Greengrocer hacking mediator for 30 cents (Chinese) Shanghai Local morning newspaper

The quarrel started with the price of the sword beans. This customer went to this vegetable stand and ask one greengrocer (a woman now on the run) about the price. She said 2.8 Yuan for one Jin (half a kilogram). And the customer thought it a bit expensive. The other greengrocer offered 2.5 Yuan. The woman was angered and so began the quarrel. Potatoes and cabbages were flying at each other. Then this woman pciked up a knife and brandished it in front of a lot of people. Someone who wanted to stop the quarrel tried to pull them away from each other. The thing got out of hand when the woman hacked a bit of the mediator's ear off...

In China, we say 'people of the same trade are bound to be enemies rather than friends'( 同行是冤家).  This kind of violence happens everywhere. Watermellon stands can be a dangerous place too. Even shops on Nanjing Road. Snobbish shop assistants are very much like the woman greengrocer if not that violent. You have read reports of businessmen in Wenzhou hiring assassins to kill their competitors. Even government officials are involved in these incidents. Sometimes law is so helpless in the face of some hidden rules working in the Chinese society.  

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