Air-Gun Diplomacy

The apartments behind our building where the “air-gun incident” occurred.

Last Wednesday afternoon, we literally had to force Samuel and Grace to go outside and play: "Get your clothes on NOW and go out and play for at least one hour or no allowance!"

It has been a constant strain on the family to be living in our tiny apartment. We are tripping over each other. I am working in what is essentially the kids bedroom, which is essentially the main room of our apartment. In order to keep everyone from killing each other, we have to force the kids to go outside and play. But this in itself has been problem. It's cold out. There is "nothing to do outside," etc... On this day, I told them they can go wander around the apartment complexes behind the Education Hotel. "Explore. Be kids. Just watch for cars."

As usual, we expected them to be banging down the door within minutes inquiring how much long they had to stay out, but, surprisingly, this time there was no sign of them and the clock kept ticking...45 minutes, 1 hour...."Where are the kids?" We were starting to get worried and I was pulling my coat on to go find them when they blasted through the door laughing, faces flushed with excitement.

They were stumbling over each other trying to tell us that they met some boys who invited them to play with air-pellet guns. Apparently they had a great time and they wanted to do it again. "Can I get an air gun, Dad?" It sounded great to me. Anything to get them out of the apartment. And what a great thing--they actually made Chinese friends on their own and had a good time playing! (Their shyness towards Chinese kids has been a source of frustration for us.) Not even knowing what these "air guns" were, I was ready to declare that I'd buy one for each of them when we got a phone call from Clyde, our waiban, who told me that he had an upset mother in his office. "Did Samuel break a boy's tooth with a gun?" he asked.

I was shocked. "Did you break some kid's tooth, Samuel?" Samuel was surprised and immediately on the defensive. "Everyone was shooting at each other," he explained. It turns out that near the beginning of the game, Samuel had accidentally shot one boy in the mouth, although he had no idea at the time that the boy's tooth had cracked. Samuel apologized in Chinese and the game went on for another hour. The boy who was hit had kept playing, apparently un-phased. Samuel and Grace were also hit in the face with pellets, as was everyone else. Everyone was taking shots at each other. No one had protective gear. Now the mother and grandfather of the boy who had gotten hit in the mouth were downstairs and they wanted to see us.

I already knew what was coming. In this rhetorically "communist" society, few people have medical insurance and no one wants to involve the authorities in civil disputes. In China, these kinds of situations are usually resolved with the guilty party--in this case us--paying the medical bills and often a lot more. I was prepared for that--although a little bit upset (as was Samuel) about him taking the blame when he was handed a pellet gun and invited to play a game with other boys. He didn't use good sense, but none of the boys had used good sense. It was an accident--and one less clear-cut than, say, hitting a bicycle with your SUV, when blame is easier to assign. I mean, if you're playing a game of basketball and someone elbows you in the mouth, do you ask that person to pay your medical bills? On the other hand, he did shoot the boy in the mouth. It was his fault. But did that mean we should be entirely responsible for the medical expenses? In China, the answer is yes. (What would happen in America? I'm not really sure--although medical insurance, police officers, and even the courts might factor into the outcome, for better or worse.)

We went downstairs and apologized to the mother and the grandfather. We examined the boys mouth. I felt kind of callous doing this, as if I was checking damaged property I was about to purchase. Indeed, he had chipped one of his front teeth. We decided that she would take him to the medical clinic at Shi Da and go from there, although she was already talking as if there might be some major medical expenses in the offing.

I wasn't too worried about the medical expenses themselves, since medical services are unbelievably cheap here, at least from an American perspective (no predatory insurance companies or HMOs!). But the tone of the negotiations was worrisome. The mother was already talking figures upwards of 1000 RMB (about $140), a sizeable chunk of money that equals Clyde's monthly salary at Shi Da. It is not uncommon here for people to take advantage of situations like this to line their pockets. I've seen it happen before. But Clyde reassured us that the woman and the grandfather were "kind and honest." I was concerned that the boy get treatment--and I was willing to pay. But I have to admit, I was feeling a bit vulnerable, exacerbated by my inability to communicate directly with the woman.

That evening my emotions were swinging back and forth like a pendulum, from anger at having Samuel take the sole blame for an injury incurred when all the kids were playing equally, to vulnerability at having no way to defend Samuel and little knowledge of customary procedures, and, finally, to guilt for my own lack of compassion, my callous worries about financial costs, and my knee-jerk inclination to make the situation into a negative metaphor for Chinese society generally. In the heat of the moment, I began issuing blanket condemnations about the lack of social insurance as well as individual responsibility in China (forgetting that I wasn't owning up to my own individual responsibility for the accident: "Go play on the freeway with guns, kids, as long as you're out of the house!")

Samuel was feeling even worse. First of all, he was really upset at having hurt the boy--he had no idea that his errant shot had done so much damage. He was also feeling anger and resentment at having suddenly been thrust full center into the middle of an international drama involving negotiations, medical procedures, and cash pay-offs. And it stung that he was getting blamed. We told him that everyone knew it was just an accident. But there was no getting around that he was the responsible party and that his parents would be paying for his mistake. "It's just how things are done here," we explained. To which he replied, "I hate Chinese culture!" Great. A positive cross-cultural encounter--our kids finally playing with Chinese kids on their own--was transformed into xenophobia with one pellet shot. Maybe the yellow plastic beebee bouncing off the boy's tooth was really "the pong heard round the world"--a small echo of our cultural misunderstanding reverberating through the night.

Before I went to sleep, I received this alarming email from Clyde:

Dear Dave,

I am really sorry to tell you the latest information below.

The mother just called me, cried sadly, and said that the doctor had said the situation is really bad, even beyond her imagination. The kid’s endodontium (dental pulp) was badly hurt. Now he is undertaking a surgery to take the nerve of out from the tooth, which means the tooth is dead. Only after he is 18, can he receive anther surgery to get an artificial one. That may cost you some hardship financially, I think. Sorry to see that only a playing causes so much trouble. I know that Samuel was not intentionally doing that. Don’t blame him. I will see what I can help.

Good luck with you and the kid.

Yours,

Clyde

All this from a yellow plastic bullet? At dinner that evening, just after the initial incident, one of our Chinese friends, Emi, just shook his head and said, "As long as nothing happens, the system works great. But if you get in an accident in China, it is a really big headache." No kidding. This was really a mess. (And yet, in what country are accidents not headaches?)

Overnight the guilt really went to work on me. I woke up ready to pay (almost) any amount, to think about the little boy and his tooth first, to meet our responsibilities head-on, to be compassionate.

We heard from Clyde around lunchtime. A meeting had been arranged at 2:30pm with the family in Vice Dean Wong's office. I didn't really want to involve the school, but there was no getting around it: it happened on the grounds here at Shi Da and Clyde was pulled in from the beginning.

At the meeting, I was told that the boy was fine but that more treatment would be required. In fact, the initial medical expenses had totaled no more than 100 RMB (about $14), but later procedures might bring the total to as much as 1000 RMB--with another 500 RMB more some years after. We agreed that I would pay all the necessary medical expenses to take care of the boy's tooth in the short term--the 1000 RMB. But I wouldn't pay for anything beyond that. She was happy. I was relieved. And, as a signal that she wasn't "out for money," she would bring the medical receipts to Clyde and I would pay them as they came due.

Great. Deal settled. But not quite. The next morning she called Clyde and said that she wanted the 1000 RMB up front. Tyler and others familiar with the medical system here thought it was way too much for a chipped tooth. Tyler offered to talk to a lawyer for me. But I was ready to be done with the situation. I told Clyde that if the family agreed to not ask for any more money, I would be happy to pay them 1000 RMB up front. They agreed. That night I met the grandfather in Clyde's office. Clyde was sitting at his desk, running 100 RMB notes through a counterfeit scanner machine as a line of students spilled out into the hallway. They were paying their tuition for next semester in cold hard cash. Clyde stood up, shoved a wad of pink 100 RMB notes into his pocket, told the students to wait a moment, and walked with me five feet away, where we concluded the deal in full view of the students, many of whom had been in my classes. I handed grandpa 1000 RMB, he counted it, smiled warmly, and shook my hand. And thus our air-gun diplomacy was concluded. We had crossed another small cultural divide, experiencing, to a certain extent, what Chinese people experience when accidents happen. At the same time, the incident underscored the different systems, rules, and customs that exist on opposite sides of the Pacific.

In the end, it was a small matter for me--a filthy rich community-college history instructor--to pay $140.00 to wash my hands of the situation. But what if it had been another boy who had fired the gun, one whose father made only 500 RMB a month? Lacking health insurance, these matters can create real financial hardships for Chinese families.

It's easy to criticize China as a "communist" nation that denies most of its citizens health and dental insurance and lacks an equitable legal system, leaving them vulnerable to the discretion of corrupt and powerful local authorities. And yet, if it had been America, I might have been sued by angry parents. Police and lawyers might have been enjoined to settle the matter, at great expense to everyone. And certainly the medical costs, if insurance did not cover them, would have been severe. Which is worse?

We're moving to Sweden.