Hue and Crime, Chinese style.

I was eating lunch outside of a little lunch café when three or four young men came down the street, running at full speed, chasing another. This was unusual enough, but then came the really odd part. Behind them were some older men, some teenagers, a few women, running along as best they could in heels, a policemen on a motorbike, and another bike or two, perhaps 25 people, all shouting and running, like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. The guy behind the counter in our restaurant ran out and joined the chase, and all along the street, people peeked out of doors and windows to see the commotion.

A few minutes later, the whole parade came back, dragging along the man they had been chasing. A friend explained the shouting- he’d snatched someone’s wallet. The guy came back to the counter, breathing a little hard, and resumed serving lunch plates. I’m not sure, but he may have been the one who actually caught the thief. Everyone else went back to whatever they had been doing. I went back to my meal, mentally digesting this new sight. I’ve never seen such a perfect demonstration of exactly what “hue and cry” in an old medieval town must have looked like!