are locals pretty violent against foreigners in shanghai? saw a fight outside a club where locals seemed to just pick a fight against a couple of foreigners and then the bouncers even jumped in to join the locals. is it best to just avoid any situations with locals?

locals only fight when it's like 10-20 to one. one by one they are all cowards. those guys around the clubs are all high on drugs and glue. best to avoid those places actually

There is a good chance that these "expats" were french. Check this board, a lot of treads about fights with french guys.

Never seen it, but i don't do the club scene. You do get some attitude from and looks from some wan-a-be tuff guy but as above says, they cowards in general. Best not get into such situation when groups are involved its easier to walk away.

Yep. Locals v Foreigners. Unless it is 10/1 (on the locals side), they are a punch of pussies. What they need is their heads to be thrown through a fence or glass cabinet.

*Not that i've ever done that** (recently)

mat wrote:Yep. Locals v Foreigners. Unless it is 10/1 (on the locals side), they are a punch of pussies. What they need is their heads to be thrown through a fence or glass cabinet.

*Not that i've ever done that** (recently)

Works like a charm.

That's what happens when you have a society that has watched one too many kung fu movies.

onetimez wrote:are locals pretty violent against foreigners in shanghai? saw a fight outside a club where locals seemed to just pick a fight against a couple of foreigners and then the bouncers even jumped in to join the locals. is it best to just avoid any situations with locals?

Pretty easy to avoid: don't visit same clubs. Safer and cheaper to drink you beer at home.

onetimez wrote:are locals pretty violent against foreigners in shanghai? saw a fight outside a club where locals seemed to just pick a fight against a couple of foreigners and then the bouncers even jumped in to join the locals. is it best to just avoid any situations with locals?

Assume your question is sincere, not for starting flame, here is the truth:

1) Chinese in general are mellow people, you can get away with quite a bit before they actually rise to fight you.
2) Locals won't be violent against foreigners for no reason. If a fight breaks out, most likely foreigners have done something to cause it.
3) The chance of foreigners getting beaten up in Shanghai for doing whatever stupid things they do, is much much smaller than Chinese getting beaten up in foreigner countries for doing the same thing.

I have been on (or nearly) both sides of fights. Me and my friends (both foreigners and oversea Chinese) have been in fights with both locals and foreigners.
Fights are really not about your nationality or skin color, it's about your behavior, the fact is that some foreigners just don't behave themselves, so they get into fights.

Speaking from my personal experience, on conflicts with foreigners, vast majority of time is because foreigners getting touchy/physical or flat-out harass girls in our group.
If a Chinese guy were to do that in New York or London or Moscow or Barcelona, harassing other people's girlfriends, he is gonna get the sh1t kicked out of him. So let's not be double-standard here

In the nutshell, if you just use common sense, and behave properly, do not do stupid things that you won't do in another country, treat people how you want to be treated, you will be safe and having fun.

I'd try to avoid fights at all costs. Not to stereotype, but in my experience, Chinese people fight cheap. I got in a scuffle in a club 2 years ago with a Chinese guy in Beijing(I think he was a liumang... I literally brushed against him in a club, and he headbutted me). I didn't hurt him, but I was a successful wrestler in high school and college and it was pretty easy to restrain him. I left the club immediately, and was told later by a friend (who was across the room!) that the guy later came back with a few friends with baseball bats. Scary to think what they would have done if I was there. I've also seen one dude literally grab a guy by the balls, holding him "hostage."

This sounds like a cliche, but very little is worth fighting about here. You'll find a lot of assholes, as you will in any society. I just think the consequences for crossing the line in a fight are a lot less here, so it's more likely a fight will lead to serious harm.

Its funny how many laowai think that they will have an advantage over chinese in a fight, but the fact of the matter is that they dont. I saw twice a fight break out between laowais and chinese, and chinese were on top. This one time, chinese dood was beating the Sh1te out of french guy and his (french) two freinds were standing next to him doing nothing (well, there were few chinese OGs as well).

Nac is right, fighting in the bars/clubs is pointless and unless you are Teenage mutant NInja Turtle, the odds are that you will get your arse kicked.

guess it's best to avoid any confrontation with the locals here. seems like they dont know when to stop beating down on someone too, someone will always end up in the hospital. and they'll always outnumber you. last fight two fights i saw, there was always one scrub on the phone dialing all his buddies to come over and to bring weapons. anyone ever see a fight where it was even numbers and not 20 on 1?

Lowest number I've seen was 3:1 (all locals though)
In the check-in queue in Shenzhen airport...

2nd lowest was 5:1 (all locals)
Outside IKEA.. forgot which one..

3rd lowest (didn't see, but was told by a girl who saw) 8:1 (Koreans vs 1 laowai)
Started out 3:1, the laowai held his... The Koreans left, and came back with 5 others. The laowai couldn't hold his anymore...
In Wuxi..

onetimez wrote:guess it's best to avoid any confrontation with the locals here. seems like they dont know when to stop beating down on someone too, someone will always end up in the hospital. and they'll always outnumber you. last fight two fights i saw, there was always one scrub on the phone dialing all his buddies to come over and to bring weapons. anyone ever see a fight where it was even numbers and not 20 on 1?

Nah, as I said they are all cowards. You won't see that happening.

onetimez wrote:guess it's best to avoid any confrontation with the locals here. seems like they dont know when to stop beating down on someone too, someone will always end up in the hospital. and they'll always outnumber you. last fight two fights i saw, there was always one scrub on the phone dialing all his buddies to come over and to bring weapons. anyone ever see a fight where it was even numbers and not 20 on 1?

Absolutely.
Matter of fact, most of the fights I have seen are even number fair fights.

Unlike those people making up stories behind their computer, I have pictures to prove
This was a fight in Xintiandi between one Chinese guy and one foreigner, Chinese guy kicked ass even though the foreigner was younger, foreigner had to call cops.
so-which-of-you-got-your-ass-kicked-yesterday-lol-t111627.html

You are in China, so it always appears that there are more Chinese guys around than foreigners in a fight, but it does not mean all the Chinese guys are actively in that fight.

Lastly, to all the people that "claim" that every fight they witnessed was unfair, how about take a picture next time??
I would love to see some real proof that locals are beating up foreigners in uneven/unfair numbers.

Nacirema wrote:I'd try to avoid fights at all costs. Not to stereotype, but in my experience, Chinese people fight cheap. I got in a scuffle in a club 2 years ago with a Chinese guy in Beijing(I think he was a liumang... I literally brushed against him in a club, and he headbutted me). I didn't hurt him, but I was a successful wrestler in high school and college and it was pretty easy to restrain him. I left the club immediately, and was told later by a friend (who was across the room!) that the guy later came back with a few friends with baseball bats. Scary to think what they would have done if I was there. I've also seen one dude literally grab a guy by the balls, holding him "hostage."

What if a Chinese guy, walked into a club in Manhattan, brushed against an American guy, the American guy headbutted the Chinese guy, and Chinese guy was able to "restrain" the American guy?

Honestly, what do you predict that would happen??
People giving the Chinese guy thumbs up for winning the fight and buying him a drink???

I say the American guy will be back with more American guys, and they will bring more firepower than f0cking baseball bats.

Where do you guys hang-out???????? i never see anything exciting here.....

2 exceptions are...

Seeing a Laowai getting hospitalised with pool cues by the staff coz he refused to pay the bill

but the best was seeing 2 gangs of chinese girls going at each other in a godawful bar Zhangjiagang. They really went for it - no real build up - just went off big style with chairs, glasses and bottles... that rocked.

Keep the peace kids.

I fought a Chinese guy the other week. But it was in a ring, there was a referee, and we were both being payed pretty well to duke it out. He was a super nice guy too. After the fight he came to my locker room to make sure I was okay, shake my hand, and chat.

That's the only kind of Chinese vs. foreigner fighting I can imagine myself ever getting into here. The vast majority of the locals I've met are just way too nice to fight you for no reason unless you really do something to piss them off.

ramsey wrote: The vast majority of the locals I've met are just way too nice to fight you for no reason unless you really do something to piss them off.

Amen.

Glad to see some people still tell truth on this forum

fWerrF wrote:

Nacirema wrote:I'd try to avoid fights at all costs. Not to stereotype, but in my experience, Chinese people fight cheap. I got in a scuffle in a club 2 years ago with a Chinese guy in Beijing(I think he was a liumang... I literally brushed against him in a club, and he headbutted me). I didn't hurt him, but I was a successful wrestler in high school and college and it was pretty easy to restrain him. I left the club immediately, and was told later by a friend (who was across the room!) that the guy later came back with a few friends with baseball bats. Scary to think what they would have done if I was there. I've also seen one dude literally grab a guy by the balls, holding him "hostage."

What if a Chinese guy, walked into a club in Manhattan, brushed against an American guy, the American guy headbutted the Chinese guy, and Chinese guy was able to "restrain" the American guy?

Honestly, what do you predict that would happen??
People giving the Chinese guy thumbs up for winning the fight and buying him a drink???

I say the American guy will be back with more American guys, and they will bring more firepower than f0cking baseball bats.

Dude, I don't know what kind of crowd you hang out with. On one hand, you guys hang out at Paul Pastry, and consider a guy who got his sunglasses broken an "ass kicking," worthy of a forum post with "evidence." On the other hand, you seem to sympathize with the gang-up mentality. If I headbutted an Asian guy for brushing up against me, and he either kicked my ass or "restrained" me, I certainly wouldn't call my friends. They would probably laugh at me even if I did call. But seriously, unless you're in New Jersey (8)), or hanging out in the wrong area of town, I really doubt someone would call their friends so quickly as you suggest.

If I should headbutt people here every time they 'brushed' into me, I would look like the bloody elephant man by now... With a sore back!

(Yeah, more so, I know...)

Nacirema wrote: On the other hand, you seem to sympathize with the gang-up mentality.

I do not, I am just saying that's rather normal in many parts of the world, when someone loses a fight his friends would back him up.
It's not a Chinese vs foreigners exclusive, it can be white vs blacks, white vs white, blacks vs blacks, any color/nationality vs anyone.

Nacirema wrote:But seriously, unless you're in New Jersey (8)), or hanging out in the wrong area of town, I really doubt someone would call their friends so quickly as you suggest.

I have been to NJ twice in my life, not counting going through it to get to somewhere else
I go out often in Manhattan, and have seen many fights. I can tell more often than not, losers of a fight would come back with more people.

In 7th grade, I got into a fight with the school bully and his 28 friends. I got the crap kicked out of me. None of them were Chinese, by the way.

Here's the deal:

You know how insecure local males are, right? How 9 times out of 10 they keep their mouths shut when they are alone, but when they are with someone else, a girl or a boy, that's when they put on the asshat.

So alone the most you'll get is a whisper, just under the range of your hearing, calling you laowai or something - probably to your back. In pairs or more, that's when you might get the barking at your back, etc. Not once though, in all my years in Shanghai, has a hero ever stepped to my face and said "You know what mate? I don't like you." That would take courage. Chinese use passive aggression. They wait until you pass and can't see who said what. I hope that's a consolation to them, to offset their demonstration of insecurity and cowardice.

So the deal is, if you cause these heroes to lose face in front of their little girlfriends and boyfriends, they're far more likely to short circuit. While I agree that many locals are quite nice, in truth many also live right on the edge of mob mentality, and have no compunctions about ganging up kicking people when they are down, hitting women, etc.

What might happen is this: Foreigner and Chinese girl have a little spark in the club. Drunk Napoleon Lee whose life is **** and hates all things foreign, even though he works for a Chinese company, gets an ashtray or his scooter lock and bashes the guy's head from behind. Guy loses consciousness, wakes up the next morning behind the bar with the trash, beaten senseless with a hole in his skull. And of course, robbed.

If anyone else is present, count on them doing absolutely nothing, not even calling you an ambulance. It's a nice place. Furthermore, count on the fight becoming Chinese bystanders vs the lone laowai, regardless of the circumstances. That is the narrative thread, my friends. Chinese are victims, and you are wrong. Period.

So when people tell me Shanghai is peaceful I just smile, as I often do, knowing how close to the edge so many actually are.

Another way a fight can break out is when you're just living your life walking down the street and some sleazy character crosses to zone in on you, entering your space with his hand concealed. That's a good way to "start" a fight - and of course the witnesses will say you started it, when you lightly shoved him out of your personal zone and he wigged out and his buddies all came to his aid. And the pedestrians will watch you bleeding to death in the streets if you don't know how to defend yourself.

YOU STARTED IT.

Ha ha, guys who tried to mug me with a cinderblock to the back of my head kept eating concrete, and demanding compensation for their pain! Money! Tang! Money! Tang! I just smiled and didn't even hit back. They just kept coming, and kept on eating concrete. I didn't even remove my earphones. But it was educational.

What I learned: the psyches that are this frail, cannot stand to lose. They will keep coming until you put them down, or the cops show up. (Yeah, you started it. So how come they ran and you didn't get arrested?). So go ahead and put them down in the initial attack, and don't let them attack you twice.

The best advice I can give is to ignore all mockery, all the invasions of personal space, all the crap that occurs for the benefit of the guy's "face", which really has nothing to do with you personally, you're just a non-Chinese blur to them. If you do fight make it very low key and casual, move on quickly so that nobody saw what happened, and you didn't either, just walk away, and whatever you do, don't turn your back on a conscious Chinese who is pissed off.

People think China is safe. I just smile. It's actually bipolar.

@Shinbone That's the best summary I have seen actually. Very good analysis, nothing to add.

Thanks, means a lot from you Andreas!

I try to avoid fights wherever I can, but I have seen a lot here and in other parts of China. And your description is spot on!

here's a 1 on 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VhZfz53 ... re=related

i like the ending... "want more" quick "no"

some really good healthy venting here, let's hear some more! It helps!

Shinbone wrote:What might happen is this: Foreigner and Chinese girl have a little spark in the club. Drunk Napoleon Lee whose life is **** and hates all things foreign, even though he works for a Chinese company, gets an ashtray or his scooter lock and bashes the guy's head from behind....

You might be quite right on most part, but this is far from truth in realty.

If you frequent the Shanghai night clubs (especially the ones with foreign patrons), you would know what kind of people are customers there.
Shanghai nightlife is not the same as western countries, where an average Joe earns average salary would go out at night and grab few drinks at a club. The local Chinese who earn few thousands RMB a month, they don't go to M1NT, Muse1-2-3, Richy, G+ type of clubs.

The people that go there, are the ones have money, whether they are business people who carry their LV messenger bags like dorks with hookers accompany them, or rich kids from wealth family out having fun with their women, they all have money.
An average table is few thousands minimum, big parties with magnum size Chivaz/Hennessy and pop champagne every 10 mins, easily spead 10k+ plus.

Therefore, they really are not the sad/angry poor people with nothing to lose in life. They are just out there having fun and throwing money around, they mind their own business, unless they get provoked.
Anyone that actually goes to clubs here, will know this.

Now onto "foreigners have little sparks with local girls". Is that the foreigner way of saying "harassing other people's gf's"??
Look, if you hit on a hooker or a single girl (who likely is a freelancer hooker anyway but you just don't know yet ), you are fine. If you hit on someone's gf, you gonna have a problem. It's that simple.
All the fights of this type that I have seen or was somewhat involved in, are all because foreigners acted improperly and harassed someone's girl. So please let's not sugarcoat their drunk behavior.