Slice of Life: Butt of the joke
Posted:
19 Jul 2011
It’s a queer place, Hong Kong. A kaleidoscopic petri dish where people come and go at lightning speeds and a million different things happen in a nanosecond. Bad behaviour breeds quickly in such chaos.
If you’re spending too long on level 14 of Angry Birds then you would have missed the bandits snatching the golden bar; the business bosses stoning their gaunt slaves to death with 28 one dollar coins; the mad rush for more, more, more. Sad city dwellers would have murdered bartenders as they spit swords and bullets across the bar after a hard day’s slog. Even those who have seen these happenings often feel powerless in the face of such injustice. They simply close their eyes and pray a revolution will one day come, making the world look civil and liveable again.
I say all this because, last week, a man on the MTR felt like he owned my ass. Hand on the cheek and a cheeky little pinch. I turned and looked at the bespectacled culprit, thinking how pathetically miserable it must be for a respectable-looking guy to become so desperate and shameless. I pursed my lips, threw him a hard look, and moved my backside out of reach.
I have no idea why he judged my blatant disgust as a sign of further encouragement, but he carried on with his conquest. There it was, the same hand conveniently finding my derrière again. In a fit of annoyance, and with the MTR’s ‘Don’t Be Silent’ sexual harassment poster flashing before my very eyes, I felt a surge of rage rush through my veins. In an instant I raised my hand and went for his face. He recoiled like a fired rifle, his right cheek flush with crimson. As the Tannoy announced “Please stand back from the doors”, I shoved him and he fell backwards, through the open carriage doors, and onto the Admiralty platform.
I’ll admit it now: I was pleased with how I reacted. I had stood up for myself and the many, many victims before me.
At this point, I expected the other women to swing their bags at this pathetic little scumbag. I expected men to grip his collar and shout in his face. But nothing happened. To my horror, passengers simply filed out of the carriage like chickens on a conveyor belt. MTR had told me ‘Don’t Be Silent’ and I had obliged. But I guess I just dropped a stone in a lake that makes no ripples.
As the rat scurried away, I stood on the empty platform all alone, listening to the din of the departing train. Then silence... and an epiphany: How can us Hongkongers be so unmoved by what’s happening around us? Why can’t we teach these scumbags a lesson? Was it really a case of ‘it’s none of my business’? Do they really think ‘it’s just what happens’? Really? In 2011? Just as it happened in 1811? And if so, won’t the same happen to their daughters and granddaughters?
Every day we witness social and political injustice. The same shit happening over and over again. We thunder and fume over drinks with friends about righting the wrongs of the world, but that’s where the grand plans stop – in the ether of good conversation. Well, let me say this: The ‘Don’t Be Silent’ poster is a joke because what it’s really saying is “Let’s leave the woman to fend for herself.” These campaigners need to get their heads fixed right: don’t tell women how to react, tell perverts not to grope.
Getting your ass pinched on the train might seem like a small melodrama, but as with all social issues, what starts off as benign soon becomes malignant. So what can we do? Either we fight back and defend our rights; or we slip into a warm bath, put our head underwater, and pretend that Rome isn’t burning around us.
Kawai Wong
Kawai Wong
4 Comments Add your comment
Kawai, you are so right, we really have to do something about this!! i was recently the victim of an MTR perv too! I squeezed myself into a crowded cabin, and for a while, thought that the heavy pressure on my back/butt was due to several people stacked behind me. But when i turned my head around, i only saw one single man pressed against my @$$, yet there was plenty of room behind him and the cabin doors! He was obviously trying to get a hard-on!!!!!! I immediately turned around so that my side, and not my butt, was towards him, but he didn't even budge!! Fortunately, a bit later, it was my stop (and his too), and that was the end of it. But ewww i felt SO VIOLATED!!!!
Hold on to his "bar" for handle the next time? And you know you have to hold on *tightly*. I don't know what to say really, except women really are the butts of the joke, aren't we?
Well played Kawai!! Despicable scum, the lot of them. That you actually stood up for yourself is commendable, but your fellow humans', scratch that, "passengers'" reaction, or lack thereof is deplorable. To paraphrase the great Alan Partridge, "sub-human scum," the lot of them.
Even though this happened in July, I just read about it. Sorry that some perv grabbed your ass and bravo on shoving him into the ground--hope he got stomped on by passengers in the process. Do you suppose that the lack of reaction by the others was not so much apathy but that bystanders weren't aware of what was happening until they saw the man get shoved onto the platform? You probably know HK better, as I'm relatively new here, but people rarely try physical violence as first resort, especially when helping out a stranger. What I've found worked very well in my many years dealing with New York MTA pervs is the minute the groping happens, I warn them loudly to "keep your hands to yourself, buddy." The perv gets a bad stare-down and more often than not, he will get off at the next stop or change cars. I agree that it's unfair to ask women to change their behavior rather than target the gropers, but it's because pervs get their jollies from the fact that many women are so reluctant to make a scene that they suffer in silence and hope just he goes away.
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