Safety in Numbers Imagine waking up one morning and getting ready for work just like always. You get out of bed, put on your clothes, and go to the train station to catch the train to your locale where you work. You walk to the station and right before you go in you feel a sharp pain in your back and suddenly everything feels hot. You’ve been stabbed with a fairly long and sharp blade. You look around and see everyone else also being ran up to by what look like wild acting men and women in the form of black blobs. The life starts you leave your body as you quickly lose blood and the people around you are in the same boat. The killers that stabbed you are running around and killing so many people, but there’s nothing you can do. You just fall
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This was a day that Xie Yulong decided to walk to work instead of taking the train. This could have been the best decision of his life. This situation that was just described is the result of the Kunming knife attack in China on March 1st, 2014. The event is being called China’s 9/11 or 3/01. The severity of this attack has been mostly fallen on deaf ears in the west, with most people not knowing nearly anything about the attack or that it even exists. This attack with several knives and several perpetrators participating in the attack on the train station in Kunming resulted in the death of 31 people and 141 injured. (Beech) Of course, that pales in comparison to the death toll and injuries of 9/11, which were 2996 killed and more than 6000 wounded, but this attack was also only with knives. This attack was orchestrated by a group of extremists that fall into the term from a larger group of people called the “Uighur”, a group of predominantly Muslim people who are concentrated in Xinjiang, China. They make up around 45% of the population there and the other largest group in that area are the Han Chinese who make up 40%. (Gohel) Originally, this term was created to ease some of the tension …show more content…
Even the train station. A man posted the day after the attack that he noticed that the people have been stoic and have seemed to steer clear of any religious or racial violence. The city feels ridiculously normal, the people greeted him as cheerfully as ever on his way into the station, and the only real difference was the mob of police trying to keep journalists at bay. He even commented that one of the women from another section of the country didn’t even get the news yet. The people also flocked to the blood donation stands that the government put up, one of the workers stating that 150 people had already given blood and another 60 were waiting. He stated that he believes that the Uighur people, “Perhaps they're afraid for retaliation [from Han majority people], but they really needn't be, there doesn't seem to be a strong anti-Muslim sentiment among the people.” (GoKunming) This article is indicative of the difference in the Chinese and the American people. The very thought of something like that happening in America, people raving mad and rioting/boycotting, not to mention the social media outrage, and the stark differences in the reaction that people here would have and the people in China had, really can only be described as culture
This was a day that Xie Yulong decided to walk to work instead of taking the train. This could have been the best decision of his life. This situation that was just described is the result of the Kunming knife attack in China on March 1st, 2014. The event is being called China’s 9/11 or 3/01. The severity of this attack has been mostly fallen on deaf ears in the west, with most people not knowing nearly anything about the attack or that it even exists. This attack with several knives and several perpetrators participating in the attack on the train station in Kunming resulted in the death of 31 people and 141 injured. (Beech) Of course, that pales in comparison to the death toll and injuries of 9/11, which were 2996 killed and more than 6000 wounded, but this attack was also only with knives. This attack was orchestrated by a group of extremists that fall into the term from a larger group of people called the “Uighur”, a group of predominantly Muslim people who are concentrated in Xinjiang, China. They make up around 45% of the population there and the other largest group in that area are the Han Chinese who make up 40%. (Gohel) Originally, this term was created to ease some of the tension …show more content…
Even the train station. A man posted the day after the attack that he noticed that the people have been stoic and have seemed to steer clear of any religious or racial violence. The city feels ridiculously normal, the people greeted him as cheerfully as ever on his way into the station, and the only real difference was the mob of police trying to keep journalists at bay. He even commented that one of the women from another section of the country didn’t even get the news yet. The people also flocked to the blood donation stands that the government put up, one of the workers stating that 150 people had already given blood and another 60 were waiting. He stated that he believes that the Uighur people, “Perhaps they're afraid for retaliation [from Han majority people], but they really needn't be, there doesn't seem to be a strong anti-Muslim sentiment among the people.” (GoKunming) This article is indicative of the difference in the Chinese and the American people. The very thought of something like that happening in America, people raving mad and rioting/boycotting, not to mention the social media outrage, and the stark differences in the reaction that people here would have and the people in China had, really can only be described as culture