It's been a while since I came across something worth blogging about, but we can all thank the psycho lady who was in the line to buy tickets on Sunday for The Peacock, a dance performance by Chinese dancer and choreographer Yang Liping.
The show was held over Easter weekend at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and completely sold out, but a limited number of tickets were being released every morning of each show (10am). I arrived at 9:05am on Sunday and there were already 25+ people ahead of me(!).
Anyway, the line was pretty civil until around 9:30am when I heard a woman shrieking, "Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up!!" in a Mandarin accent. In the next few minutes I also heard her shout a few English words like, "No respect, si-tu-pid, Im-a tee-cha!!" and even "Faak-u!!"
Turns out it was a middle-aged Chinese woman sitting on the floor in the queue, about the 10th person in line, and she was verbally assaulting an elderly Hong Kong Chinese granny who was a few people in front of her.
She was saying horrible things like, "You greedy bitch, why are you taking so many pamphlets, why don't you take 100?!!" and "You're such an old bitch, that's why your sons and daughters and grandsons don't even come to see the show with you, and that's why you're in this line alone!!"
Eventually the old granny left the queue to get some space, and the HK Cultural Centre staff went to apologise to her on the lady's behalf.
After that, things escalated as the woman started picking on other people, shouting things like, "I didn't see you in line at 7am, don't cut in line you asshole, I was here at 7am, not you! That stool was green before and now it's pink, I remember clearly! What are you, a magician?!!" and on and on it went.
One woman challenged her back and said she was just in line to buy one ticket for her mom, and the psycho lady screamed back, "Your mom is DEAD, if you manage to get a ticket your mom is DEAD, in fact, she's already DEAD!!" and that made things even worse (it's pretty much universal that when you mess with someone's mom, you've crossed the line).
Someone eventually challenged her to call the cops, and that's exactly what the psycho lady did, reporting to the police that there were people cutting the queue and she wanted them arrested. When the cops came 15 minutes later, the psycho lady stepped out of the queue to point out the queue-cutters, but it became quite obvious to them who was the real problem.
At first, the police officers were polite with the psycho lady, until they asked for her HKID and she realised that she was being targeted, not the others. She proceeded to scream at the cop, "You're never going to get a promotion, you useless cop!! Screw you, screw you, hope your entire family dies!!!"
At that point, the cops finally realised they needed to get her out of the box office area, as she was making everyone uncomfortable, so the guy cop yelled in her face, "I TOLD YOU TO GO OVER THERE!!" to which she just screamed back in a sobbing voice, "NO, NO, NO!!!" over and over.
So, there she was, screaming her crazy head off, surrounded by HK Cultural Centre "security" staff and two police officers, and NO ONE is laying a finger on her. The cop tells the security staff to grab her and pull her to the side, but they don't dare, and neither does the cop. Eventually, they gang up on her and sort of block her from the box office like a human wall.
When the box office opens at 10am, she rushes to the front of the line and attempts to buy tickets, and people in the line start shouting, "Line up, you bitch!" and "Eat shit, bitch!!" She doesn't respond and is again blocked off by the security people.
She screams and curses the whole time while the line moves, and when she sees the woman who was behind her in the queue get up to the box office, she freaks out and shouts, "I WAS BEFORE HER, I WAS BEFORE HER!!!! NO NO NO, IT'S MY TURN NOT HERS!!" So the frightened lady scurries back in line, and get this -- the cops and security actually let the psycho lady through to BUY TICKETS to the show!
She gives the lady behind her a thumbs up and then orders her tickets, and when she is told that the HK$480 tickets are all sold out, she turns around and says "FUK YOU, THEY DON'T HAVE ANY LEFT AT 480 NOW, FUK YOU!!" while giving the middle finger to the security guards.
Finally, she gets her tickets and leaves the box office counter, followed by her entourage of security personnel and police officers, and she goes towards the end of the queue, shouting, "I'm going to talk to BBC, CCTV, Mingpao, I want a lawyer! I want a doctor!! I'm going to tell everybody!!" And then, she GETS BACK IN LINE for a second round!! There, it all starts again as she starts screaming intermittently at anything and anyone, and the police officers have left the building.
Does anyone see a problem with this!? To be honest, I believe that this woman has a serious mental illness, so she shouldn't be held responsible for her horrible behaviour, but she does need to be controlled (read: thrown out of the building and not allowed to buy tickets to the show!) Given her level of psychosis, what if she made the same fuss at the actual performance?
The security personnel even said that she was there the day before, doing exactly the same thing, and no doubt she was there again on Monday morning to disturb the peace while getting another pair of tickets to the show again.
And what's with the no-touching policy when you're a security personnel? What's your purpose if you aren't maintaining the peace or protecting the general public from potential dangers (ie. her)?!
In the US, she'd have been given a warning and then physically thrown out if she didn't behave. In Canada, well, we would have asked nicely and probably escorted her out of the building while apolgising profusely. But Hong Kong? You've got to be kidding me!
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P.S. For those who are interested, Yang Liping is an amazing Chinese dancer known for the peacock dance. I've never seen anything like it, here she is doing the Moon dance:
P.P.S. I did get some video of the psycho lady, but after hours of failed editing, it's really not worth posting. If anyone has a good rec on an Android video editing app, please share!
P.P.P.S. Okay so I did eventually edit the video but it's all sorts of messed up (can't rotate video, for instance) but if you're interested, view it here!
