Passenger slings hammock on MTR to make his very own 'sleeper carriage'
MTR staff called in when man sets up hammock in train compartment
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 21 May, 2014, 4:50am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 21 May, 2014, 8:45am
Ada Lee [email protected]
No one seems to notice as this brazen passenger takes a doze in a hammock strung between the seats of an Island Line train on Monday night. Photo: SCMP Pictures
A late-night trip on the MTR can be tiring, and one man found what looked like the ideal solution - he strung a hammock across the compartment.
But other passengers didn't find it so relaxing and called MTR staff to intervene.
The episode has become the latest in a string of much-discussed incidents on the trains that have found their way onto the internet.
It joined the ranks of a video of a woman shouting in a thick accent at a passenger who told her off for eating on a train, and one of a little girl urinating.
In a photograph circulated online, a man is shown lying on a hammock strung between two rows of seats. A few passengers - including one in a straw hat and a dozing man - are on the benches.
The MTR said it happened on an Island Line train on Monday night. A passenger called an MTR employee at North Point station at 11.30pm and the man left shortly after the employee intervened.
Meanwhile, a woman shown eating on a Kwun Tong Line train with her son has told a magazine she was so upset when a video of it was posted online earlier this month that she considered killing herself. The YouTube video shows her shouting, "You are so nosy", "You are not Leung Chun-ying", and "Are you bullying me?" at another woman, who told her eating was not allowed on trains.
The clip, uploaded on May 11, had attracted more than 172,000 views by last night.
Internet users joked that the woman pronounced "so nosy" like "thick toast", and "Leung Chun-ying" like "onion rings".
In an interview with Eastweek, the woman said she arrived in Hong Kong from Chaozhou , in Guangdong, nine years ago. She said she was illiterate and did not know eating on trains was forbidden. She had no idea what "thick toast" meant.
She said she became very stressed after the video went viral, and had wanted to kill herself.
MTR Staff General Association chairman Wong Yuen-wood said it was common to see drunk people lying on train floors or passengers in strange costumes, "but setting up a hammock - I have never seen this". Wong said the man could have violated MTR by-laws as the hammock could have caused a nuisance or danger, but he was not charged.
