Reflections Triggered by a Street‑Side Domestic Violence Incident That Forced Me to Call the Police

Reflections Triggered by a Street‑Side Domestic Violence Incident That Forced Me to Call the Police
On August 19, 2026, after pulling weeds in a vegetable plot, I rode my bicycle home. On the way, I accidentally saw a woman chasing and beating a teenage girl. The child was crying and running forward, while the woman chased her from behind. Once she caught up, she slapped the girl, pulled her hair, kicked her, and shouted abuse.
Something felt off, so I moved closer to get a better look. I soon realized that this was most likely an emotionally overwhelmed mother disciplining her daughter in an extremely harsh way, though other possibilities could not be ruled out. The woman alternated between beating the girl and pausing, seemingly trying to force her to do something. I froze for a moment, unsure what action I should take.
The girl kept dodging. A green belt several meters wide separated me from them, so I could not make out their conversation. I decided to cycle around the exit of the green belt to catch up with them, reason with the woman, tell her to stop hitting the child, and hear both sides of the story.
Just then, the woman lost control of her temper again and prepared to strike the girl once more. The girl broke into a sprint, and the woman ran after her. I also chased them on my bicycle.
When we reached the entrance of a park, the girl turned into the park and headed straight for the woods. Bicycles were prohibited inside the park, so I could not follow. On foot, I would never have been able to catch up with them.
From what I could see, the most plausible explanation was a mother‑daughter conflict. I considered riding home, thinking that with plenty of park‑goers and security guards on site, a serious emergency was unlikely to unfold.
Yet after I turned to leave, a deep sense of unease weighed on me. I could not shake the scene I had just witnessed. I kept thinking that if something terrible happened to the girl and I had simply stood by and done nothing, I would never forgive myself. The more I thought about it, the more distressed I became, so I cycled back to the park gate.
I found the security guard stationed there, recounted the incident, and asked for his help accessing the surveillance cameras so we could locate the two females. The guard, who had been scrolling on his phone, replied that he would certainly have noticed such a commotion if it had taken place. He was skeptical of my account and had no authority to view surveillance footage.
After roughly one minute of hesitation, I decided to dial 110, China’s emergency police number. I placed the call at 9:05, and gave the dispatcher a full, detailed account of what I had seen. The park was enormous, and without camera footage I had no idea which direction to search. Randomly walking in would serve little purpose, so I concluded that the police needed to handle the situation.
At 9:16, I received a phone call from the local police station. The officer asked for my location and informed me that patrol officers had already arrived at the park entrance and needed me to provide information. I had just ridden away from the gate, so I immediately turned back.
Upon my return, I saw a police car parked outside. One officer was questioning an elderly man who had walked out of the park, asking whether a middle‑aged woman had been chasing and assaulting a young girl inside. The old man confirmed that he had witnessed the disturbance and also suspected that it was a mother violently disciplining her daughter. The park security guard stood nearby, now convinced that I had been telling the truth.
I stepped forward and told the officers that I was the person who had made the emergency call. As they asked me follow‑up questions, I looked up and spotted the mother and daughter walking toward the park exit. The arrival of the police had apparently prompted them to come out of the park. The girl was sobbing uncontrollably, walking a short distance behind her mother. I pointed them out to the police.
The woman looked straight at me and said to the officers, “He is the one who called the police, isn’t he?” She had noticed me chasing them earlier, and immediately worked out that I had reported the incident. The police confirmed her suspicion and asked whether she had been disciplining her child.
The woman said helplessly that she had had no other choice. Although her daughter was still young, she had been diagnosed with fatty liver disease and diabetes, and her doctor had insisted that she get more physical exercise. She had brought the girl out to work out that day, but the child had refused to cooperate under any circumstances. Driven past her breaking point, she had resorted to physical punishment.
The girl did not contradict her mother; she simply kept crying. The police comforted her and told her to stop weeping. The whole scene made me feel rather awkward. In some countries, parents who discipline their children this way would face arrest and even lose guardianship. In China, however, this kind of parental punishment is generally not treated as a serious offence. My decision to call the police almost seemed like an overreaction.
Since the police were already on site and the pair had been found, there was little more I could say, and I felt very uncomfortable standing there. I therefore asked the officer: “Officer, am I permitted to leave now?”
He told me I could go and thanked me for my action. Police officers in Beijing are exceptionally courteous. Earlier, the 110 dispatcher had also thanked me politely after hearing my report.
As I walked away, I overheard the officer speaking gently to the mother, addressing her with the formal, respectful pronoun for “you”. Under China’s legal framework, the authorities’ only feasible course of action in such cases is to advise the parent to adopt better disciplinary methods.
On my ride home, I briefly questioned whether calling the police had been the right thing to do. I quickly reminded myself, however, that my conscience would have tormented me all day with worry over the girl’s safety if I had walked away. No matter how understandable the mother’s motives were, physical punishment of this nature was completely wrong, and would leave lasting psychological scars on the child even if no immediate harm was done.
At the same time, I could empathize with the mother. The health problems her daughter faced reflect a widespread social crisis. Many members of Generation Z struggle with obesity, sedentary lifestyles and rebellious behaviour, including my own children, who frequently resist parental guidance. This mother cared deeply for her daughter, which was why she persisted in taking her outside for exercise to help her lose weight and regain her health. Unfortunately, she lacked the communication skills and emotional self‑control to manage the situation without resorting to violence.
Over the past academic year, I attended classes alongside teenagers born in 2007 and 2008. Most of these young people are addicted to video games, and skipping classes has become commonplace. Even during lessons, few pay attention; most scroll through short‑form video platforms or play mobile games.
As both a fellow student and an older adult, I found this difficult to ignore. I repeatedly urged them to take their studies seriously. With a handful of more approachable students I adopted a more paternalistic tone to try to set them straight. When some skipped specialized courses, I would intercept them at classroom doorways or in hallways to stop them from leaving. In recognition of the help I had offered throughout the year, the counsellor even gave me a gift of local specialties before the summer vacation.
My efforts yielded very limited results, and I worry deeply about the patients these future doctors will one day treat. That said, some patients who are unreasonably hostile toward medical staff may one day only be manageable by this new generation of physicians. Young people today are far less willing to tolerate bad behaviour from others, and their entry into the workforce may reshape doctor‑patient dynamics entirely.
Physical fitness levels are generally poor among this cohort. During physical‑fitness assessments, I, a 47‑year‑old man, outperformed more than half of the male students in my class across multiple fitness indicators. When I invited classmates to go running or play ball games, I could barely find anyone willing to join me, as they could not tear themselves away from their phones and games.
It was therefore probably this exact set of frustrations that pushed the mother I had witnessed to her breaking point. She could not bear to watch her daughter ruin her own health. Fundamentally, she was a deeply responsible parent.
Many parents of Generation‑Z children are contemporaries of mine. Our approaches to raising children contain significant flaws. We fixate obsessively on academic grades and university admission, while neglecting the development of healthy daily routines and general life skills. We also commonly over‑feed our children out of fear they will go hungry. Misleading online articles and viral parenting videos promoting extreme child‑rearing practices have further warped many caregivers’ priorities.
Childhood overweight and obesity rates are now alarmingly high. Several of my medical‑school professors have pointed out in lectures that numerous illnesses once associated with middle‑aged and elderly populations are increasingly appearing among adolescents, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration and even certain cancers. Rates of depression and anxiety disorders, once comparatively rare in young people, are also rising sharply. The World Health Organization projects that depression will become the leading global cause of disease burden by 2030.
These public‑health warnings cannot be ignored. Reversing these trends requires collective societal action. Back in 2012, an octogenarian doctor told me that with my writing ability, I ought not to limit myself to clinical practice alone. I should instead examine why the prevalence of disease keeps rising and contribute to society by helping to reduce rates of preventable illness.
I regret that, in the years since, I have not achieved as much in this field as that senior physician had hoped. Average life expectancy is rising across most of the globe, reaching 84.5 years in Singapore, yet people are spending more years living with chronic illness with little improvement in their overall quality of life.
One week ago, my youngest paternal cousin fell from scaffolding while working on a construction site. He landed on the back of his head and died from severe traumatic injuries. The day before I witnessed the park incident, a male neighbour from my hometown, several years younger than my father, suffered a sudden death while taking a bath.
I had met both men during the Spring Festival, when they had appeared robust. Though both were around seventy years old, they were still capable of heavy manual labour. No‑one could have predicted that they would both pass away within just a few months.
These sudden deaths are deeply saddening, yet my father reacted with remarkable calm. He even said that a sudden, painless death would be a fortunate way for him to go one day.
Over the last two years, my father has frequently discussed his end‑of‑life wishes. He says he does not wish to live to an extremely advanced age, and is satisfied with his current lifespan. He is not afraid of death itself; what frightens him far more is living with debilitating chronic illnesses and becoming a burden to his children.
A few years ago, my father showed early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, but his condition has noticeably improved in the past two years. His thinking is sharp and logical. While some of his long‑held principles are out of step with modern society, they are not inherently wrong.
During the Spring Festival, my late cousin specifically said to me, “Zhiyuan, your father is getting old; you need to take charge of family matters from now on.” I declined. I told him that I would contribute financially to family expenses and help out with manual labour whenever I was home, but my father was still alive and I had an elder brother, so I was not going to assume leadership of the household.
My decision was based on two considerations. First, stripping my father of his family role would accelerate cognitive decline and severely damage his self‑esteem by cutting him off from normal social interaction. Second, I believe his unconventional viewpoints are often correct.
For decades, my father has advocated frugality and argued that monetary gifts exchanged between relatives and friends should remain modest, so that no‑one is financially overburdened. When talking to me about his funeral arrangements, he requested an extremely simple burial. He asked me not to notify relatives, and for my siblings and me to bury his ashes beside my mother’s grave ourselves, with no formal funeral or banquet. In my opinion, only a person of profound wisdom could be so unburdened by social convention.
His wishes conflict with local customs. Not only my late cousin, but several other relatives have urged me to persuade my father to be less fixated on money. Cash gifts between acquaintances in our hometown keep increasing in value. Far from strengthening relationships, this practice has sparked countless disputes.
Although I have occasionally encouraged my father to compromise with prevailing norms, I fundamentally agree with his outlook. I try my best to strike a balance between his preferences and the expectations of our extended family. My cousin, who died suddenly, was not materialistic, yet worked tirelessly to earn a good income. The neighbour who also passed away unexpectedly was younger than my father, obsessed with making money, and even looked down on people with my father’s outlook. He collapsed and died in a worksite bathhouse.
Today, young and middle‑aged people alike frequently violate basic principles of healthy living. While society continues to develop, rates of chronic disease keep climbing. Unhealthy lifestyles and harmful mindsets are spreading like an epidemic.
Over this summer in Beijing, I met with several highly educated friends. When confronted with their own poor health habits, they go to great lengths to rationalise smoking, excessive drinking and physical inactivity, inventing excuses for their behaviour. This perfectly illustrates the well‑known observation that human beings are experts at justifying their own choices.
Just as my father cannot single‑handedly change the traditions of our whole family, those of us who advocate healthier lifestyles are unable to reverse dominant social attitudes overnight. Public perceptions will not shift quickly.
Nevertheless, as Laozi wrote, Reversal is the movement of the Dao. All human affairs follow the law of extremes bringing about their own opposites. Once excessive, indulgent lifestyles generate widespread illness and crushing economic burdens, I believe societal priorities will gradually readjust.
A well‑known Buddhist saying states: Bodhisattvas fear the cause; ordinary people fear the effect. Once costly, disabling diseases affect a growing number of households, the general public will begin to recognise the gravity of this crisis.
I hope that everyone can enjoy good health, that children grow up full of vitality, that parents never become so overwhelmed with anxiety that they lose self‑control like the mother I encountered, and that elderly people can avoid both chronic suffering and sudden death, passing away peacefully in their old age. I wish for harmony and happiness within every family.
I cannot predict when this vision will become reality, yet I urge fellow medical professionals to take an active role in public‑health education. Diseases cannot be cured one by one after they develop. Great physicians treat illness before it emerges. We ought to teach people how to stay healthy in the first place, rather than only helping them recover once they have already fallen sick.