Yesterday afternoon, as I left the Silk Market where I was looking for cool knock-offs (didn’t buy anything…but did see a guy get quite angry with one of the girls who works there), I saw a huge cloud of black smoke rising very close to my apartment. Getting a little closer, I could tell it was coming from behind my apartment…was the big TV on fire (The Place)? Wasn’t that either. It was coming from a construction site behind The Place. After about 20 minutes of seeing the smoke, I finally heard and saw fire trucks. As I made my way closer, the activity was picking up. They blocked off the entire block around the construction site, chasing away Chinese, but not foreigners (which is typical).
Something interesting that I saw was that in addition to the police and fire departments on the scene, there were also military guys keeping an eye on things. Even more interesting, there was a policeman whose job seemed to be taking pictures of the scene near the fire and of the fire itself. Is this how media in China gets their pictures and stories? Maybe. I did see one foreign guy who seemed to be a professional photographer (the 3 high-end SLRs with mega lenses gave him away)…he was finally chased off the scene after about 30 minutes.
Mike,
This sounds just like the fires I respond to. Were usually not there as quickly, but we DO chase away the Chinese, too.