A China Southern Airlines check-in counter agent in Singapore has been suspended after calling a passenger “a dog.” The man was checking in for China Southern’s Singapore – Chongqing flight 546 on May 23rd and asked about an upcharge for exit row seats, but there was a communication challenge. He asked for a Mandarin-speaking agent, but was ignored.
The passenger began filming with his phone, and the employee took offense. According to the passenger, he “used three languages (to scold me), ‘you are a dog, you don’t understand human language’.” That’s not on the video, however the agent was filmed saying “If you want to be a dog, I can treat you like a dog… That’s easy.” The agent also said that the man doesn’t “even know how to be a human.”
China Southern, which is part-owned by American Airlines and Qatar Airways but also nearly two-thirds controlled by the Chinese state, has apologized and suspended the employee – though it appears they actually use a ground services contractor in Singapore and it’s likely their employee who was interacting with the passenger.
@8world.news 狮城地勤被指假装不懂华语辱骂乘客 南方航空致歉 #8视界新闻网 #8worldnews #中国南方航空 #chinasouthernairline #新加坡樟宜机场 #changiairportsingapore ♬ original sound – 8视界新闻网
About a week and a half ago, a mainland Chinese passenger asked a Cathay Pacific flight attendant for a blanket but called it a ‘carpet’ in English. The flight attendant responded that if the passenger couldn’t say ‘blanket’ correctly in English that they could not have one – and suggested they lie on the floor – which is where carpet is – instead. The crewmember has been fired and the airline has apologized.
Cathay Pacific yesterday apologized after a passenger exposed the airline discriminating non-English speakers. An online audio revealed chats of flight attendants making fun of some passengers: “If you cannot say blanket in English, you can not have it.” @cathaypacific pic.twitter.com/SU2tTVd9jk
— Yicai Global 第一财经 (@yicaichina) May 23, 2023
Chinese passengers and Chinese airlines are just now flying again, lagging behind much of the world, since mainland China remained under Covid lockdowns far longer than most of the world. While heralded by some (like successive CEOs of Marriott) for their authoritarian policies to contain Covid-19, they eventually suffered from massive virus spread as well – just later than other countries did. As a result they’re seeing some of the confrontations developing now with return to travel and clashes of cultures and expectations that were experienced elsewhere in 2021 and to a lesser extent in 2022.
And it comes at a time when mainland China is flexing its muscles. Hong Kongers mustn’t insult the mainland, and that pride and influence expands beyond the borders of territories claimed by Beijing.
Everyone knows that Singapore is part of China. It always has been.
It’s on the menu, right after Taiwan.
Is there any other group as widely despised as the Chinese? They are all over Africa too and the locals can’t stand them. Pick your African country.
I lived in China for 20 years. Truthfully, I’ve seen Chinese (passengers and staff) at the airports and on planes doing things that would make your head spin.
@pm – Oh do Tell! Pretty Please
“just now flying against” should be “just now flying again”, I think?
There is rising racism against Chinese because of blogs like Gary’s that continue to demonize China and the government here. That causes people to look down first on mainland Chinese and then on ethnically Chinese and Asians.
This blog needs to be held accountable for spreading Sinophobia
@sr
No racism just distrust of an evil government that has killed well over 100million of it citizens in less than 100 years. Unlike you in China we in the United States have the first amendment that protects speech. Even speech that is offensive
@SR
No one here has a problem with Chinese people, least of all Gary, just the horrible totalitarian government. Part of the CCP playbook is to equate that to racism. I can have a problem with the CCP without being racist. No one looks down on any ethnic Chinese by virtue of their race to say nothing of other people of Asian origin which you conveniently lumped all together.
A more accurate translation of what the agent had said should be “If you want to behave like a dog (due to his inability to queue and rudely interrupting the agent from serving another customer, also insisting that he be given privileges of not paying an upgrade) I will treat you like one”.
I read a biased report.
Dan77W, you are off base. The Communist Party of China (CPC; when you see “CCP” you know you are reading a tired faux-knowledgable rant of an incel teenager) is made up of Chinese people. It is not made up of white, black, Hispanic, Indian, or Middle Eastern people. Chinese people govern China, so if you have a problem with the Chinese government, you inherently have a problem with Chinese people. Most Chinese people are satisfied with their government. The scope and speed of economic development in the last few decades is unprecedented.
China is not like the USA. It is not a melting pot of many ethnicities. Almost everybody in China is of the same Han ethnicity. Your reference to the “ethnic Chinese” makes as much sense as “ethnic American.”
@Younblood
The ethnic Chinese diaspora, yes Han (but I didn’t expect anyone here to get that here) is hardly limited to mainland China, there are huge populations in Taiwan, the US, Thailand, Malaysia, which is what I was getting at…..but apparently you are implying any criticism of the Chinese Communist Party is inherently racist against all Han everywhere (So all Taiwanese are racist against themselves by extension)…. Got it, Wow, very totalitarian of you! Or perhaps you just misinterpreted what I said.
Youngblood- Tell us again how having issues with a government inherently makes us racist against their people and how Americans just wouldn’t understand!
What Youngblood might have said of Germany 90 yrs ago, same style of disgustingly condescending superior rhetoric:
The National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP; when you see “Nazi” you know you are reading a tired faux-knowledgable rant of an incel teenager) is made up of Aryan people. It is not made up of black, Hispanic, Indian, or Middle Eastern people. Aryan people govern Germany, so if you have a problem with the German government, you inherently have a problem with German people. Most German people are satisfied with their government. The scope and speed of economic development in the last few decades is unprecedented.
Germany is not like the USA. It is not a melting pot of many ethnicities. Almost everybody in Germany is of the same Aryan ethnicity. Your reference to the “ethnic German” makes as much sense as “ethnic American.”
Great. We have a live example of how CCP and its allies tries to conflate “having problem with very specific Chinese persons” to “being racist against everything Chinese.”
And I thought China had pride in its 56 ethnicities, but I guess it’s now “almost everybody in China is of the same Han ethnicity.”
This is a little bit of much ado about – almost – nothing. I’m not sure that this is the worst act of discrimination I’ve ever seen, but it is certainly true that there is resentment against PRC people in Singapore who think of them as bumpkins and that Singaporeans are more likely to be rude to them than people say from Hong Kong or even Mandarin speaking, but more western acting, Taiwan. In some ways this is just a clash of cultures but we shouldn’t ignore that anti-PRC sentiment has become a very real and widespread anti-liberal movement that has swept the world (certainly including the USA). Some pushback from PRC people is certainly in order, but they have their own nationalistic demagogues who use episodes like this as proof that the world is against them . . . and sometimes they’re right.
Nobody realizes that this agent WORKED for the Chinese Carrier China Southern, and this happened at the check in counter of China Southern?
The Chinese themselves are The Most Racist among all racist – people native in Beijing discriminate people coming in, same as in Shanghai. Native city dwellers discriminate farmers and transient workers coming in to do the low wage work that benefit the city dwellers. The most horrible discrimination is to the low wage earners in particular those who came to the city work in the delivery services… They discriminate people in the service sector – as in the “I pay for you to serve me, so you would need to fulfill all my demand, (like a slave to the master).”
Not only they use languages but very often they use violent forces as well. Slapped others who deem at lower class than you is common occurrence inside China.
The Chinese discriminate all people with color – from the Africans to the SE dark-colored skin locals.
I am writing above because despite I myself is ethnic Chinese, I disgust the above behavior. The Chinese live overseas, are being treated worse and worse every year by the Westerners who cannot distinguish the difference between the Mainland Chinese who often behave badly, from the Overseas Chinese who are civilized and inclined to hold the same value.
The Mainland Chinese never ask themselves, WHY they are disliked or even hated, basically through out the world?! You sow what you reap but Nope, they were brainwashed by their government that is all because racism…
Youngblood
Seems like You are the one a bit off base after hearing from miafll who describes himself as “ethnic Chinese” and laments being lumped in with mainland Chinese….precisely because of people like YOU! I’ll state again just because someone has issues with the behavior of YES the CCP (because that’s how we refer to it here commonly in the US, not just “incel teenagers” (who talks like that btw?), does not mean they are racist against ethnic Han people…..what a friggn logic leap.
@PP,
I was on an Air Asia flight, Bangkok to Macau. 1-I saw Chinese passengers, go to the galley and pick up the hot water pitcher and pour all the hot water into their thermos. Multiple times! 2-When the plane landed in Macau, all the Chinese passengers got up and opened the overhead baggage, grabbed their bags, and rushed to the front of the aircraft. This was seconds after touchdown. I was in the first row of the aircraft. These people were practically standing on me!
@miafll,
I totally agree with you. I have Chinese-American friends who explain how they face discrimination in the USA, and elsewhere, because of what China does! Whom also have explained how bad mainland Chinese discriminate against anyone is not like them.
@Youngblood,
Yes, I have severe problems with anything to do with the People’s Republic of China. The “party” and the people are one and the same to me. I visited the PRC in 1996. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip. But now, I would never go back because of the hatred of America/Americans exhibited by the PRC. The Chinese have always had the attitude that their country is the center of world. But now, I would rather do without items made in China and have the West detach ourselves from such a hateful regime!!!
Reading upwards, I think its easy to see why PRC Chinese are sensitive to perceived prejudice against them . . . because the perceived prejudice (and also plenty of ignorance) is often real.
Hating China or Chinese because of assumptions about the CCP (which are often overblown and based upon biased information) is sort of like hating the USA and everybody in it because of Trump (or Biden), or the ignorant trope that Singapore is an awful place and the Singaporeans drones because you can’t throw your used gum on the ground like one does in the USA and can see the remnants embedded on every sidewalk..
@Mak
To some degree I agree with what you’ve said in general. Because racism is real.
But most comments up thread specifically said it is about the Chinese government and not about the Chinese people. The other comments that did address the Chinese also isn’t “because of assumptions about the CCP” — you can see they are drawn from experiences interacting with Chinese people.