On the morning of December 2, in Beijing's Chaoyang district, a woman with a "northeastern accent" crashed her scooter into an unidentified foreign resident, and promptly accused him of injuring her and demanded he pay compensation.
According to Netease, the woman claimed she had damaged her leg and couldn't walk, and demanded that the (very bemused looking) man "be responsible" (ie pay up). When the man tried to get away, the woman grabbed his bike and refused to let go. The scene reportedly caused traffic to back up for over an hour before police arrived and took the pair to a local hospital.
Following an x-ray, doctors confirmed that the woman was not injured but she continued to feign a limp and scream in "pain". Finally the man was persuaded to pay 1,800 yuan in "medical expenses" just to make the woman go away.
Update 16:15 CST: Video of the event, via Sina:
Update 18:00 CST: ECNS is reporting that witnesses to the event have "reversed" their story and are blaming the foreigner for crashing into the woman and then insulting her. However, as evidence all the news service presents is the fact that the man is seen on the above video swearing at the woman; photos published previously of his ripped clothes, as well as accounts from other witnesses, suggest he had more than enough reason to swear at her.
Update 18:30 CST: In an interesting example of censorship in action, since that ECNS/Xinhua report blaming the foreigner in the story, contrary to initial reports from local media, Netease has taken down its original article, thankfully it was saved by the Google cache:
2013年12月2日上午10时30分许，北京朝阳区香河园路与左家庄东街路口，一名东北口音女子在经过一个骑车老外时疑被撞摔倒，随即瘫软倒地不起，双方遂发生争执，在争执中女子将外国小伙衣服撕烂。事故造成现场交通拥堵一个多小时。事发不久警方到场，双方前往煤炭总医院。医院检查认定她紧急软组织损伤，脚腕和肩部疼痛。在双方调解下，外国小伙赔付1800元，女子自行离开。后经媒体证实，外籍男子承认事发时碰到了女子，但由于过马路车速很慢，碰撞不严重。李女士表示，事发时她正沿斑马线过马路，外国小伙骑车闯红灯将其撞倒。因自己心脏一直不好，被撞倒后，她心脏病发作，被送往医院，并非故意碰瓷。CFP供图 谢绝转载
Update 08:15, 4/12/13: Sina has surveillance footage of the crash itself, a CCTV report which ran yesterday evening claimed that the driver "ran a rad light" and, like most scooter drivers foreign or citizen, didn't have a license.
Update 09:00: Phoenix News (translation by ChinaSmack):
Phoenix Online then managed to contact the foreign male’s girlfriend Ms. Wang. Ms. Wang says her boyfriend was carrying her on his motorcycle that day and while crossing the street accidentally collided with this woman and the woman fell to the ground. The foreign male got off and helped the woman to the roadside. The woman sat on the ground holding onto the motorcycle, demanding compensation.
Ms. Wang says: “This is also the first time we have encountered this kind of thing. We didn’t know how to handle it and at the time was at a loss for what to do but we definitely weren’t planning on fleeing as that would be unconscionable.”
Ms. Wang says the woman grabbed the foreign male’s clothes because out of fear he would flee, as well as collapsed and twitched by the motorcycle, demanding compensation. After roadside pedestrians called the police, the police arrived on the scene.
After questioning, the police took both parties to Meitan General Hospital. According to Ms. Wang, after medical examination, the woman had minor superficial injuries. Finally, under mediation by the police, the foreign male and Ms. Wang paid the woman 1800 yuan, covering medical expenses and compensation.
"Minor superficial injures", as in, injuries which definitely didn't require a hospital visit, which the man and his girlfriend then had to pay for. While the middle aged woman in this incident may not have bee intending to extort the foreigner, she did manage to waste police and hospital staff's time, and force him to shell out for it, and create disharmony (to borrow a Party word) online. Everybody wins loses.
If you have any information about this incident, please contact the author of this post at jamesgriffiths@urbanatomy.com.
[Image via Netease // Via: @niubi]
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