October 16th, 2007 life is danger in itself
a chinese girl was murdered here in perth about a week ago, originally from hunan province in china, studying at edith cowan university. jiao dan caught the train home after finishing work, alighting at about 11pm, when she was followed home by another passenger from the train. the police report concluded that she had been strangled and sexually assaulted, although they did not wish to release any further details to the public.
i don’t want to add fuel to the fire, but she was an attractive girl, and the perpetrator was a white male. you can’t deny that the exoticism paradigm doesn’t exist.
i can’t deny either that i don’t feel safe but i still feel safer here than when i’m in malaysia, especially johor baru (which attracts crime because of rich businessmen crossing the border). in perth, assaults and other crime that has occurred to people from overseas usually happens at odd hours - 6 in the morning for a bag snatch and assault, and 11pm at night in this case. or in known trouble spots, carlisle station, curtin university at night, one of the parks in northbridge. and it’s likely that people from overseas who have not been in the area long enough might not know to avoid these situations, and other people thus find them easy targets. the train line is also an easy way of getting around for everyone, and that includes people who might be deemed unsavoury and current mental health patients.
honestly i don’t really care if football god ben cousins got arrested again, or mike hussey had a premature baby, pushing this information back to page eleven. but it plays on the mind of other chinese from china, posting their comments on forums (please excuse my poor translation):
老外早上上班是都个个绅士一样,但到了一喝醉酒,就变了另一个人一样的了.
foreigners (their term for white people) going to work is the same gentleman, but once they drink alcohol, they become another person. source
有人看到腾讯网上国内网民的留言吗？新闻以“裸死”做标题，下面一片叫嚣什么“活该出国”、“要死死在国外”之类，居然出自我们同胞之口，我真觉得可耻又悲哀
have you seen the postings by local (china) netizens? the news has”nude death” for its title, the next one says “get what you deserve going abroad”, “if you want to die go abroad”, which is unexpectedly from our compatriots, I find it ignorant and hurtful. source
由于某种原因，国内部分人有种仇富心理，大概认为能出国的都是有钱人，都是贪官污吏的子女，有此言论，从某种程度上讲，不能说是他们的错
要怪就怪。。。
for some reason, people in the country have some kind of psychological hatred, thinking that the only people who can go overseas are rich people, also the children of corrupt officials, such remarks, in a certain sense, we can’t say it’s their fault. if you want to bear grudges, then do so… source
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students here have also organised a collection of money (the list also looks like students originating from china). the purpose isn’t that clear, but they have the heart at least.
it’s not so simple. the police and government aren’t necessarily to answer directly in this case, though it’s easy to lay blame. jiao dan’s closest friend min ding has said, “Jiao was killed in a local community, when she was crying out for help nobody came out to save her life, I want to say to local residents, ‘please create a safe place for us, we love to study here and work for you all, we just can not see any more tragedies here…”
we should try and use these tragedies to care more about the people surrounding us, and to get past the divisions of resident/immigrant/citizen/student. perth is not as isolated as we think.
