Turns out it’s not just young Hongkongers who were inspired by the Occupy Movement! A group of around eight middle-aged mainland Chinese women apparently staged a sit-in protest on a KMB bus on Monday after the driver told them they had too much luggage to stay.
A woman surnamed Lam posted photos of the incident on a Facebook group for Northern District residents at around 6:30pm on Monday. In the caption, she said, “Chee-na people occupying a 297X bus at Tsing Yi Station. They have too much luggage and the bus driver asked them to leave, but they insisted on staying.”
(FYI, Chee-na is the derogatory wartime slur that landed now-ousted lawmakers Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching in hot water with Beijing.)
Many commenters expressed their support for the bus driver, with one person pointing out that the vehicle had no racks to accommodate their luggage. Photos showed around 17 bags and cases piled on top of each other in the gangway and standing areas of the bus.
Photo: Pandora Lam via Facebook
According to Oriental Daily, the group refused to disembark the bus even after police officers were called to the scene. Some netizens commented that the driver should just give them what they want. “Close the doors, switch the lights and air-conditioning off, and leave them there,” one person said.
In fact, KMB’s passenger regulations (which are displayed on all of the company’s buses) state that each passenger is only allowed to carry parcel(s) of a total volume not exceeding 0.1 cubic metre and a total weight not exceeding 5 kilograms. The Public Bus Services Regulations Chapter 230A also says that, passengers who go against any bus services regulation could face a penalty of HKD2,000.
A KMB spokesperson later confirmed that the passengers were eventually escorted off the bus by police officers and taken away in three unidentified vehicles.
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