Making Your Point

Last week there was a big crowd gathered by one of the entrances to an apartment complex just down the road from us. There were fireworks and banners hanging from the gates. It seemed like some kind of big protest.

As we were walking past, a huge dumper truck full of dirt came along and after an argument with a man, the driver unloaded the dirt in the vehicle into entrance of the complex. A few minutes later and 3 more trucks came along and unloaded huge piles of dirt in the other entrances causing chaos on the roads.


After asking about a bit we managed to figure out that the farmers who originally owned the land were angry that they didn't get a fair price when they sold to the property developers and wanted some more.

Although it was obviously a very serious issue to those involved it was really amusing watching the traffic pile up on the roads, and when we went back a few hours later they still hadn't managed to unblock the entrances. When I asked one of my friends about it he said it was a (literal translation) Chinese tradition. I think his meaning was more that it is a very Chinese way of making your point heard.