Five people were arrested yesterday afternoon over a brawl inside a packed MTR train carriage that began after a child stepped on a passenger’s foot.
Police confirmed to Coconuts HK that they arrested five people at Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station just before 3:30pm.
Video of the fight was sent to Apple Daily by one of the passengers, surnamed Chong. She said she got on the train at Wong Tai Sin station at about 3:20pm yesterday and saw five people — two Hongkongers and three mainlanders — arguing.
Police identified the Hongkongers as a man surnamed Yeung and a woman surnamed Chan, a couple, both aged 27. The mainlanders were a husband and wife surnamed Wang, 31 and 28, who were accompanied by the husband’s 54-year-old mother, surnamed Liu, and a young girl believed to be the couple’s daughter.
Chong told the newspaper that the fight broke out because the daughter had stepped on Chan’s foot, prompting the couple to demand an apology from the group.
Wang, the husband, can be seen in the video yelling at Chan and Yeung, while Yeung can be heard saying: “Your kid stepped on someone, and that’s not right. Stop yelling.”
Then, without warning, a fight breaks out in the middle of the carriage. As the fight rages, the young girl can be heard crying, while other passengers can be heard screaming and yelling at the group to stop fighting.
Police arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui station to break up the fight. Police confirmed to Coconuts HK that all five participants sustained injuries, either to their heads or hands, and that all five refused to be admitted to hospital.
The case is currently being handled by Yau Tsim district’s criminal investigation team.
Yesterday’s fracas joins a list of past episodes of MTR-related strife, including fights breaking out over a man coughing, a spare seat, and a melee on a crowded train that resulted in one man getting his thumb bitten off.
The fight was also just the latest to highlight long-standing friction between Hongkongers and mainlanders. While it remained unclear the extent to which Hong Kong-mainland animus played a part in yesterday’s confrontation, the tension certainly colored the online debate surrounding the incident, with netizens divided as to which side was in the wrong.
Some commenting on the Apple Daily story remarked that it was “typical mainland behavior,” pointing to the growing influx of mainlanders who come into Hong Kong either as tourists or so-called parallel traders — people who come to Hong Kong to stock up on goods like diapers and milk powder for resale back home.
“The Hong Kong government has no policy on how to resolve the differences between Chinese and Hong Kong culture, and the implementation of these white elephant projects has only intensified the differences between China and Hong Kong,” said one commenter, referring to controversial projects like the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau mega bridge and high-speed rail link that have been criticized as encroaching on Hong Kong’s territory and jurisdiction. “This incident is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Some, however, said that the Hong Kong couple should have just let the matter go, and that the trio being mainlanders had nothing to do with why the fight broke out.
“There’s nothing unique about this incident [someone stepping on someone else’s foot],” one noted. “There are so many Hongkongers who accidentally step on other people on the train, and not just that mainland kid. It’s so strange that the Hongkongers just simply can’t bear with it.”
