'Thick Toast'
A
video featuring a woman ranting and venting on an MTR train has been viewed
extensively on the internet recently. She is seen shouting repeatedly at the
one who criticized her for allowing her child to eat on the train. The incident
has undoubtedly aggravated the long standing conflict between the Hong Kongers
and the mainland travelers and also sparked further controversy about the demand
for civilized tourism.
The
woman’s attitude is disturbing. To cover her embarrassment about being openly
denounced, she keeps blaming the accuser for being meddlesome, calling her a
busybody. But what upsets me more is her child’s obvious uneasiness. In her
attempt to defend herself and the boy, she has unknowingly placed him in an
awkward situation. He looks edgy, folding the food package bag repeatedly,
signifying his readiness to stop eating. He hides his face behind her, his eyes
looking down all the while. Young as he is, he understands how they have become
the target of criticism and what makes it more agonizing is that his mother is
the one who has started all this.
Now I am not talking about tourist
behavior. What concerns me more is how some parents’ public behavior affects
their children, disregarding whether they are locals or travelers. I have seen
some fathers talking loudly in foul language in the presence of their children.
I have also seen a mother scolding her child for refusing to join her queue
jumping at a customs checkpoint. Parents are also seen piling their child’s
plate with so much food that it would burst his stomach, ignoring his protest and
then allowing the food to remain untouched afterwards.
Do they know what a negative impact
such kinds of behavior can have on the child’s growth? The child either feels
ashamed of having unreasonable parents or, worse still, he learns from them and
becomes an unreasonable person himself. Both are examples of bad parenting with
damaging consequences.
In
the case of the ranting mother, she could have apologized for overlooking the
warning against eating on the train and could have taken the opportunity to
educate her child on social awareness. Those who witnessed the scene would then
have been more tolerant and forgiving.
The
woman’s behavior may have been questionable. But it would not be fair for the
child to be an object of ridicule as a result of the continuous circulation
of the video on the internet. It’s time we put a stop to it.
