A scuffle broke out between mainland Chinese tourists who were visiting Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holidays on February 24. According to media reports, a queueing dispute erupted between two women who were waiting for the restroom in Taipei 101, Taiwan’s tallest skyscraper and one of the country’s tourist landmarks.

The women belonged to two different tourist groups, one from Yunnan and the other from Tianjin. The quarrel escalated and two men began yelling at each other. They came to blows and one of them was knocked down. When he got up he wanted to take revenge, he was stopped by some female members of his group. Security guards soon arrived at the scene to separate the men.

Afterwards, the police came and the two men, still cursing each other, said that they wanted to take legal action. But as soon as they heard that they had to go to the police station to write down a deposition, their tone suddenly changed and they began to smile and shook hands amicably. “We’re all compatriots [同胞], it’s nothing serious, nothing serious!” they said.

A video of the incident was posted on You Tube by an eyewitness, sparking the usual controversy about mainland Chinese tourists’ bad behaviour. Only a few months ago, Taipei had been the scene of another episode that had caused an uproar on the Internet, when a child urinated inside one of Taipei 101’s most famous restaurants.