An unfortunate harassment incident over seat recline on a Cathay Pacific flight appears just as much as an issue of bias against Mainland Chinese passengers than a debate over seat recline.
Cathay Pacific Seat Recline Incident: Are Mainland Chinese Passengers Second Class?
Let’s first examine what happened:
- The incident occurred on:
- Tuesday, September 17, 2024
- Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong (HKG) to London (LHR)
- A woman reclined her seat
- The couple behind her objected, saying it obstructed their view of the seatback monitor
- She refused to return her seat to the upright position
- As a result, the couple retaliated by:
- placing their legs on her armrest
- slapping her wrist
- flicking her off
- shaking her seat
- scolding her (in Cantonese)
- When the couple realized the woman did not speak Cantonese, they began derisively calling her “mainland girl”
- The woman alerted a flight attendant
- But the flight attendant suggested she put her seat up
- “I was shocked because it was not meal time, yet the flight attendant wanted me to compromise, I rejected the suggestion.”
- The couple then began to kick her seat
- She requested to be moved, but a flight attendant rejected the request
- “Since we are fully booked today, we couldn’t find another seat for you.”
- She was also mocked by the woman behind her
- “The mainland will prevail. Mainlanders are the most powerful. Mainland girls can sell smiles.”
- But other passengers, including from Hong Kong, stood up for the Mainland passenger
- “When the first person spoke up, tears welled up in my eyes. I felt a deep sense of injustice, but also a relief that someone understood and spoke up for me, including a lot of Hong Kongers who helped me. I see this as an isolated incident and do not want it to affect the unity between the two places.”
- The Mainland passenger shared her experience (including video) on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu
Bad Behavior On Display…By Couple And By Flight Attendant
I am in the camp that believes, except during meal times, that you have an absolute right to recline your seat. This passenger had a right to recline her seat and the passengers behind her were totally out of line on so many levels.
Let me say this as well. I’ve seen the anti-Mainland bias shown by flight attendants on Cathay Pacific. Once I was on a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong and praised the meal, to which the flight attendant responded, “I’m surprised anything good came out of the Mainland.”
And that sticks with me not so much so because I was offended by it (though Mainland China has excellent food…Chinese food I can actually eat unlike the US “Chinese” food), but because it does represent a viewpoint, perhaps increasingly less prevalent, that Hong Kong was a jewel in East Asia and a stark juxtaposition to the oppressive regime of the People’s Republic.
We’ve seen civil liberties vanish in Hong Kong, accelerated by the pandemic, and a real sense that Hong Kong will never be the same again, and not in a good way either.
That cultural context aside, all passengers must be treated with dignity. Scolding a Mainland passenger seems to me more an example of cultural bias than a(n incorrect) belief that the woman could not recline her seat. The couple…which Cathay Pacific has now banned after the video above went viral…seem to have acted in a disgusting manner.
CONCLUSION
When you fly, you have a right to recline your seat except during meal times. When you fly, you have a right to be treated with dignity and not discriminated against based on national origin, either by your seatmates or flight attendants. This Mainland passenger appeared wronged…and I am glad that she has told her story and Cathay Pacific has finally responded by banning the troublesome couple. Don’t want a reclined seat? Buy a bulkhead seat.
Very well written, Matthew!
@ThomasT … +1 .
I’m in agreement with you that FA’s abusing passengers like they (the passengers) are ignorant pig farmers is wrong, even if the people are ignorant pig farmers. The Hong Kongers weren’t exactly covering themselves in glory either. For a people who traditionally prided themselves on sophistication and decorum compared to the mainlanders, this couple comes out looking pretty awful.
Scratch the surface of most Chinese , and you will find very little sophistication and decorum , unless they are acting- trying to ‘take you for a ride’ . You will find more sophistication and decorum among those of the upper class or intelligentsia with Western education .
Although it is important to consider that Hong Kong is over-populated and over-competitive . New York City is equally uncomfortable .
Another excellent reason to avoid economy these days ,
DO Wumao show up anymore, or is that a thing of the past. This seems like an article they’d be all over.
The thing that contines to strike me about the Hong Kong-Mainland dynamic is just how silly it is. Hong Kong NEVER was a democracy; under British rule it was a crown colony with an appointed governor and a local consultative assembly with no powers. It is a city attached to a country, China. It has enjoyed many privileges which are being eroded by a brutal one-party dictatorship that cannot abide dissent, discourse or dialogue; there is no surprise there. Hiong Kong, like Macao, is China. Hongkongers are abrupt, rude, energetic, hard-working and proud of their city… city; not City-State like Singapore, city, one of the many hundreds in China. The aggrieved passenger had every right to lower her seat back. But if her intent was to “… see this as an isolated incident and do not want it to affect the unity between the two places” then why did she feel the need to post it and make such a brouhaha. She wanted the attention and the notoriety. It was her intent to make this a cause-celebre.
As a Shanghaiese; we all know that Hong Kong-ers have a superiority-complex and we deal with this by adjusting our “expectations’ with anything concerning HK. The last things we want are Westerners like you, sitting 0n your ‘high-horse’, judging and taking offence on our behalf; this is even more offensive in itself!
When you’re in Hong Kong now, you can sense they’re in real trouble. People are now very helpful and polite to westerners. The usual general rudeness, arrogance and contempt is way less than it used to be.
I agree with Matthew this time
The Mainland Chinese are the worst. Their lack of social decorum and courtesy is always on full display whenever they travel abroad. Indians are a close second.
Why is reclining a seat even an issue? If you want more personal space, please pay for it!
As for this case, I saw in the article that the troublesome couple were banned from Cathay Pacific flights, but what about the flight attendant? Was she reprimanded in any matter. I’ve flown CX in the past, and this really in not an isolated incident. I get better service speaking in English vs. Mandarin Chinese, and my Cantonese is bad enough that they know I am not from Hong Kong, so I don’t even try.
Hongkongers feeling violated by and mistreating mainlanders? Hmm…I wonder what caused it? Let’s be honest- HKG is NOT China, regardless of how many paid mainland “influencers” say or think otherwise. Let HKG be HKG, free from #chinazi.