Eating and Drinking on Hong Kong Public Transport

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Discover Hong Kong - Pearl of the Orient

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Hong Kong Cultural Oddities That Make You Irritated

Eating and Drinking on Hong Kong Public Transport

I have lived in Hong Kong for over 50 years and as each day goes by I have to laugh at the absurdity of how society is slowly losing it’s humanity with the advent of social media, I call it death by a thousand cuts.

In Hong Kong not a day goes by where the media publishes “fluff pieces” about how people break petty laws and the gleeful reporting of prosecutions, fines and jail times for seemingly trivial offences and worse, every infraction is always recorded on a smart phone by an “upstanding and concerned citizen” and uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and such for public discussion and humiliation of the offender in the court of public opinion.

I can’t say I am surprised, Hong Kong has a very well developed “snitch” culture where the Government will pay money to residents snitching on people who “break the law”, a profitable way to get back at people you do not like.

In the past few years there has been a massive increase in online news sources reporting all manner of transgressions no matter how minor, there is no shortage of victims either who in a rush of blood simply forget that if something kicks off 50 people will instantly record it on their smartphones and upload it instantly to social media.

This is a typical news report in Dim Sum Daily who seem to report on every misdeed no matter how trivial, sometimes they can be amusing, other times, you just shake your head in disgust.

It is hard to keep up with the rules and regulations in Hong Kong, some transgressions have no severe punishment but many will result in a fine and | or a short prison term, in this instance I bet a lot of Hong Kong residents are not aware that you are forbidden to eat or drink on Public Transport, the fact of the matter is that this “rule” is broken, millions of times every day, if “drivers” ejected every passenger who was caught eating or drinking during a journey, public transport would grind to a halt.

This incident on a mini bus made me laugh, I ride one a couple of times on most days and there is always a rubbish bin next to the door full of candy wrappers, food wrappers and drink cartons! and the biggest irony is people have to tolerate :-

• passengers yelling into their phones for 10 minutes

• passengers watching videos with no earphones and the volume turned up

• and yes, picking their noses and clearing their throats…

• oh and the biggest irony, mini buses are limited to 80kph, they have an electronic sign that emits a very irritating beeping whistle if they exceed the limit and most of the time the drivers ignore it, despite it being an offence.

• … and yes, Mini Bus drivers often eat lunch and snacks on their vehicle.

It is a shame that society is evolving in this social media era and not in a good way

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Jamie, Your Passionate Hong Kong Expert & Storyteller

Discover Hong Kong - Pearl of the Orient

Learn about the unbiased, real Hong Kong | forget what you read in the press!

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