19 Apr Plucky Chinese toddler defends gramma from police

This video of an irate toddler brandishing a steel pipe to defend his street-vending grandmother from Chinese bylaw enforcers went so massively viral, Chinese censors ordered the country’s news media to stop displaying it.

“Child Grasps Steel Pipe to Resist Chengguan” video, pictures, and news reports must all be removed from main news sections. News that unfavourably portrays the law enforcement community must be released with caution.

As the Chinese Digital Times explains, the Chengguan function as a junior varsity police force. They are widely dispised for heavy-handed enforcement of petty rules.

Despite its popularity on Chinese social media, I haven’t seen much reference to to the irate toddler video in North America—except on James Fallows’s blog at The Atlantic. The video, writes Fallows,

illustrates a side of Chinese life familiar to anyone who has lived there but often left out of foreign imagery. Namely: the fierce individualism of a lot of Chinese people, who don’t like to be pushed around.

Or, to paraphrase a button the mother of my children liked to wear, “Question authority, not your grandmother.”