A victim's story: They held him down on the ground, one holding his shoulders, the other grabbing his chin. They wanted, says Dan Zhao, to cut his throat.
He managed to flick his head and jerk his throat away from the knife - a move he believes saved his life.
Two years later, however, he is left with two deep scars from his face around the back on his skull and he worries about his safety and his future employability.
"I lost eight pints of blood," he recalls, sitting in the living room of the house he rents in Cabinteely, Co Dublin. The 25-year-old student says he did not know his attackers, nor did he ever see them again. From Shenyang in north-eastern China, Dan had been in Ireland less than a year when the attack occurred in early September 2000.
"It was Friday night and I met up with some friends in a pub near St Stephen's Green. Late in the night one of the other guys who lived in Cabinteely said he was going so I said I would get a taxi with him." The two set off. It was about 1.30 a.m. when they were on Aungier Street, about 10 minutes walk from the pub. "Then five Irish fellows - they were about 19 or 20, they looked quite drunk - they started talking to us. We didn't say anything, we didn't want to get trouble. We just wanted to go home."
One of the men asked Dan for a cigarette. A non-smoker, he said he didn't have any. The Irishman kicked him from behind.
"I turned around then and asked him what he wanted. He took out a small knife, like a paper-cutter and cut my face here," he says, pointing at his left cheek. "There was loads of blood. My friend saw I got attacked and he came back.
"They got really angry then. I don't really remember what was happening but after one or two minutes I said, 'We got to go'."
At this point, he says, he was standing near the edge of the kerb, and could suddenly feel his balance go and he was lying on his back, his feet towards the wall and his head over the kerb.
"One of them was holding my chin and the other held my shoulders, and I could see they were going to cut my throat. I flicked my head like this though," he says, jerking his head to the side, "and they missed my throat. I was lucky."
A deep cut was inflicted from about two inches beyond his right ear and back around his skull almost to the other ear. If he had been a smaller man and too weak to jerk his head out of his attackers' grip he would most certainly have been killed.
"It all happened in about two minutes . . . I thought I was going to be dead."
Other people rushed to their aid. Blood was flowing from his face and head as he tried to get to his feet and he was urged to sit down.
"A guy came and took off his shirt and was holding on my face. Someone rang an ambulance and the Garda. People were very nice."
He underwent surgery in St James Hospital to repair the wound at the back of his skull.
"For weeks afterwards, if I was out and there was group of guys walking towards me, I was very scared. I didn't go into town again for a long time and I didn't go out of the house at night on my own at all.
"Before, I would always go out into town. But now I never go really. Around here is OK."
Generally the experience has made him more concerned about his own safety, where before it was something he never felt the need to be conscious of.
Though his scars have healed well, the one that extends around the back of his head is clearly visible. This worries him a lot.
"When I go back to China I want to get a real good job."
He would like to work in the tourism industry, he continues, but fears his scars may make him look "like someone who gets into fights". That perception would be even stronger in China than it is here, he says.
The attackers were never identified. Dan was asked to an identity parade at Harcourt Square Garda station, but he did not recognise any of the men.
He was put in contact with Victim Support by the hospital, which he says was "great". It helped him contact the Victim Compensation Fund from which he got €600 a few weeks ago - welcome but not enough to get the plastic surgery he would like to mask the physical scars.
Anne Meade, administrator with Victim Support says the organisation is seeing an increasing number of attacks where the victims, like Dan, have been "within an inch" of being killed. And though Garda figures show reported assaults have increased from 737 in 1999 to 3,114 in 2001, she believes a huge proportion go unreported.
"Where six years ago we saw a lot of handbag snatches, now it seems once they'd got the purse or phone or whatever they see an opportunity to give a good kicking."
Young men in particular don't want to report. Some have difficulty even telling friends and family. They feel they should be able to look after themselves.
The impact can be devastating. "To be attacked like that is to be violated . . . And then for men, who had a belief they could take care of themselves, it impacts on their image of themselves, and their image of the world. "You find they start to not be able to make decisions about other things. They lose confidence and the whole effect is one of disempowerment."
Though more Garda on the streets would make people feel safer and perhaps deter attackers, Meade says this would be just a "plaster" on a greater problem.
"As a society we have to look at ourselves," she says, and at what we are doing to create this violence in young men.
Dan feels mentally he can cope well with what happened, though he says he'll never understand why it happened.
"I would have liked the people who did this to be caught. I used to ring the Garda every week, but they just kept saying 'No news'. I would like to have got some feedback, to know why they tried to kill me."
