the alien son of Adolf Hitler..
Chinese cities are so clogged with pedestrian traffic that authorities have banned walking, sauntering, shuffling, moseying and ambling in public — and now say everybody must run.
The only people who don’t have to comply with the law, which carries a stiff fine and possible jail time for repeat offenders, are senior citizens, who have been told it will be permissible for them “to walk as fast as they can” or “just jog” if they’re too weak and debilitated to sprint when venturing into major metropolitan areas.
“The Chinese people will comply with the order because they understand how important it is for cities to operate smoothly,” says Beijing Police Capt. Shigu Tang, noting that bicycles were banned from cities in 2003 to make room for cars.
“Before the law was enacted, pedestrian gridlock was an everyday occurrence in any city of size. That’s where people are jammed together so tightly that nobody can move, sometimes for hours at a time.
“Something had to be done.”
The law was handed down suddenly and with no advance notice on January 7 by China’s Ministry of Public Safety.
Within hours, policemen and soldiers in riot gear were lobbing canisters of tear gas, firing rubber bullets and using advanced kung fu techniques to encourage pedestrians of all ages “to pick up the pace.”
And even though people are still packed in cities, the pedestrian gridlocks that paralyzed streets just weeks ago are little more than a bad memory now.
“Now pedestrians are moving,” says the police captain. “If they don’t move, they get trampled and stomped.
“Western journalists and diplomats are highly critical. But that’s because they’re fatsos and in terrible shape. Running is a real problem for them unless they hear somebody clanging a dinner bell.”
It’s true that obesity isn’t much of a problem in China because food is scarce. But fat doesn’t account for the estimated 43,000 slow-moving senior citizens — many of them hump-backed and with bad knees — who have been injured or, in some cases, killed by fleet-footed children and younger adults who ran all over them to comply with the law.
“I pushed my own mother to the ground and stepped on her face,” says Yong Huang, 38. “But the law is the law. I had no choice. The police were going to shoot me with their rubber bullets.
“I have a family to support. I did what I had to do. My mother forgives me, and now she stays home.”
Human-rights groups are fuming over the running law that affects some 750 million people who live in large cities, but spokesmen admit there’s probably little if anything they can do.
“There’s no getting around the fact that China’s cities are overpopulated and people are packed in like sardines,” says one Washingtonbased activist. “If there’s a better way to ease things up, I’m sure they’re open to suggestions.”
Posted in xanga | No Comments »
