Strolling around the sprawling campus of East China University of Science and Technology, my university here in Shanghai, one will find a variety of privately run shops, stalls and food carts catering to students.

However, as students are largely preoccupied with our lessons, we often forget that vendors are people struggling with day-to-day pressures just like us. And like any strained student caught on a bad day, vendors are also inclined to occasionally bare their fangs.

About a month ago, a fellow postgraduate student at my university wrote a post on the Internet about an unpleasant incident she had with one such vendor. While ordering a bowl of douhua (tofu pudding) for breakfast at a stand, she got into a nasty confrontation with the vendor's daughter. By the time campus security arrived at the scene of the escalating conflict, the vendor's daughter had poured two cups of hot douhua over the student's head.

After the student's post went viral among our university's student body, in a show of support a number of students publicly vowed to never patronize that particular stand again. One of my dorm mates also argued that our school should start cracking down on such vendors, many who operate without a license.

As I myself have had my fair share of arguments with irascible local vendors trying to take advantage of me just because they assume I am some spoiled student, I too sympathized with this student. However, as a cub reporter currently interning at the Global Times, I felt compelled to dig deeper to find out if there was more to the incident than what was being shared on social media.

I sought out the vendor's side of the story, who told me that his stand was especially busy that morning; regrettably, he, his wife and his daughter, who all work together, were not able to immediately take that student's order, which caused her to snap at them. The vendor admitted that his daughter is also hotheaded and has no tolerance for bossy students with a bad attitude.

"Actually that student also poured douhua over my daughter and wife, and my daughter's neck was scratched by her (during their physical altercation)," he told me. "We've been running a business here for years, and never encountered a customer like that!" Nonetheless, after a negotiation, the vendor said that he had agreed to pay 500 yuan ($78.25) as compensation to the student just to get her off his back.

While interviewing the vendor, I noticed that his stall was still popular with students, who were queuing up. I spoke with several of them to get their take, but most didn't seem to pay it any mind. "I don't really care about the quality of service, if it's good or bad," said one busy student, "I just want to eat my breakfast and go."

In an unexpected twist, despite the popularity of that postgrad's post, our university made an official announcement several days later stating that the student was in fact not speaking the truth about what transpired. The school asked students to not spread rumors by sharing her story, which they urged her to delete.

To those students who had paid attention to the now-notorious douhua incident, it seemed that school administrators were trying to suppress any further discussion. Our university, these concerned students refuted, has no interest in getting involved with such disputes or taking any measures against rogue vendors doing business on campus.

Indeed, one legitimate campus shopkeeper I interviewed confided in me that many shops operating on university grounds have no permits, business licenses or health certificates because university administrators are lax about enforcing municipal laws against street food vendors. Merchants, he said, take advantage of this by operating sidewalk snack stands day and night without any regard to food safety or sanitation regulations.

Serving quickly prepared food to famished students in between their classes is big business on our campus and has created a kind of micro-economy here. Oftentimes students have no other options; that douhua stand, for instance, is the only douhua served on our campus. The vendor is very aware of this, and his daughter is too, which is obviously why she was so quick to scrap with a hostile customer, knowing that students would keep coming back regardless.

Instead of allowing rogue merchants to operate above the law on our campus, it's in everyone's best interests - especially university administrators who could be legally liable for any incidents that jeopardize student safety and health - to start enforcing municipal laws rather than leaving students with no other choice but to "spread rumors."

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Global Times.