AppId is over the quota
BEIJING — For several angry days last December, one of China’s top state elementary schools, Fangcaodi International School, nearly became a statistic in the rising number of “mass incidents” here.
That term includes petitions, demonstrations and strikes, both peaceful and violent, and there were about 280,000 in 2010, according to Sun Liping, a Tsinghua University sociologist. That was up from 87,000 in 2005, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
At a stormy meeting on Dec. 3, some parents threatened to demonstrate at the school gates unless the principal agreed to ban cars from driving throughout the campus, after a first grader was nearly killed in an accident involving a school car on the playground the month before.
On Nov. 15, a school driver had driven over what he apparently believed was just a pile of children’s coats.
But 6-year-old Julien Glauser, a half-Chinese, half-Swiss student, was lying on the coats. Dragged along the ground for more than 8 meters, or nearly 28 feet, underneath the black Toyota Camry, Julien suffered severe spine, lung and head injuries. He is expected to make a good recovery — a miracle, doctors in Switzerland later told the parents, Olivier Glauser and his wife, Hong Li.
“They told us they normally only see such injuries in autopsies,” Mr. Glauser said.
Six months later, Mr. Glauser and Ms. Li are accusing the school of a cover-up, lack of accountability, failing to voluntarily improve safety and refusing compensation for medical expenses. “They said, ‘Sue us,”’ Mr. Glauser said.
Contacted this week, however, the school said it would indeed compensate the victim’s family. A spokesman for the school, who gave his surname as Zhang, declined to provide details, saying internal investigations were continuing.
In interviews, parents, who requested anonymity because they have children at the school, called the incident typical of the lack of transparency and responsiveness at many state-run institutions in China, which are unaccustomed to any form of public scrutiny.
Speaking at a meeting with parents in March, Ms. Li said: “I’m fighting for school safety not just for my son, but for all children in China.”
For two weeks after the accident, “nothing changed at the school,” said Mr. Glauser, a venture capitalist. “Cars were still coming in and out.”
That was when parents got involved. As word spread, slowly — the school informed parents about the incident, in sketchy terms, only on Nov. 30, after some of them had read a blog by Mr. Glauser and demanded answers — the principal, Liu Fei, agreed to the meeting on Friday, Dec. 3.
He defended the school’s policy of allowing cars on campus. “Please understand the problems teachers have finding places to park their cars,” he said, according to several parents who attended.
According to a recording of the meeting, his words provoked fury and derision.
“Your parking problem is nothing to do with us,” parents are heard shouting. “What’s more important to you, cars or children?”
“We will come out on Monday morning and demonstrate at the school gates and ask all Beijing media to join us,” they threatened.
Mr. Liu said that, immediately after the accident, the school started looking for additional parking in the neighborhood, including at a paramilitary barracks opposite the school.
“It hasn’t been solved yet,” he said on the recording.
Ms. Li, in an interview in March, said, “I think it’s a disease of development,” referring to the pressures created by surging car ownership and high-speed construction accompanying China’s fast economic growth. But “at the end of the day, the problem is the state system.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 19, 2011
The Letter from China on Thursday misstated the number of ‘‘mass incidents’’ — demonstrations and strikes, both peaceful and violent — in China in 2010. It was about 180,000, not 280,000.
View the original article here
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