Seven drunken men smashed up the interior of a cake shop in Shenzhen’s Longhua New Zone with wooden clubs on April 30 because a birthday cake they had bought earlier in the day did not have enough paper plates with it. The men said they had lost face because they only had five plates when they needed ten, TVS reports.

Closed circuit television footage shows that shortly after midnight, seven men entered the store with clubs and smashed the cashier’s desk as well as raiding the fridges. The owner, Mr. Lin, estimates that 70,000 yuan worth of damage was done.

Lin immediately called the police who found that the perpetrators were stockbrokers whose company was based in Longhua. The company ordered the cake and the two men, Mr. Li and Mr Wu, who later led the posse that vandalized the shop, collected the cake on the afternoon of April 29.

When the drunken posse arrived at the shop, Lin offered to give them more plates, but they said it was too late as the birthday boy had already gone home. He then offered to pay compensation of 300 yuan but they refused that, insisting that the only way he could make it up to them was to take them out for supper, buy them drinks, apologize, and pay them 20,000 RMB.

When he refused, they smashed up the shop.

Lin called the police immediately. Shortly after police began their search, Li and Wu, both from Hunan, turned themselves in.

Now Lin’s struggle to get compensation begins.

The sociological concept of “face” is one of the most mysterious aspects of Chinese culture. But I think we can conclude that it’s unwise to cause embarrassment to drunken stockbrokers.