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January 21, 2011 THE girl from China was eating a snack while travelling on Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) train. But it didn't go down well with Hong Kongers. A quarrel ensued and a video clip of it was uploaded on video sharing website YouTube. As with all such videos which draw instant responses from eagle-eyed netizens, this too went viral. The result: a major online debate in China. The video was uploaded by a Hong Kong resident and it recorded the war of words between the two groups - one consisting of Hong Kongers and the other made of mainland tourists, Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reported. This comes at a time when Hong Kong receives an influx of tourists from China during the Chinese New Year period, especially with the visa renewal process for Chinese citizens to travel to Hong Kong made easier this year. The video has been watched by about 200,000 Internet users on Tudou, an online video site. The popular Sina.com.cn portal even launched a survey of views on the incident. The video starts with a Hong Kong man demanding an apology from the girl, who was accompanied by her mother. They refuse, reasoning that it is a trivial matter. Soon, others join in, taking either side. Matters begin to escalate after one of the passengers, a Hong Konger, presses the emergency button and notifies MTR officials. An MTR employee is seen on the video telling the mainland tourists that they can't eat inside the train. A mainland woman says "sorry" in English. A Hong Kong man then says sarcastically: "Oh, she knows English." It's not clear whether the mainland woman is the girl's mother. The woman tries to explain the incident to the staff member but she is stopped from talking by some Hong Kongers as the quarrel continues, the report said. At the end of the video, a Hong Kong man was heard saying: "No need to speak to them. That's what mainlanders are like." The survey by Sina found that 35 per cent of around 4,000 respondents supported the Hong Kong passengers' demands that tourists abide by local public order rules. About 10 per cent said Hong Kongers held a grudge against mainland tourists, while 31 per cent said Hong Kongers and mainlanders should show each other more respect. Mainland netizens posted comments on various chat rooms and bulletin boards. One posting said: "Hong Kong people tend to have a superiority complex and discriminate against mainlanders. The woman already said sorry at the end." Hong Kong netizens also posted their comments, some of them not so complimentary. A netizen, known as @tempe1208, said the behaviour was "uncivilised as usual" and that Hong Kongers had shown too much patience towards mainlanders. This article was first published in The New Paper. Read also:
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