iPad 2 Launch Turns Bloody: Apple Sanlitun Locked Down

Jonathan White | May 8, 2011 2:30 pm | 26 comments | 6740 reads

After we told you about the crowds at the launch of the iPad 2 at Apple's Sanlitun Village store on Friday things took a turn for the worse yesterday. There were scenes that would be more suited to a late night on Sanlitun Houjie than an electronics store - smashed glass, bloodstains and tales of hospitalization littered the scene - and as of early yesterday evening the store was closed. MyChinaViews alleges that the reason for the shutdown was that four members of the queue were assaulted by a laowai employee armed with a metal bar. You can see more photos and read their take on the story here. Whatever the details are of what happened it's pretty clear that this iPad thing is getting out of hand.

Photo from MyChinaViews.

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chredwa's picture chredwa Submitted by Guest on Thu, 05/12/2011 - 18:27

Firstly people, lets get our facts straight. Chinese is not a race, it is a nationality. Han is a race. I know Uighur, Mongolians, Miao people who are also Chinese. So when use the term Chinese you in a disparaging way, you are referring to their nationality. You cannot be racist for calling an American greedy, rude or stupid. Same goes for Chinese.

But when a Chinese person refers to a non Chinese person as a white, black or brown person, that is racist.

Han people really struggle with the idea of race. They do not think of themselves in a nation-state sort of way, but rather as a 5000 year old civilization who has conquered, oppressed or assimilated the various other races and civilizations around them into Han culture. They relate their nationality with their race and give no thought that their country is made up of many different races who are also Chinese. Mongolians ruled over them for hundreds of years, but Chinese history does not tell the story that way. Apparently the Tibetans were feudal (but the actions of the Great Leap Forward were not).

pillowcake's picture pillowcake Submitted by Guest on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 12:40

Lesson is: go to any big american brand store, act like a typical chinese person, when asked to leave start a fight and say you were beaten.....20,000 in your pocket!

So this scalper got paid 20,000 to not cut in front of people. 8}

To Loser King: I think your keyboard doesnt type letters, it types loneliness.

ouyang14's picture ouyang14 Submitted by Guest on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 11:19

Be careful when you say "average Chinese people" when you are talking about Beijing. The people in this city are a poor sample of the "average"

The people who want to use this as a blanket statement for "Chinese people" are probably just frustrated by the fact, that for everyone who has been here for over a week, this is not the first time a Chinese person has had blatant disregard for everything and everyone in order to fill some desire. It is also not the first time a Chinese person has responded with violence when confronted about it.

To call it racism towards Chinese is equally lazy. It's a reoccuring theme and a big problem for China as it modernizes.

esperegus's picture esperegus Submitted by Guest on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 10:01

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/09/china.apple.iPad.fight/index.html

Look at those flimsy barriers in the photo - that's a crush waiting to happen.

Some "nuance" from a follow-up report:

"The foreign attacker will pay a total of more than 20,000 yuan to the victim for medical costs and nutrition costs."

"Suddenly, a foreigner rushed out of the store and began beating a man down to the ground until his waist bled."

"After questioning the witnesses and watching the surveillance video, police officers affirmed that there were people jumping the queue at the spot. However, they said they can not affirm whether the beaten man is a scalper or not."

Great how the police can watch the footage and still apparently offer no explanation as to what happened. Sure, you can't tell a scalper by looking, but still seems like a weak outcome. Also interesting how in the description of the attack, the "attacker" is no longer an Apple employee. He apparently has no nationality, no name, no motive or explanation for his actions. The "victim" has no name, no occupation, there's no description of what he was doing seconds before the attack.

Everything reduced to "a foreigner," "a man," and a "beating." Lazy, irresponsible and dangerous reporting.

I hate the fact that it seems a laowai was involved in this. He must have been a total dope, and I can see one of these type of incidents turning nasty for all of us one of these days.

But I would bet with 99% certainty that the "victim" was being an absolute turd, and it's a shame that fact is not made clear to everyone reading these reports. If that was made clear, the story would at least look less like a foreigner just beating on an innocent man. Also, it would then be obvious that the people responsible for this farcical incident were a few scumbag idiots and not the average Chinese person, as some of the above commenters lazily imply.

marilynmai's picture marilynmai Submitted by Guest on Tue, 05/10/2011 - 08:53

in no way am i saying that modern Chinese society is absolved of all responsibility.

all i'm saying is we can't just point the finger and say, "those uncultured swine, look at them, causing trouble."

i don't know about you guys, but i have no idea what it's like to try to pull myself or my family out of poverty while i watch others who were in the right place at the right time climb out of their audis, pick up an ipad or two, and go grab a frappe.

sure, lots of those people in line caused trouble because of greed. it's ugly. but there's also desperation mixed in, which many of us can't even begin to understand.

also: apple manufactures most of its products in shenzhen. i'm actually kind of a fan of "sweat shops" in some ways (i'm not one of those decryers who pretends that wearing american apparel makes me a better person), but that means the company takes advantage of China's low cost of labor, employing many of China's poorest, then selling to many of China's richest and pocketing the ridiculous profit margins.

full disclosure, my husband actually bought an ipad the day of the launch. so i'm not trying to be all self-righteous or anything.

i agree it's annoying that fingers are being pointed at this mysterious crowbar-wielding Western employee too. There's racism going on on both sides. it's just that things like this are really complex, and reading one-sided comments just really bothers me.

some nuance, please?

Richard_R's picture Richard_R Submitted by Guest on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 21:28

From foreign press I read the following situation:

- People start cutting the cue
- They get into a fight with the Apple staff because they were requested to leave the cue.
- A fight starts
- Apple closes the store
- Crowd gets angry for standing in line for hours and smashes the door

Before this all happened, many people in line were trying to sell their spot in line and other people were trying to get the Ipad2 from the store just for selling them directly at a much higher price to people that were waiting in line.

ouyang14's picture ouyang14 Submitted by Guest on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 11:39

first of all capitalism and status symbols, at the very MOST, could only have been "going strong" in the USA for 2 centuries

To think this particular incedent is not reflective of modern Chinese culture is silly. You can't blame Apple for selling a product. People have choices to buy or not. So yes, I DO think these Chinese people DECIDED to get their hands on those iPads all by themselves. Not because of the sleek interfece but because they will do anything for money.

marilynmai's picture marilynmai Submitted by Guest on Mon, 05/09/2011 - 10:23

this story isn't embarrassing just for Beijing. It's embarrassing for humanity, for Western influence, for Apple, for consumerism, etc. (You think the Chinese people decided they'd do anything to get their hands on iPads all by themselves? Apple MIGHT have something to do with that...)

Things like this happen on Black Friday in the US, but it gets lost in all the news about which sales to go to.

if it can happen in the US, where capitalism and status symbols have been going strong for centuries - and where socioeconomic gaps, while appalling, are not nearly as large as China's - then it's easy to see how things like this can erupt...

this might also be more interesting if we can ever find out what ACTUALLY happened. so far still lots of speculation.

xiaomaomao's picture xiaomaomao Submitted by Guest on Sun, 05/08/2011 - 22:05

This is probably a better source

http://www.9to5mac.com/65809/what-went-down-at-the-sanlitun-apple-store-in-beijing-china/

I saw the tail end, saw the two men with a few scratches led down on the floor. Did not see any injured women (as other reports suggest). Did see a foreigner walking away, but not sure if he was an employee. There was no crow bar from what I remember.

"Who knows what will be remembered of this century in 5,000 years time. It may be Stalin or Islamic fundamentalism or it may just be the stock cube" - Armando Iannucci

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