A fight broke out on the Beijing Metro after a person jumped the queue before boarding, leading to a melee in which a foreigner – who tried to break up the dispute – took several punches.
At around 7pm last Wednesday, a fight broke out at Jintai Lu Station on Line 6 after a passenger prevented another passenger from getting on the train. As the doors shut, the offender got off the train to continue the argument that escalated into a full-on physical altercation. It got so bad that one of the men was seized by the throat as he lay on the ground, prompting an intervention by a foreigner.
Nobody made a report to police, who showed up fairly quickly after the fight began. The incident drew scorn and criticism from people online, who said the Chinese “lost face” as a result.
However, that’s not the end of the story. Yesterday, one of the men involved in the fight came forward to say that it was the expat who couldn’t get on the subway due to the line cutter, and that he was trying to “protect his rights”.
As reported in the Beijing News, a man named Li said the expat was standing in front of him waiting for the subway when he was prevented from getting on board the train because a person who didn’t wait in line jumped the queue. Li came forward to the expat’s defense, only to get embroiled in the fight.
The expat didn’t appear to take any sides in the fight if it meant escalating the violence. When Li was knocked to the ground, the expat asked for the other man to desist, saying in Chinese, “Let him go.”
Li said, “I was only trying to protect [the expat’s] rights.”
Li has since made a report to the police, and is asking the subway to release surveillance video that can exonerate him after having been thrashed in the court of public opinion.