Woman Attacked for Photographing Person Eating on Subway
by Jamie Yang on Wednesday, October 16, 2013
by Jamie Yang on Wednesday, October 16, 2013
The middle aged woman begins eating grapes.
Pregnant Woman Attacked on Subway For Photographing Middle-Aged Woman Eating Grapes
[September] 24th, the Jiubao Station platform of the Hangzhou Subway was audience to the great chase and battle between two women. Turns out a pregnant woman had seen a middle-aged woman eating continuously in the subway train carriage, gone forward asking her to stop, but the other person wouldn’t listen. So she took out her mobile phone to take a photo intending to expose her on the internet, only for the other party to angrily chase and attack her. This was cast in the same mold as the Wuhan Subway “hot-and-dry noodles” incident, and whether or not it is appropriate to photograph someone to expose them is appropriate once again incited heated netizen discussion.
■ Recounting the scene
Photographing someone eating causes dispute
Zhu Qian (pseudonym), the pregnant woman, recounted the whole story. On the morning of the 24th, she went to work by subway as usual. After getting on the train, she noticed a middle-aged woman next to her eating cookies/crackers, and thus went up to her and asked her to stop. “I very politely said to her that eating isn’t allowed in the subway.” Zhuqian says she’s the “nosy” type so whenever she sees something wrong, she always points it out.
Zhuqian even made a joke at the same time, “Careful, you might get hit/beaten up later.” To her surprise, the middle-aged woman in red leather shoes nonchalantly replied asking, “And are you going to be the one to hit me?” After saying this, she went on eating, even taking out an iPad to use while eating. “I said to her, ‘I wouldn’t hit you, but there are so many people on the train looking at you, it’s rather embarrassing’,” Zhu Qian said. However, the woman ignored her and continued eating. After finishing the cookies/crackers, she began eating grapes, her mouth never stopping the entire way.
After passing two stations, Zhu Qian simply couldn’t bear it anymore and wanted to take a picture to expose it [publicly post it online]. “However, I didn’t plan on photographing her face, just a whole body picture from the back.” When the middle-aged woman arrived at her stop and got off the train, Zhu Qian raised her mobile phone and aimed at the woman but when she pressed the shutter, she was caught by the woman.
“She very angrily charged over, screaming ‘who said you could take a photo’, and even tried to seize my mobile phone,” Zhuqian recalled. She immediately put her mobile phone into her bag so the woman pushed her, and she pushed back.
Here the middle-aged woman became thoroughly enraged. She stretched out her hand to hit Zhu Qian and Zhu Qian ran towards the subway platform. Seeing the woman about to catch her and afraid of the consequences, Zhu Qian ran back into the train car where there were more people. Luckily at that moment, the subway began moving and the middle-aged woman stopped chasing her.
“Only afterwards did I remember I’m already over two months pregnant and this kind of situation is rather dangerous. If something happened, I don’t even know what the consequences would be,” Zhu Qian feared a bit afterwards. This incident was also exposed in Weibo by several other netizens riding on the same train.
A Wuhan subway passenger eating hot-and-dry noodles unhappy with someone taking pictures unexpectedly dumped the noodles on the person’s head.
■ Related incidents
Netizen had hot-and-dry noodles poured on head
In March of this year, a similar incident also happened in the Wuhan subway where a passenger eating hot-and-dry noodles unhappy with someone photographing her unexpectedly dumped the noodles on that person’s head.
At the time, a young woman was holding and eating hot-and-dry noodles in a the subway carriage and refusing to listen to other passengers. Ms. Ye, who was sitting across from her, used her mobile phone and took a photo of the scene, arousing an fierce reaction from the young woman who then dumped the bowl of hot-and-dry noodles onto her head.
Feeling aggrieved, Ms. Ye then posted her bitter experience as well as the young woman’s photo onto Weibo, causing a storm with relevant search results numbering over a hundred of thousand. Tens of thousands of netizens expressed their opinions, with most people condemning the young woman’s behavior, and even some people claiming that they’ll launch a human fresh search on her. Seeing things developing with an unhealthy trend, a Ms. Ye that had already calmed down begged netizens not to publish the young woman’s personal information to avoid causing harm to her. Meanwhile, she also expressed regret for impulsively publishing the the young woman’s photo without first blurring it.
This is the first extreme case caused by persuading others not to eat in the train in three month since No.2 Wuhan subway started to operate. Many netizens appeal everyone comply with social morality and hope embarrassed things like splashing noodles will never happen again.
■ Heated debate among netizens
How to enforce the subway prohibition on eating food
Scallion cakes, leek dumplings… the practically sealed subway cars are filled with undesirable odors during the morning rush hour, leaving many passengers fed up. Recently, the topic of whether or not eating in the subway should be prohibited has received widespread discussion. The recently submitted “Shanghai Metro Management Regulations (Revised Draft)” (amendment draft) has amongst them for the first time a regulation prohibiting eating inside the carriage. According to the amended revised draft, “eating and drinking inside the train car” along with behaviors such as smoking, spitting, urinating, etc. have all been listed as prohibited. Violators will “be subject to corrective action by rail company, with warnings or fines ranging from 50 to 500 yuan.”
In fact, Shanghai is not the first city that plans to implement a prohibition on eating in the subway. Wuhan enacted regulations concerning the fining of eating in the subway last year; Nanjing subway stipulated several years ago that passengers face a 20-100 yuan for eating or drinking in the subway; Shenzhen regulated that eating and drinking inside subway stations will be a 200 yuan fine. As well, foreign countries, including Singapore, America, Germany, etc. all have regulations prohibiting the consumption of food in the subway.
Most netizens think prohibiting eating in the subway by itself is good, but how it should be enforced is a big problem/question. Netizens believe the sense of justice in asking others to stop eating should be affirmed, but whether or not it’s appropriate to take photos and expose [people] remains controversial.
Some netizens believe, to those who don’t listen to persuasion, it’s not going too far to give them dirty looks, and the method of exposing them [publicly shaming them on the internet] is even more effective. However, other netizens believe photographing them and exposing them is not appropriate, and even violates the right of portraiture [control over the use of one's likeness]. The Hangzhou Subway Operating Company indicates that in this kind of situation, the best thing to do is call the subway department’s hotline and have them come out to handle it.
Combined reports from Xinhua, China National Radio, and Morning Express
(Original title: Pregnant Woman Who Photographed Someone Eating Grapes in Subway Chased and Attacked)
