Skip to main content

Real or Fake News? - Mainland Chinese Boy Pees At Restaurant Inside Taipei 101

On October 19 Apple Daily published an article about a mainland boy who peed in public at the famous restaurant Ding Tai Feng (é¼Žę³°č±, often spelt 'Din Tai Fung') inside Taipei 101. 

According to the report, at the beginning of October a group of 5 tourists from China's Shanxi province went to Ding Tai Feng, a chain of restaurants renowned for its xiaolongbao (小ē± åŒ…, a kind of dumpling). During the meal, a 3-year-old boy had to pee and his mother let him urinate inside a plastic bottle in public. Although there is no toilet inside Ding Tai Feng, there is one just about 100 meters away from the restaurant but still inside Taipei 101. Allegedly, other customers saw that the boy had pulled down his pants to pee and felt shocked. Moreover, the boy 'missed his target' and sprinkled the table and the food. 

The group consisted of a 37-year-old mother and her two children, her 73-year-old father and her 41-year-old sister-in-law. They arrived at the restaurant at around 12:30 of October 2. When the incident occurred, the waiters didn't know how to handle the situation and called senior staff members with more experience. 

A spokesperson of the restaurant told the media that the waiters "immediately went to the table and told the customers how to get to the restrooms. They also reminded them that they [should] avoid disturbing the other customers." She added that the area of the restaurant where the mainland group had sat was disinfected after what had happened.

A mainland group leader defended the woman. "There's no reason to blow the thing out of proportion," she said. "This kind of thing will happen. It's the same on the mainland. The child is still very young, if he needs to pee there's nothing you can do. As a mother, you will sympathise with your child. I have children, too."




The news immediately went viral and prompted the usual anti-mainland reactions. Other websites and individuals soon joined in the chorus of voices condemning the mainlanders. Here are some comments on Apple Daily:

這ē™¼ē”Ÿäø€ę¬”,大家ę˜Æäøę˜Æę„Ÿåˆ°åæ«å“©ę½°äŗ†?č«‹äŗ†č§£,香ęøÆę˜Æ處處äøŠę¼”,åøøåøøåÆ見,ä½ čŖŖęˆ‘å€‘ä½åœØ香ęøÆčƒ½äøē˜‹å—Ž? 
This just happened once, but doesn't everyone feel appalled? Please understand that in Hong Kong this happens everywhere and we see such things many times, how could we not turn mad? 
å»ŗč­°åŗ—å®¶éŒ„å½±å­˜č­‰ + ē«‹åˆ»å ±č­¦ ! 
I advise the restaurant to use the footage as a proof and report it immediately to the police!
強國äŗŗåæƒę…‹é‚„停ē•™åœØäø€ēŖ®äŗŒē™½ę™‚代,仄ē‚ŗęœ‰éŒ¢ä»€éŗ¼éƒ½čƒ½č§£ę±ŗ,ę ¹ęœ¬ęš“ē™¼ęˆ¶åæƒē†. 
The mindset of mainlanders has remained backward, they think they can solve every problem with money, the typical mentality of nouveaux riches.  
č«‹é–‹å§‹ę­£å"äø­åœ‹äŗŗ"å°é›™ę–¹éƒ½å„½ 
Please start calling them by their right name: "Chinese" It would be better for both sides 
ē¾åœØå¤§å®¶ę‡‚ ē„ØęŠ•åœ‹ę°‘é»Ø 台ē£č®Šé¦™ęøÆēš„ę„ę€äŗ†å—Ž? ꈑēµ•å°äøč¦ēµ±äø€! 
Does everyone understand now that if you vote Guomindang Taiwan will become like Hong Kong? I absolutely don't want unification!

Comments of the sort went on and on. However, on October 21 Apple Daily published on its website an apology. The mother of the boy

is not a mainland tourist, but a Taipeinese, and her son did not urinate in public. A plastic bottle had accidentally fallen, spilling water on the child's pants, and the mother was just trying to help him change his pants. She hadn't realised that other people had misunderstood what was happening and had taken pictures of her and posted them online. 

However, some netizens insist that the people were mainlanders and that two different incidents happened: one inside Ding Tai Feng and another one at the food court of Taipei 101. It is not quite clear whether these claims are true or not. Some news outlets such as Taiwan's Central News Agency and China Times did not mention two parallel incidents, and Apple Daily's apology seems to refer to one and the same incident. 

One thing is clear, though: whenever mainlanders are involved, people are all too ready to condemn, insult and publicly express prejudices and generalisations. "I hate mainlanders", "Mainlanders are rude", are sentences one often hears. Moreover, different topics are constantly mixed and confused: a child allegedly peeing in public is immediately connected to things like Hong Kong's Occupy Central, or the Guomindang. 

Not surprisingly, very few Taiwanese reacted with the same amount of fierceness and hatred when they read that that Taiwanese mother let her child change his pants in public - this is not a very polite and pleasant behaviour, yet if a Taiwanese mother does it, one isn't likely to read or hear comments such as: "Taiwanese are rude", or "Taiwanese are backward". 

I do not criticise Apple Daily. Mistakes can happen, and there is no shame in making a mistake if one is willing to correct it. I was criticised for a much smaller mistake a while ago and, I think, unfairly, because we are all humans and sometimes we misunderstand or misinterpret. However, while I don't blame Apple Daily, I think that growing anti-mainland sentiment is a worrying phenomenon and is certainly not something of which people should be as proud as they seem to be. Prejudices against mainlanders have nothing to with the justified willingness of the Taiwanese to defend themselves against a possible Communist annexation. 

UPDATE:

The apology issued by Apple Daily does indeed refer to two separate incidents. The one which took place at Ding Tai Feng and which I described above did happen and the people involved are mainlanders. The second incident happened in the food court of Taipei 101: a mother helped her child change his pants after he had spilt water on it. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Window Trick of Las Vegas Hotels

When I lived in Hong Kong I often passed by a residential apartment complex commonly known as the " monster building ".  " Interior of the Yick Cheong Building November 2016 " by  Nick-D  is licensed under  CC BY-SA 4.0 . _____

Living in Taiwan: Seven Reasons Why It's Good to Be Here

Chinese New Year can be a pretty boring time for a foreigner. All of my friends were celebrating with their families, and since I have no family here, nor have I a girlfriend whose family I could join, I had nothing special to do. Shops and cafes were closed - apart from big chains like McDonald's or Starbucks, which were overcrowded anyway. So I had a lot of time to think. On Saturday evening I went out to buy my dinner. While I was walking around, I heard the voices of the people inside their homes, the sounds of their New Year celebrations. Then I suddenly asked myself: "What on earth are you doing here? Why are you still in Taiwan?"  Before I came to Taiwan, some Taiwanese friends of mine had recommended me their country, highly prasing it and going so far as to say that Taiwan is a "paradise for foreigners" (bear in mind that when I say foreigners I mean 'Westerners').  "It's easy for foreigners to find a job," t

Is China's MINISO Copying Japan's MUJI, UNIQLO and Daiso?

Over the past few years Japanese retailers such as UNIQLO and MUJI have conquered foreign markets, opening shops in cities such as Paris, Berlin or New York and becoming household names in several countries. But the success of their business model seems to have inspired people with dubious intentions. As the website Daliulian recently showed, a new chain called MINISO, which claims to be a Japanese company selling ‘100% Japanese products’, seems to be nothing more than a knock-off of UNIQLO, MUJI and Daiso, copying their logos, names and even the layout of their stores. The company’s webpage proudly announces – in terrible English – that “ MINISO is a fast fashion designer brand of Japan. Headquartered in Tokyo Japan, Japanese young designer Miyake Jyunya is founder as well as the chief designer of MINISO, a pioneer in global 'Fashion & Casual Superior Products' field. ” According to the company’s homepage, MINISO advocates the philosophy of a simple,

Macau: Gambling, Corruption, Prostitution, and Fake Worlds

As I mentioned in my previous post , Macau has different faces and identities: there is the old Macau, full of colonial buildings and in which the pace of life seems to resemble a relaxed Mediterranean town rather than a bustling, hectic Chinese city, such as Hong Kong or Shanghai. On the other hand, there is the Macau of gambling, of gigantic hotel and casino resorts, and of prostitution. These two Macaus seem to be spatially separated from each other, with an intact colonial city centre and nice outskirts with small alleys on the one side, and bombastic, modern buildings on the other.  The Galaxy - one of the huge casino and hotel resorts The Importance of Gambling for Macau's Economy Dubbed the 'Monte Carlo of the East', Macau has often been portrayed as the gambling capital of China. Media reporting on Macau tend present pictures of the city's glistening, apparently luxurious skyline. But a visit in Macau suffices to realize that it is fa

Trip to Tainan

Tainan Train Station Last weekend I made a one day trip to the Southern Taiwanese city of Tainan (Chinese: č‡ŗ南, pinyin: TĆ”inĆ”n), the former capital and one of the most important centres of culture, history and architecture of the island. This blog post is also intended as a special thank to Grace, a Taiwanese friend who was so kind to show me around, and very patient, too. Since Tainan doesn't have an extensive public transport net, Grace picked me up at the train station with her motorcycle, a vehicle that, along with cars, is regarded by locals as indispensable for living comfortably in Tainan. To my great embarrassment, though, I had to admit that I cannot ride a motorcycle. That's why we had to take busses to move around. It was the first time she ever took a bus in Tainan. And now I know why: busses come more or less every half an hour, and service stops early in the evening. No wonder Tainanese snob public transport. Grace had no idea about the routes and about whe