By Tom Bannister
The photo of a passenger peeing out of the window of a public bus in the Fujian city of Xiamen, has been much circulated by Chinese social media users. Unsurprisingly it provoked yet another round of soul-searching about the morality and civic consciousness of the Chinese people. There was much to compare and contrast the incident with, including a recent near like-for-like incident on the Hangzhou subway. The main difference, and best defence, of the Hangzhou accused, was that he was a baby. Many users understood the man’s plight but argued that he should have just wet himself. Many considered this a better option than losing face by being so uncivilised. One (arguably racist but probably not really) user @LR不要曬成黑人 (“I don’t want to tan myself into a black man”) said: ” I really didnt believe that such an uncivilised person could be in such a civilised city” whereas @604三丫头 asked: Is this a wild person who has just come down from the mountains? “. @安静的安静少爷 said：”Peeing on public buses is a real problem. You are not embarrassed by it but I will be embarrassed for you!”.手机用户2359166581 said:
Needing to go for a pee is quite understandable but it is not enough an excuse to be uncivilised. He should have just held it in and if he really had to go then he should have just pee’d inside his trousers – it’s surely better than losing face in front of so many people. An uncivilised disgusting act such as this can suddenly occur in a civilised harmonious society. His suzhi [quality] is too low, how humiliating.
. In contrast @天高云淡0029 empathised with the bus-pee man’s plight：
Totally understand! Once I was standing in a bus for nearly an hour…..when I got off I already started running before the bus doors had shut….my bladder hurt all night! I regretted not going for a wee on the road.
@ZT杨天栋 took a balanced approach：
At first glance the suzhi [quality] of this man appears to be very poor. However if you think about it carefully, are our public facilities reasonable? Do they satisfy our requirements? Anyway I think that in many places the public toilets are too few
It's stupid. If you need to go then you should just go. Out of a window or on the bus floor. Why would any civilised person wet themselves?
Am I missing something here, this is an adult not a child. Why has no-one suggested actually getting off the bus as an alternative?
Completely shameless. And by the looks of it, the poor guy has had years to work on letting go of his shame.
Not to stand up for his behaviour, which indeed was uncivilised and he should have thought of a less obvious solution, but…
I live in Xiamen and I know where that bus was caught – in some godawful roadworks near the city's largest shopping centre. The traffic there is some of the worst in the city in general, but with the works going on these weeks, buses get stuck there in that one spot for on average 30 to 45 minutes – at rush hour I've heard of it being almost an hour and a half once. The last two times I was heading up there on the same buses, I got stuck for about an hour each time.
He should have made some noise and gotten the driver to open the doors. But in general the drivers will ignore people asking to get off between stations unless everyone's pounding on the door.
This boy (14 years old I believe) is severely autistic, he didn't know what he was doing was wrong.
Is it so hard to get off the bus at an earlier stop… I mean really! It is uncivilized and unnecessary!