How can ignorance not be an acceptable defense? I've always wrestled with this. Even the whole "court of law" thing. I mean, seriously. It's like the
lady in Nanaimo last month who was given a ticket, while sitting at her desk at work, for parking her car and leaving the window rolled down. Apparently, that's against the law, and the cop actually walked into her office and tried to give her a ticket for it.
It turns out the whole floor wigged out about what they not only thought was a moronic law, but also the fact that this guy was seriously trying to enforce it. He relented on the ticket and just gave her a warning instead.
I get that it's our responsibility to inform ourselves, but there has to be a reasonable level of understanding. I'm not a lawyer, I didn't study the law. In fact, I have not taken one signal law-related course ever in my life. Am I really expected to know every little thing I'm allowed or not allowed to do, other than the obvious ones (or the moral ones)?
Was that lady really supposed to know that it's illegal to park her OWN car with her OWN window rolled down? Would she not have been able to walk into a courtroom and say, "Really, Your Honor? I was really supposed to know that I'm not allowed to roll my window down when I park my own car in my own private parking space outside of my own office?" "What about inside my garage? Have the Police been checking people's garages all this time for illegally rolled down windows, and I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't noticed this?"
To that end, I have no idea if this guy really knew about the chinese thing or not. I have to imagine there aren't a lot of chinese people living in Virginia, where he's from. In fact, the 2010 Census for Virginia Beach says that only 0.5% of their population is chinese.