Foreigner detained for slapping Chinese boy at Shanghai airport

[General Grievous]

Foreigner detained for slapping Chinese boy at Shanghai airport

Woman also fined 500 yuan for hitting child in luggage-claim altercation

PUBLISHED : Friday, 07 February, 2014, 3:21pm
UPDATED : Friday, 07 February, 2014, 3:21pm

Angela Meng [email protected]

A photo from Sina Weibo purportedly shows a reddish mark where the boy had been slapped. Photo: SCMP

A foreign woman was detained by police and fined 500 yuan (HK$636) on Friday for slapping a six-year-old boy on the cheek after a small run-in near the luggage carousel at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport.

The youngster was playing with a luggage cart near the conveyor belt when he – accidentally or intentionally – pushed the cart against the unidentified woman, who was waiting to pick up her belongings, according to local news website Xinmin.

The woman responded with a slap to his right cheek. But in an apparent attempt to defuse the situation, she tried to give him money.

A photo circulating on Weibo shows a companion and the woman who allegedly slapped the child. Photo: SCMP

According to the airport security’s microblog, the woman was fined and will be detained for 10 days for deliberate assault.

The aftermath was documented by a Weibo user, who posted a photo of the six-year-old with a pinkish mark on his face.

Another photo posted on the microblogging service showed two foreigners – a middle-aged woman wearing glasses, a scarf and her light brown hair tied in a bun, and a man wearing a black jacket and glasses – and captioned as “internet user captures [photo of] two foreigners who hit people”.

It was unclear how the two were related and if the woman was indeed the one who hit the boy.

Juxtaposed against the boy’s photo, however, Chinese users read the pair’s blank expressions of signs “indifference”.

However, netizens’ reactions were split. One user expressed sympathy for the woman, saying: “[It] happens all the time, ill-mannered little kids and their shameless parents. He deserved the slap.”

Other comments were sympathetic towards the boy and harsh towards the woman. “Go back to your country, foreign dog,” one user wrote. “If this were North America, she’d be in [prison] for life.”