One of China’s traditional virtues, which we’re constantly reminded of by automated messages on buses and subway trains, is to respect the elderly. In the context of public transportation, this means offering your seat. When you don’t, the above is liable to happen.
In Zhengzhou, Henan Province on March 10, reportedly on the No. 89 bus, a young girl was beaten for refusing to offer her seat. According to Global Times, “The old man hinted that the girl should give up her seat and when he demanded to know why she wouldn’t, she said she did not notice him. The man cursed the girl, then beat her violently before getting off the bus.” The man grabbed the woman’s hair before striking her, and then other passengers intervened.
It looks like the woman is pushed off the bus, but that part is unclear from the video. The man reportedly jumped off immediately after the incident.
Stuff like this has happened before, and it’s why, perhaps, groups like “Never Give Up Your Seat” exist. Although it bears mentioning that incidents like the above are the exception rather than the rule, and it’s been my experience that passengers are usually very quick to give up their seats to elders and mothers with young children.
(H/T Alicia)
Oh China. “You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.”
What I don’t get is why people don’t detain people for police. Naw just let them walk away… as long as it’s not me, right?
it’s not okay to refute offer seat to elder but it’s okay to beat girl, got it.
“But why did you have to sit in her seat? Why did you need to punish her?”
“Are you Chinese, or not? Because she wouldn’t give it to me!”
to me it looks like the old man got pushed off the bus? and the girl didn’t get “beaten”.
typical of paranoid generation X to think they are being persecuted