It is about 11 pm now, and the people are still gathering outside on the Jinzun Road. They have surrounded 7 policemen for few hours tonight.
The Road
The road outside our residential area is a small street leading to the river side. It is a branch road for people in this area only. Due to the parking space limitation, many people park their cars on the both sides of the street. There are about 100 cars there every night. Since there is no through traffic, and the security level in that area was pretty good, people feel comfortable doing that. This peaceful use of the road parking has been lasting from the day one the road was built – about few years ago.
Parking Violation Ticket
This afternoon, two police car came, and started to stick parking violation ticket on the window of all the cars. They were stopped by angry drivers and residents half way before the issued tickets to all the cars. Then more and more people gathered and didn’t want to let the policemen go.
The Argument
I didn’t spent time there so I don’t know the exact arguments, but I assume that people don’t feel comfortable paying 200 RMB fine for each of the cars. I don’t know how the issue will be finally resolved.
This is one of the typical samples of the conflicts between the people, and the police, or the government. It goes back to the root of the question: “Who define the rules”.
People don’t want to obey rules that they have no idea how it is set. Just like the street parking. I would vote to allow street parking on this road, if given a chance, but the rule has always been “No parking at any time”.
Meanwhile, the rule is not enforced anyway, for few years. Practically, people don’t have the right to ask the rule to be enforced. Another example is the parking on the pedestrian – making walking on the pedestrian from my home to shopping center like going through a parking lot. No one care about it, and people don’t have a right to ask the rule to be enforced.
So, the situation is, the police arbitrarily decide the rule and whether to enforce the law. The gives people the impression that Chinese don’t want to obey rules. The matter of fact is, Chinese, as any other nation, don’t want to obey rules that are set by others.
My Hope
My hope will be, the people living in the area can openly discuss and democratically decide whether street parking on this street is allowed or not. Then the police will be held responsible for the execution of the rule. That is how this small street should be governed.
hello.
I am sure the laws is written in the book, not by “others” but by the “People’s Government”.
Police “selectively” to execute the law enforcement is due to wishful thinking to create a “harmony” society as imposed by Central Government by avoiding conflict with people, nevertheless, have the resident of your community ever consider the illegal parkings can block the emergency vehicles such as fire truck to enter into the compound should there is a fire.
I have the same problem with my community and also the firecracker display during “happier” occasion despite it is prohibited by laws. I think people in Shanghai have long substituted written laws with “folkways.
Is there a safety issue, in terms of allowing passage for fire trucks should the need arise?
In China, many things seem to have no fixed scale up, so the implementation is not easy.