Chinese online feud spills into real life, as woman is stabbed inside Vancouver courtroom
- Two women who ‘barely know one another’ began trading insults on a Chinese internet forum in 2005, then sued each other for defamation in Canada
- On Tuesday, Jing Lu was stabbed and seriously hurt inside the Supreme Court of British Columbia; Catherine Qinqin Shen has been charged with aggravated assault
Catherine Qinqin Shen and Jing Lu started out as strangers in 2005, on a Chinese internet forum for people planning to immigrate to Canada.
But the insults soon started, setting in motion a 16-year feud online and in the Canadian courts.
Shen called Lu a “liar, a slut and a bitch”. She also allegedly followed Lu’s son to school in British Columbia and later called Lu a liar for saying he had graduated from Harvard University.
Shen, meanwhile, said Lu likened her to a donkey and someone who “wore loose sportswear making her look like an ‘old aunt selling bus tickets’”.
But on Tuesday, the feud apparently culminated in bloody real-life confrontation – Lu was stabbed inside a Vancouver courtroom.
She was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, police told local media, although they did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Shen, 53, has been charged with aggravated assault.
She returned to the British Columbia Supreme Court complex briefly on Wednesday, and is due to appear again on Friday, according to the court registry. She remains in custody.
“In their social media communications, both of these women, for reasons that remain largely a mystery, have demonstrated conduct that is flagrant and extreme
Last year, a judge had ruled that both women defamed each other with their years of online insults. Yet Madam Justice Elaine Adair said the two women “barely know one another”.
“In their social media communications, both of these women, for reasons that remain largely a mystery, have demonstrated conduct that is flagrant and extreme,” Adair wrote in her April 1, 2020 decision that laid out the bizarre battle, first reported by the CBC national broadcaster.
The women’s behaviour was “obsessive and bordering on the irrational”, wrote Adair. “Each of them claims that the behaviour of the other has inflicted serious harm on her. However, neither recognises that they are, in many respects, mirror images of one another,” said the judge.
The stabbing victim, Lu, is a part-time “education consultant” and former cafe owner, also aged 53. She and Shen began interacting on the Canadameet.com forum, where the feud started. The court action began in Vancouver when Lu sued Shen for defamation in 2016. Shen countersued. Both women represented themselves.
Lu, whose family immigrated to Canada under the skilled worker programme in July 2005, said that Shen had become “dismissive and insulting” towards her online around that time, suggesting she was “too poor” to enjoy a good life in Canada, according to court filings.
When a friend wrote about the home Lu had bought in Port Coquitlam, outside Vancouver, Shen wrote that Lu was could not afford a house, Lu claimed.
She also accused Shen of making derogatory remarks about her son and following him home from school. When he was admitted to Harvard University in 2010, Shen allegedly contacted the high school and a tutoring centre attended by the teenager to try to confirm if it was true.
In 2015, after Lu’s son graduated, Shen allegedly posted that Lu was “a liar and that the Plaintiff’s son did not graduate from Harvard”.
Lu, who once owned and operated Orphan Annie’s Cafe in Port Coquitlam, said that in October that year, Shen followed her to work and took photos of her serving customers, then posted the pictures online and “claimed the Plaintiff was so poor she had to work at a restaurant”.
Years of insults
In her version of the facts, Shen said that “all what Jing Lu sued me [for] is what she did to me”.
She said Lu had followed her and revealed her home address online in 2009, then sent harassing emails from 2012 to 2015. “Jing Lu bullied me and words abused [sic] my son as well as my family members on the forum, and made me suffered [sic] over 10 years,” she wrote.
The fact that both Lu and Shen represented themselves posed a challenge for Adair, who highlighted difficulties with the women’s filings.
[As] both Ms Lu and Ms Shen have learned to their regret, inviting interaction with others … can be pleasant and benign, or it can be very unpleasant and hurtful
An affidavit by Lu featured a “great deal of irrelevant and inadmissible content”, while one of Shen’s was “particularly problematic” for being “filled with inadmissible opinion, argument, rhetorical questions, irrelevant commentary, conclusions, insults and invective, as well as hearsay”. Shen’s also consisted of 47 pages of mostly single-spaced text, Adair noted.
Shen said that in 2009 Lu had described her online “as a donkey that is not compliant unless you stroke her hair”. Shen also said that Lu had described her as someone who “wore loose sportswear making her look like an ‘old aunt selling bus tickets’”.
For years, the insults flew.
In the end, Adair concluded both women had defamed each other.
Lu was ordered to pay Shen C$8,500 (US$7,040) in damages, having defamed Shen by calling her “the most famous cheap woman of Shanghai”, “the most famous loser” and referring to her and her family as “garbage”, “the worst scum”, and “homeless dogs”, wrote Adair. Lu had also defamed Shen by saying she “sleeps around”.
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Shen, meanwhile, was ordered to pay Lu C$9,000 (US$7,460) for defaming her by calling her a “liar, a slut and a bitch, and someone who deceives and swindles others”, ruled Adair. “[That] would tend to lower that person’s reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person,” the judge wrote.
In assessing the higher damages, Adair noted that Shen “was persistent in continuing to post on social media after this action was started”.
There the matter might have ended.
But the court battle resumed on March 25 when Shen decided to sue Lu for damages.
Lu countersued and said Shen had failed to pay the damages ordered by Adair; nor had she deleted her online posts, as required by the judge.
It was during a rare in-person court encounter between the women that Lu was stabbed this week. People taking part in proceedings and members of the public are not routinely searched for weapons at the downtown Vancouver court complex.
In her ruling last year, Adair told both women they needed to reflect on their behaviour.
“[As] both Ms Lu and Ms Shen have learned to their regret, inviting interaction with others … can be pleasant and benign, or it can be very unpleasant and hurtful,” she wrote.
“There are costs to wanting to be left alone and maintain one’s privacy. One of the costs is refraining from participation in social media. Both Ms Lu and Ms Shen seek privacy, especially from the other. To maintain privacy, their behaviour has to change.”
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3135134/chinese-online-feud-spills-real-life-woman-stabbed-inside
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