German student's

[leeyah]

Confusion caused by contact with a culture other than one's own is known as 文化冲击 = culture shock or clash of cultures, which explains why different people may understand and define things each according to their own perception of what they call culture... or ethics... or religion... or 道 ...

In theory this culture-confusion has four stages. But theory doesn't say anything about getting stuck at stages two or three - in practice. Some people are simply unable to cope. In that case I believe they'd better go back home or they may end up like poor Bernhard.

And no, this thread is not supposed to be "a good laugh".

[muyongshi]

In that case I believe they'd better go back home or they may end up like poor Bernhard.

I must say, while I understand your arguments that you have put forth you are way of base in claiming that this is definitively what happened to him. Period. You don't have evidence, only speculation and honestly the way you are phrasing these things are no better than the people you rant about. Please stick to opinions as being opinions and leaving fact to speak for itself as fact.

[rlinda_yuya]

He's a foreigner, if a foreigner causes too much trouble, doesn't China usually just deport him/her

Anyway I admit his bravery and courage.

[xianhua]

That's a very sad story. I feel for the family.

[animal world]

And no, this thread is not supposed to be "a good laugh".

It was obvious my good laugh was about the link given about religion by a previous poster and not about the death of this young German student in China. I certainly don't believe i committed an act of disrespect as the conversation had long moved on to other things, i.e. religion and speculating about this student's life and death. Few pertinent facts have been reported in this thread. All we have to go by are the subjective remarks made by parents who have little knowledge about how things are done in China and who probably didn't know much about what was truly going on in their son's life. As a previous poster mentioned, if his stay in China was troublesome to the government, it wouldn't have been difficult to tell him to leave the country.

Edited October 4, 2009 at 01:29 PM by animal world

[gato]

The biggest mystery is why there wasn't any blood on his clothes if he had died from falling from a building.

See here.

http://www.xxx.zone-d.de/e07dez06.html

A year would pass before we would learn that the body and face of our late son showed no marks or injuries of any sort!

Although Bernhard according to the Chinese death certification should have bleed to death resulting from fall from height, at his jacket and his cap, which our son had whith him when he died there was no blood, not one drop. A completely unharmed face, no blood on the clothes and no violation in a fall from height? We also realized that although he was suppose to have fallen from a great height, not one drop of blood was spilt on the clothes he had been wearing at the time of death.

It was a long time before I was able to look into Bernhard's suitcase but when I did so, I found his eyeglasses. They were badly damaged but not in the manner they would have been damaged from a fall from great heights and moreover there was no blood at all on them.

http://www.xxx.zone-d.de/e11psb.html

This second video depicts a falling object (which they wished my husband to believe to be the body of our son). This object moves initially after this fall but then remains still. Shortly after the fall the film depicts the appearance of a dark substance which the officials claim to be a puddle of blood.

As we know, the employee of the university that admitted to my husband in November 2007 that he actually had identified Bernhard's body, even though he had not admitted this to him the year before when the met in December 2006, had assured my husband that Bernhard's face was unmarked by the fall. Everyone believed that such a fall would have cause serious injury to Bernhard's body, especially to his face and head, which did not happen. Even the Chinese university officials found this to be very odd. Once more at this meeting with the PSB my husband posed the question about the lack of visible injuries to Bernhard's face and head. They had a ready explanation: They said that he died from his fall but that since he jumped only from the fourth floor (the third floor in European architectural terminology but the fourth to Americans as well) that it was not high enough to do damage to his face or head.

[Scoobyqueen]

deleted

[XiaoXi]

Regardless of the circumstances of death, there's no reason why the authorities would insist on no further investigation before releasing the body unless there was something untoward about his death.

Regarding religion in China, a great many Chinese must be religious in some form or another. The fact they have gravestones that are beautifully decorated and are visited at least once every year shows that. Chinese apparently believe that the deceased go to some form of 'heaven'. Otherwise they wouldn't even need gravestones for the dead, never mind flowers etc, visiting the graves, burning fake money in honour of them.

[crazy-meiguoren]

Scoobyqueen's theory seems most plausible to me, without venturing into some kind of conspiracy theory. Something unintended happened, and the authorities involved were probably trying to save face. The actual events may not be the same as in the scenario, but whatever may have happened could be parallel enough to lead to the same outcome.

[crazy-meiguoren]

Regarding religion in China, a great many Chinese must be religious in some form or another.

Nearly everyone is religious to some degree or another. Even an atheist could be considered religious in a back-handed way. The atheist has a well-defined idea of the existence of a deity. It's really two sides of the same coin. Just my opinion for what it's worth.

[anonymoose]

Pure speculation here, but maybe the guy didn't die at all, but was abducted. After all, only a small number of people got to see the (unscathed) body. All the parents got was a jar of ashes.

[anonymoose]

Nearly everyone is religious to some degree or another. Even an atheist could be considered religious in a back-handed way. The atheist has a well-defined idea of the existence of a deity. It's really two sides of the same coin.

Of course it depends on the definition of 'religious', and you can define it that way if you like. But I think there's a significant difference which is that for truely religious people, the existance of god is an important part of daily life, whereas for the majority of atheists, the non-existance of god does not have an impact on one's life. Of course, there's a small number of evangelical atheists who choose to make atheism central to their lives, but I'd say that for the vast majority of atheists, even the question of whether god exists or not itself is rarely brought up, and therefore to lump atheism together with religions which take a conscious commitment to follow is too simplistic.

[crazy-meiguoren]

Pure speculation here, but maybe the guy didn't die at all, but was abducted. After all, only a small number of people got to see the (unscathed) body. All the parents got was a jar of ashes.

Which would make DNA testing impossible, since cremation destroys the body's DNA. In this case the only hope they have for verification is if the cremation was not thoroughly done.

Why would he be abducted? It would be much simpler to deport him if he had a secret missionary operation, in violation of Chinese law. There is plenty to speculate: maybe he committed suicide when he saw that his arrest was imminent and the authorities viewed it as a loss that they had to cover up? Could he have staged his own "abduction" and gone into hiding?

The west enjoys a relatively high degree of religious freedom, including freedom to proselytize. The low level of official interference inspires some religious people to look for the slightest signs of persecution. Some claim "persecution" anytime someone gets in their way. No doubt, the main person of this thread has been elevated to the status of martyr by some because of the way the situation was handled.

[crazy-meiguoren]

Of course, there's a small number of evangelical atheists who choose to make atheism central to their lives

There are a number of Dial-An-Atheist phone numbers all over the USA. It's a response to all the "Dial-a-Prayer" lines that have sprung up like weeds. The one in my community had a level-headed message instead of an anti-religious rant.

It's the ones who use atheism to make a big show to promote themselves that concern me. I am just as appalled by those who use religion for similar showboating purposes.