From The Los Angeles Times:
Railroad tickets are a dangerous business in China.
Retired military man Wang Hanlin opened a travel agency here a decade ago, but found that the best seats disappeared no matter how early you tried to buy them.
When he asked why, Wang recalls, he was told to keep his mouth shut. When he persisted, he got his answer from six thugs who jumped him in broad daylight and beat him with a pipe, smashing his legs.
Wang, now 64, says he knows who arranged the beating: Liu Zhixiang, director of one of Wuhan’s two train stations and the younger brother of a powerful Communist Party official who was about to become railway minister.
