Two kinds of law

This is a distinction which, to some extent, holds true, I'm sure, everywhere in the world; but it does seem to be particularly marked, particularly important in China.

(I've just started leading a 10-week training programme with a big foreign law firm here, so I may soon be in a position to comment further on this, having picked my students' brains.)

There are the laws. And there are the laws that are - or can be - enforced.

In this country, most of the laws are of theoretical interest only: they have little or no practical consequence.

Take, for example, the prohibition on carrying out unsociably noisy work when people might be trying to sleep. I have been many times assured that it is a law here that construction work cannot be carried out - at least, not anywhere near residential areas - between the hours of 11pm and 7am. And yet..... just about every construction site in the city routinely works 24/7.

The law exists in principle, but you have to fight bloody hard to try to get it enforced. (I did once manage to get it enforced, at a very local level, when the hotel which managed the accommodation building I was housed in on the campus of one of the Universities I taught at a few years ago was relaying the surface of the parking area immediately outside my window, and wanted to work throughout the night. I got the hotel night manager out of bed and got one of my Chinese friends on the phone to him to explain that working after 11pm was illegal, and that we would call in the police if they didn't stop. It worked!!!)

On Monday night - the last day of the week-long May holiday, and the eve of my first early morning start at this rather important law firm gig - there was heavy plant rumbling up and down the street outside my apartment, workmen yelling, and pneumatic drills hammering away all night. They've been completely resurfacing my mile-long street for some time now, but that particular evening the work obviously reached a peak of intensity in the stretch around my building. I tried sleeping on a sofa in my living room (which has the 'double glazing' of an enclosed balcony at the far end, and no other external walls), but even in there the din was still very audible, irksome, oppressive. And it was a wretchedly muggy night as well. I got almost no sleep at all. Not a good start to the week.

At least that all-night working right outside hasn't been repeated since. I can't be answerable for my actions if it is!