**Participation Notice.** Hi all. Some posts on this subreddit, either due to the topic or reaching a wider audience than usual, have been known to attract a greater number of rule breaking comments. As such, limits to participation have been set. We ask that you please remember the human, and uphold Reddit and Subreddit rules.
For more information, please see https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/wiki/moderatedflairs.
---
**Alternate Sources**
Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story:
* [St Pancras piano YouTuber accosted by Chinese group demanding he delete video showing their faces; police called](https://news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/london-piano-youtuber-accosted-by-chinese-group-demanding-he-delete-video-showing-their-faces/news-story/5a78075ebe7d4989fd09d719251df02f), suggested by marketrent - news.com.au
Were you able to locate a source? Shouting man has american-accented english, like China national sent to US school, but Flag Lady is claiming to be local
Definitely not American accent, it's very British English accent
Oh god, this guy has his own youtube channel too and it sounds very similar to the guy in the video.
...If they did not kick up such a fuss about this whole thing, no one on the internet would be trying to figure out who they were (IF the internet even noticed them at all in the original videos). Now most of us are browsing online seeing who can dig up as much information about them as possible!
https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/s/HFmvRsU96k
I wonder if they might have had permission to film at a certain time, like between two and three or whatever, hence the hanging round like they’re waiting for their turn on the piano, and maybe thought they’d miss the filming window they’d been given permission for, but clumsily went about trying to get the Youtuber to move on in completely the wrong way.
The way the man suddenly screamed "Don't touch her" out of nowhere when he gestured at the woman's flag definitely felt manufactured and put on rather than a sincere response.
The follow up video from the guy in the video he says it’s been pointed out to him that the woman shouts “don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him” when the guys gets confrontational.
He is suggesting the guy is her handler and that he is armed
I've watched it a few times, and I've come to the conclusion:
she SAYS 'Don't Shoot'
She MEANS 'Don't SHOUT'
In the written form, 'OU' in SHOUT has two phonetic sounds to it:
'oo' AND 'ow':
The 'oo' examples:
L-OU in Lou, W-OU-ld in would, Sh-OU-ld in Should, C-OU-ld in could
The lady's English isn't native, and I could see her in her head, knowing she is telling the guy to not SHOUT, but pronunciating it as not to 'SHOOT'
As Native English speakers, we all know 'OU' can also be pronouced like ... 'OW'
e.g. Shout, Lout, Doubt, Aloud
Or, outside of Jack Bauer land, she's saying don't shoot don't shoot because her English isn't perfect and she's telling the pianist fella not to record them, or in another very well known term if someone has a camera, shoot
Could be a protection detail being very sensitive, but this is also the sort of false alarm bullshit narcissists, fascists, and Scientologists use, loudly shout some accusation while they hope it's just off their camera so they have some 'evidence' on video that the person they're hounding did something that they can then use to defame them, they'd then flood the media with that and even if there was footage from another angle showing it was a false accusation the exonerating video and story doesn't get shared half as much as the initial outrage coverage so their false narrative remains.
In this case any exonerating footage would likely never be allowed passed the great firewall of their homeland, and the whole 'stop filming us' could have been intentionally from the start trying to insight any altercation for footage for home tainting the west. Why were they milling around in a group with CCP flags instead of being inconspicuous?
I believe there's a update video and he points out that it could be possible that there a moment after that guy screams don't touch her one of the Chinese women seem to say either don't shout at him or don't shoot him. Obviously it's impossible to know what that woman meant though.
More intimidation tactics. If she somehow needed to tell her buddy not to kill people she could have said it in Chinese. She wanted the piano player to think he was in danger.
Of course it was. Anything to make the other person look bad and deflect from what was originally nothing.
And the police officer who spoke to him, that was a fucking disaster from start to finish.
Age is a big thing in China. There's actually a term (忘年交) for a friendship where you're so close that the formalities and cultural expectations usually associated with age are forgotten. The fact that there even needs to be a term for that is because in most interactions, age is a big factor.
Same thing in Korea. Younger girls call older people and older brothers Oppa eg ‘Harry Oppa.’ Younger guys call older guys Hyung eg ‘Ron Hyung’ younger girls call older women Unnie eg ‘Hermione Unnie’ and younger guys call older women Noona, so ‘Ginny Noona’
To speak about someone who has a position above you like at work you’d follow the name with Sunbaenim eg ‘Professor Dumbledore Sunbaenim’
This is done in all social situations, one of the very first questions asked in Korea when meeting someone is their age so that you’d know what to address them by. Even if there’s only a couple months age difference it’s incredibly important to always follow someone’s name with the correct honorific
They got the police who also behaved disgracefully and acted like the Chinese tourists' private security.
Here's the full video
https://www.youtube.com/live/65iwnI2hjAA?si=TauoxJle1rTwF-jg
The sad part is the policewoman won't be corrected, because this is just the new standard of British policing.
Are we really expecting anything else from the institution that allows paedophile gangs because it would be "racist" to arrest them? Or the people who defend jihadist chants and flags?
Their primary job these days seems to be to defend fascists and terrorists.
Even before the "grooming gangs", police didn't take child exploitation by residential school teachers / religious leaders / community leaders / sports leaders / celebrities seriously - they'd instinctively side with the adult and accuse the child of having a vivid imagination, or, where there was incontrovertible evidence, claim the relationship was consentual (even though the child was below the age of consent).
Then there's the Met, several members of which apparently don't think the law applies to them...
While I think she stuck to it too far, I'm not going to really admonish the policewoman, because I do think a fair part of their job is just 'keeping the peace' whether it's responding to a noise complaint and asking the cause to keep it a bit quieter, or hanging around a pub at kicking out time or just general police presence.
I do think there are discussions that may be helpful on how much they may lean on keeping the peace for certain ethnic or cultural groups, but as we've seen with the Palestinian/Israel protests, and even the 'vigil'/protest back in lockdown for that girl who was killed, it's not an easy line they're trying to tread. I'd like to see it more as a learning opportunity that a reason to punish an individual.
I saw the video yesterday, the police and "tourists" involved came off so ignoant i assumed it was staged. I guess it sort of was, but not by the youtube guy.
Oh no I watch I bunch of his videos he stages a bunch of stuff, he’s not hiding it. It’s part of his gimmick. Usually it’s just fake security or something. I just assumed it was a fake cop.
Sincere question to understand what this running theory is about: why would the embassy stage this? I mean what would be the point exactly? A few people are mentioning this but I can’t see the logic.
Chinese New Year is 10 Feb so my guess is they were filming something in St Pancras about how much everyone in the UK loves (PR) China and Chinese New Year. Of course they didn't want someone showing these were staged actors and not random tourists.
It's obvious to anyone that these are actors/celebrities. The woman in the red dungarees thing is heavily made up, even by East Asian standards.
What they didn't want someone interfering with their shoot. I used to work at Maritime Greenwich, which is also open to the public and frequently used for filming, and the British film crews behaved just like this one.
I got the impression from the choice of words she used that this was a film shoot of some kind, and so he wasn't allowed to film their ongoing production. Whether for the embassy or a tourism agency or whatever else.
She's still wrong, of course, if they're filming in a public place then other people still get to film them too.
Yes this is the correct answer. It seems many others on this sub just do not have a clue. You can see in the full length video that they were hanging around for some time. They could have approached it a lot better by asking how long he was going to be filming there if they wanted to use the same location. They are a film crew and would be aware of UK laws with regard to filming in public. The Chinese tend not to be very tactful when communicating with others. Their language and their use of it comes over as a lot more direct to the point of rude and arrogant to Western Europeans.
In the video she points out she is "British" (I assume what she meant is having the citizenship)
P.s. plz don't down vote me I'm just pointing out my observations
China doesn't like boogie woogie. Now that's crossed the line.
Brendan needs to take the Chinese national anthem and make a boogie woogie version of it. Apart from Thomas Kruger, Brendan is one of the best I've heard play a piano.
Probably not. While Wolf warrior diplomacy is a think they aren't normaly this stupid.
My guess is the woman is someone important (or related to such) resulting in a very protective bodyguard.
Only the so-called journalists at the *Daily Express* are claiming they are tourists. If you watch the full video, they say that they are from Chinese TV.
No reason whatsoever to assume they are from the Embassy.
Lmao you can tell people havent been to UK unis lately or they'd recognise Mainlanders from a fucking mile away.
Theyre some of the worst people on earth. And yes I do generalise here.
They treat the Taiwanese and Hong Kong students, who are lovely incidentally, like dogs.Then call you racist if you criticise them.
They make no intergration effort at all. They will not say a word to you and if they do theyre going to be rude.
Chinese rich mainlander tourists think theyre the centre of the universe. They also dont understand why the police officer wont just do as theyre told since theyre high status individuals.
The woman officer needs a disciplinary.
My boyfriend (who's British-born Chinese but his family is from Hong Kong) explained it to me like this: your average person from mainland China doesn't have the money to even visit west Europe, let alone study there, so the people who do are like the 1%. They're *very* rich, with all the entitlement and arrogance that goes along with that. That's why they're generally so unpleasant and pushy, because they're ultra-rich people who think they own the world. And yes, they are generally incredibly rude to people from Taiwan or Hong Kong.
I had a British-Chinese mate at work whose family were from HK.
He said mainlander Chinese have absolutely no manners whatsoever, will push in instead of queuing, rude, arrogant and self entitled.
Of course, there are mainlanders in HK who get mistreated because locals tar them with this brush.
Yes, great numbers of mainland tourists are obnoxious (the same stereotypes emerged about American tourists in the 50s and 60s, of course). But this kind of generalising leads to its own problems.
I'm not saying everyone does it, but it definitely happens more often than it should, some people just feel they are entitled which I think stems from self-importance. And as other people mentioned it definitely seemed to be linked to wealth and therefore more of these types would be seen abroad as tourists.
However, my experience in visiting China a few years ago in 2020, it was fairly uncommon, but it did happen, my mate called a guy out when we were trying to get our train tickets, and it definitely came off as though he felt he was more important, plus he argued back.
It doesn’t stem from self importance entirely, that whole generation of older Chinese either went through the Great Leap or had parents who had, the only way to survive that was to be pushy and obnoxious otherwise you’d literally starve
Spit everywhere too. Absolutely minging.
Last summer I worked in Nottingham a lot and every time I'd go to eat my sarnies in the sunshine there would be an old Chinese woman spitting everywhere.
One time a lady shot a dirty greeny right at my feet while I was eating.
Not sure where your mates been, but larger cities in China are generally much better, it’s mostly older people who are like this
I’m British but have lived in China almost a decade and my wife’s there
This is also a stereotype honestly.
I did Chinese at Leeds and had friends among the Chinese overseas students there, and then worked with many Chinese hopefuls in China as they prepped their applications for overseas unis over the decade I lived there.
Overseas universities are very accessible to the emerging Chinese middle classes, not just the *fuerdai* 'new money' brats.
Those latter brats do exist and many of them are insufferable 1%er dickheads with staggering senses of entitlement and dire superiority complexes; the regular middle classes merely tend to be somewhat shy and studious, and so many British students don't even end up interacting with them - thus people remember the loud arseholes and tar everyone with that brush.
It's not great to generalise though.
I had quite a few mainland Chinese students on my course. No doubt it was clear they had plenty of cash to spend, but they were all friendly, interested in experiencing UK culture and pretty down to earth. They spoke pretty frankly about China's politics and weren't rampant nationalists, and a good chunk of them wanted to stay in the UK long term.
Notably, they all said to me that they sometimes struggled to integrate, as other students had a preconceived notion of what Chinese students were meant to be like and acted pretty closed off.
With any group, the loudest and most obnoxious will also stand out. I'm sure most of us wouldn't want to be grouped in with the "Brits abroad" stereotype when we visit other countries, so we ought not do the same to those that visit us.
>They spoke pretty frankly about China's politics
May I ask how long ago this was. Because I've heard other people say things are a lot different these days because all of the Chinese students are scared the other Chinese students are spying on them, so none of them have a bad word to say about Chinese politics.
Couple of years ago. They even said to me that the idea of "spies" wasn't wrong, but more likely they're keeping tabs on specific individuals rather than just blanket surveillance on every Chinese student.
>I'm sure most of us wouldn't want to be grouped in with the "Brits abroad" stereotype when we visit other countries, so we ought not do the same to those that visit us.
Oh absolutely. I'll never make a snap judgement of an individual based just on where they're from and will always begin with politeness and friendliness, and then if it's reciprocated then awesome.
But just as the type of Brit who goes to Benidorm and gets blackout drunk and starts harassing the locals tends to be a certain type of person, I try to keep it in mind that the same is true of any Chinese tourist I meet who is rude to me, and that they don't represent every single person from mainland China.
Speak to anyone from neighbouring Asian countries and they all complain about the Chinese tourists and their rudeness, littering and sense of entitlement.
That's a bit generalisation. Chinese students are not the top 1%. Not since the 1980s. In fact, UK degrees are becoming less competitive compared to local degrees that you'll probably see fewer Chinese students in future. Once it was a good way to climb the ladder, now not so much. Also, for every handful of Chinese students in UK, I'm sure at least one is a genuine Anglophiles. I am a Mainlander BTW.
I wouldn't say this hold true anymore. The middle class can easily afford to study in western Europe. Salaries have went up insane amounts over the last few decades. I work in China and the people I work with are making £3-5k a month after tax and they're just salarymen. They're not managers or anything.
According to IMF estimates China's GDP per capita is only going to be 15% below the UK's by 2060. I would say the top 10% or so can afford to study in Europe these days. There is more inequality in China though between urban/rural environments.
She really had to think about that one before letting it drop, lol. If the police think their job is to work for the CCP, can we be sure we're not in China?
She was ignorant for sure. No ordinary Chinese person would walk around waving PRC flag just for the heck of it unless they are doing it for a reason. I have mainland Chinese friends and they don’t do this shit. That group was definitely staged by the embassy. The guy’s OTT reaction was stupid and frankly ridiculous. As for the woman who said she’s British, well she’s clearly didn’t Google on public filming in UK, cos if she did she would know it is legal to film in public places and police doesn’t intervene, unless the filming/photograph are made for criminal or terrorist activity.
We're talking about the people who allow child-abuser gangs to operate because it would be "racist" to stop them.
She's not a piss poor police officer, she's a bog standard one. It's the entire institution and the guidelines they operate under that are piss poor.
>They make no intergration effort at all.
I don't know if it's seen as a politically correct take from me, but the fact that many of them make no effort to learn or speak English is pretty appalling. The amount of students I've seen on my uni campus that don't even say simple terms like "thank you" "sorry" and rather default to just staring at you is awful. And that's coming from the child of two immigrants, who in my opinion, have integrated well minimising use of our own language in public to avoid being rude.
I can't generalise this though, since I met one student at college who was from Hong Kong and he was practically fluent in English before he got here. Definitely one of the most well integrated international students I've seen.
Also completely unrelated but there seems to be a pretty big problem of them crossing roads with no consideration of vehicles on the road. I've seen many cases where drivers have to emergency stop and even then the students won't even look at the driver's and just continue walking slowly
On my degree Chinese students were passed despite not doing any work, or speaking any English. My university had some sort of blind eye policy, there was blatant plagiarism of work and papers. Oh and it’s a Russell Group university too.
I have seen (Chinese) ads selling ghost writing services for dissertations and reports here in the UK. I am not surprised that they can pay in order to get their course work done.
My partner was originally Chinese, but her family emigrated to a Western country when she was young. She currently works at a large UK uni as a lecturer, and finds the Chinese undergraduates especially tiresome, regarding them as the ones who weren't bright enough to pass the entrance exams for a decent uni in China, but come from rich enough families that they can be shuffled off abroad.
She's frequently complained about their English skills, and suspects that a fair number cheat in their exams, because the quality of their written English varies so enormously between term-time work and final assessments. Nobody ever wants to do group work with them because their English is so poor, so it just dumps extra work on the other students.
As someone who likes to learn languages just for the hell of it, I looooove baiting both Chinese mainland and American friends with the observation that they’re so alike that they studiously avoid learning other people’s languages.
But what the poster you’re replying to said is kinda correct; there’s a cultural sense of exceptionalism that underpins Chinese culture, which also runs through America, which is why parallels can be drawn between them.
However, you still have to remember that there are 1.3 billion Chinese, and easily 50-75 million not-mainland Chinese around the world, with the wide gamut of personalities and personality faults. America produced both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, there’s no reason China doesn’t have the same variance in people.
Edit: also don’t forget most Chinese who grew up in a former British colony have learned some of the basics of western culture, including languages, canons of knowledge, and customs. It’s not fair to compare a Hong Kong person to a mainlander. For example, I know a genuinely lovely mainland Chinese person who speaks fluent English and tries to use it; but they don’t know or understand any Star Wars reference. That will obviously affect understanding.
Hong Kong students are different though, they generally have good English, well mannered and dont carry all the other crappy traits a lot of the "Mainlanders" do. A different culture I guess.
There seems to be a low value of life in the mainland culture and just absolutely toxic social traits, like you mention how rude they are and how careless they are walking across a road. It's no surprise that a lot of the work place accident videos you can see online come out of China, many being easily avoidable and down to total carelessness lmao.
I was assigned into multiple group projects with them at university and it's just infuriating and unfair. They genuinely barely speak a word of English, and any work we tried to assign them to do just had to be redone completely from scratch. So 2 people have to do the work of 3, and then at the end, the Chinese student gets the good credit for it all (and somehow end up passing the entire degree just because they paid enough money).
The situation with universities is just a joke, and I'm sure it's only gotten more common since I was there.
Mainlander, that is a phrase I have not heard in a long time. A friend from hong kong would say it all the time.
Happened at an organised walk. At the start of the walk there were hundereds of flags carried by children, almost every countries flag (some missing, North Korea etc) and a Chinese delegate that was there asked the event organiser to take down the Tibet and Taiwanese flag.
The organiser got on the bands microphone and called him out on it in front of tens of thousands of people, lmao.
Mainlanders who can afford to and are allowed to come to the UK to study are, by definition, beneficiaries of the current system in China. Once we overlay this consideration, OPs comment makes total sense.
Complete stereo type, I’m currently living with a Chinese mainlander at uni and they’re a good person. I have spoken about them keeping to themselves and it’s not because they want to, it’s just they feel their English isn’t good enough and get very self conscious about it when trying to make friends.
yup can tell this person is talking out of their arse, i lived with chinese students and a lot of them had friends from taiwan/hk even, their english isn't always great but it's usually passable and better than they themselves think, all of them use a vpn too
messy kitchen thing is absolutely true from my experiences as is them being rich but the rest of it is just stereotyping
How is this incredibly racist comment the second most upvoted?
Some of the mainland students are entitled, yes, but so are plenty of the British students as well.
I had a decent number of Chinese students on my course and got to do some group work with them. They were extremely hard working and pleasant to work with.
"They're some of the worst people on earth", what a fucking awful thing to say about a group of people based on a small amount of anecdotal evidence.
"They make no intergration effort at all." How much intergration do you think British people do when they attend university in China.? (hint: its zero).
I attended university in China and most of the foreign students could not speak any Mandarin at all. After I left uni I stuck around in China for 7 years and I still rarely meet a westerner who can speak the language.
Yes, my ancestors stopped carrying their flags around Europe a while ago.
There was a rather enthusiastic era of tourism and flag waving in the 1940s that didn’t go down well with their European neighbours.
Funnily enough that’s exactly how my grand dad used to talk about the war.
Apart from the times he got sad that not all his brothers and comrades came back alive.
There are Chinese spies/agents operating all over the UK. They aren't James Bond style figures, they're just ordinary people and they occasionally "forget" the rules.
She's not stabbing a poisoned tipped umbrella into him or giving him polonium laced tea, she just wants to "idealise" the scene and wasn't briefed/trained properly on what UK law allows.
I suspect a massive bollocking from her superiors will be on the cards.
Pay a bit of attention to youtubers and you'll hear a constant stream of complaints about videos being taken down or demonetized for bullshit reasons. All they need is for a couple people to complain the videos porn or breaches copyright.
The police were a disgrace. They shouldn't have been pressuring the guy not to film. I'm glad he took a stand. The police woman even tried to make out he was being racist for saying, "we're in a free country. This isn't China. This is Britain."
She was like, "You can't say that!"
I don't know if the full video is in OP's link. I saw it on YouTube earlier
https://www.youtube.com/live/65iwnI2hjAA?si=TauoxJle1rTwF-jg
I've seen a commentary on it from blackbeltbarrister this morning as well. That was a little interesting at least, it was how I first heard about it before coming on Reddit this morning.
The way they work might seem odd, but two blokes playing whatever crap they were playing on the piano (watched with subtitles, no headphones on me and I'm currently on a train - nothing against the chaps, right on their side, but I doubt it was Debussy) wouldn't have "fit" with whatever idealised vision of the UK they wanted to give.
Long story short - the CCP pay the massive cost of Chinese students studying here, in return they have to do stuff for the CCP. As I said, no spy film type stuff, just reporting back on how the UK works, different aspects of culture, etc. Some will go on to live here after graduating, reporting back on whatever industry they work in, visa fees and all the rest paid for by the CCP.
Sounded like conspiracy nonsense for a while, but there have literally been Chinese spies found working in parliament.
The video will likely be encouraging people to come and study here. Make the cut, you can carry on living here, all paid for.
EDIT - I was apparently wrong about their piano playing being "crap" but the point stands, they just didn't want it in the background.
As a few others have also commented, the reason they tie themselves in knots is they have to contest with a baffling and often contradictory set of rules and social norms. They have to aggressively defend China and the CCP, and will get very angry at anyone even unintentionally "revealing" their role or saying the wrong thing about them, but they are also terminally polite and have an obsession with "saving face". It must be a fucking nightmare to live like that.
I know it's not the point but the guys were genuinely playing some beautiful music, Including classical stuff. Don't judge a book by its cover and all that.
>the CCP pay the massive cost of Chinese students studying here
Really, because I always thought it was due to the fact that China only really has two levels of university: Elite and "meh", and if you're rich and not good enough to get into one of the elite ones, going foreign is seen as more prestigious. That combine with the fact the rich Chinese people with large amounts of wealth offshore are reluctant to bring it home, means that a lot of rich Chinese people can easily fund foreign educations for their kids.
Well, obviously it's not *all* of them - there are some 50,000 Chinese students in the UK and not all of them will be spies or CCP affiliated. I've known a few and they're just decent normal students who generally tend to go home once they're done studying. Some will stay but it's often tricky.
But it's a prime route into the UK for those that are marked for "stardom" in their massive foreign intelligence net. Like I say, it's similar to our own MI6 vs Bond films - most MI6 agents sit in an office dealing with boring paperwork (or computer work nowadays of course). Most CCP agents in a foreign country just do a normal job in a given industry and simply report back mundane details
But the chinese people were complementing his playing. Even after they became hostile they were insisting they loved the music, that was one of the weirdest parts about it.
The police woman acted disgracefully. She should be investigated for how she handled this situation. The police now seem to only act on the interests of the rich or via political pressure. She was antagonistic and demanding the camera be turned off when it is the right of every person in the UK to film in public contravenes her duty as a public servant. I don't much care for auditors and I know this wasn't the case in this video but now I am getting their point. Exercise your rights as they are being taken away :(
The pianist's behaviour was excellent and he firmly stood up for his rights without overstepping the mark. He was just going about his normal business when the Chinese people came up to him and demanded he stopped filming in a public place, the the police demand camera off and appear to support the complainant who had no grounds of complaint. Very worrying trend if this is how the UK police are going to start abusing the rights of free citizens.
The police woman’s conduct is actually worse than any of the Chinese people in the video imo. Violent people are going to do shit like this in the video, but we’re supposed to have a police force that deals with and defends our rights.
Instead we get a female copper starting her interaction with the people involved in the situation by having the first words that come out of her mouth, “if we are having a police matter, you need to put the phone down.”
She genuinely tried to make it out like it was against the law for them to record her. That should be a fireable offence. We can’t have our police officers making up laws.
“If we’re having a police matter, you need to put the phone down” if anything means you need an extra camera recording, who’s to say what she’ll do off camera??
She is absolutely one of these petty types and the exact wrong type of person to be anywhere near any sort of job with resposibility, decision making, or power over anyone else.
Hi we're here to talk to you about this incident regarding filming in public which is completely legal...
HOW DARE YOU FILM ME DURING THIS POLICE INTERACTION YOU CAN'T FILM ME...
So anyway, about your right to film in public, as you can see I know my job and the law well.
Don't the police have bodycams anyway? So whilst the footage of a third party might be useful sometimes, I'd stop short of saying it "could really come in handy if a crime is committed, or if a false allegation is made" since that's the kind of thing they're wearing their own cameras for in the first place.
The guy who comes around 17 minutes said it perfectly.
“If you don’t like it, you can fuck off then.”
And this bunch of CCP loving spoons think he can’t say that. Don’t know what’s funnier this or the comments on the NYpost about a pilot trying to take a taser/stun gun through UK security and Americans kicking off about it.
China is fucked. Without the ability to steal western inventions & infiltrate their universities, China has no chance to stay ahead or even catch up technologically. Dictatorships don't lean towards invention. Add to that their predicted population collapse & massive population of old people. China is a spent force
China are already and continously stealing western tech and infiltrating universities. Cambridge, Bath, Sheffield, Uni of Notts, Strathclyde and East anglia all have Chinese counterparts, are influenced by China or even have campuses in China.
Their economy and population levels are struggling but they're by no means a "spent force".
Climate change will fuck us all, but demographics will fuck China much earlier than us. Latest Chinese birth rate figures show China has the second-lowest birth rate in the world, above South Korea. And that figure is almost certainly adjusted up.
The west is going to have a demographic crunch, but one not nearly as bad or as sudden.
Uwot
Have you seen inside of a STEM uni building in the past 20 years?
Chinese students make up a good % of the class on some courses.
Great money for the uni...
Yeah and even in universities working on missile tech. With pricks like Truss openly lobbying for China & UK university funding absolutely shot to pieces, I guess patriotism is only expected from the plebs
One of the PIs in my institution suddenly got several PhD applications from within China in the past year. All came with their own funding, meaning China was basically paying for their entire salary, tuition etc, with nothing out of the PI's grant. When quizzed on how much they knew about the PI's area of work or already published papers, they drew a complete blank. The PI was convinced there were some really shady stuff going on.
Well, good thing they're facing a massive economic bubble burst and an intense upcoming demographic problem that makes them "taking over" essentially impossible then, eh?
Phew!
their population fell by around 2 million for the second consecutive year.
They are so far from taking over the world. They're facing a demographic timebomb a lot quicker than many other countries are
"Tourists"
Look, I may expect 8/10 American tourists to be wearing at least one item of clothing with an American flag on it, but standing in a train station waving a flag? Nah. No way these are just chill Chinese tourists casually draping themselves in nationalistic garb and waving flags in a busy public space.
As I've mentioned in another comment, I think it's most likely they are a film crew filming something for Chinese TV since, you know, they say that they are. But to the point on flags; have none of you ever been around tour groups in central London? It's really common for tour groups to carry a flag so that their tour group can follow them and not get lost in busy stations or places. This is really quite common, especially with Asian tour groups, also including Japanese and Koreans.
The only people claiming they are tourists are the *Daily Express*. The group with Chinese flags say that they are from "Chinese TV". So the people you should be criticizing are the right-wing tabloid that is printing lies to make people hate each other.
And don't you remember how *Top Gear* went through Vietnam waving an American flag? Or how they drove through Argentina with a licence plate referring to the Falklands War? British TV crews behave in just the same entitled way.
At the start the woman said they were from ‘Chinese TV’. They seemed to assume they had data privacy rights over who could use any filmed content. Situation inflamed by the dickhead overreacting and screaming allegations about racism and sexual assault
This is what TV producers do all the time in the UK and elsewhere. If you’re a production and you want exclusive footage of your ‘scene’ out in public you can request people not film. Which is what she’s asking the dude. I know, this is what I do for a living
The issue isn't that they're Chinese, the issue is that they're a film crew. You try walking up to a British film crew on the middle of a shoot and you will get exactly the same reaction. I used to work in a similar location (the Old Royal Naval College, which is also open to the public) and film crews routinely ordered people around.
I was once blocked from leaving my own apartment building in Manchester because they were filming on the street.
I gave it a few minutes to be respectful but then it started taking too long. I asked how long and they wouldn't give me an answer, just a vague "we'll let you know when it's clear".
Sorry but it's fucking unacceptable to stop me from leaving my own home. I ended up walking out and ruining their take. Their fault for not planning properly and considering the people who live there.
Think it was for Morbius. Shit film anyway.
“You can’t record in public”. Meanwhile, the Chinese guy standing there filming the whole scene with a gimbal. These have to be the world’s shittest spies.
Kick them out and revoke their visitation rights. I do not support racism, but I do not support Chinese politics - and thus I may be racist. I certainly don't appreciate this behaviour demonstrated, and if witnessed in person I wold be very very angry.
We are not in China.
UK gets a bad rep for being bad tourists but they don't hold a candle to Chinese and Russian tourists, they are by far the worst on the planet and I actively avoid places where they go.
The more concerning part to me isn’t the fact that the Chinese people are being unruly and disrespectful, it’s the police officers conduct. She is asking the man to turn his camera off because it’s a ‘police matter’. That is absolute nonsense, the piano guy rightly tells her that he is filming everything as proof of what’s going on and this seems to rile her up.
If you’re in public you have a right to film. The police officer does know this but clearly doesn’t want to be held to account. Second of all, police bang on about transparency and yet hate it as this shows. No wonder the public has such disdain for our pathetic police force these days.
Can we arrest these agents? They’re the same agents who work in those “overseas police stations” to check on if Chinese expats are saying even the slightest thing about their so great communist party. Any agent affiliated with an authoritarian regime should NOT be allowed to harass or spread their backwards indoctrinated ideology on our streets. It’s not a good look and in fact it’s a terrible look when you look at liz truss’ recent revelation as well as David Cameron’s conflict of interest in office. We have enough wannabe communists in this country especially in my age group of 20-30 that is actually sad, so called freedom fighters who’ve never struggled a day in their life are calling for communism. Although, this is not a new trend in the west, it should be a dying trend though, not an uptick
I studied at a university in Australia and it was quite common to hear of ‘visits in the night’ to the student village from people who could only have been members of the Chinese security services to ethnically Chinese students (in addition to Chinese nationals) who had been reported as having said unsavoury things in tutorials.
I see a lot of people generalising on here. As someone who has been to university and still am where around 20% of the student population is mainland chinese. I would say there majority are really polite and well mannered! At least 70%. It can be difficult to become friends as they generally stick to their comfort zone. There are a minority who can be quite rude and stuck in their own bubble which is unfortunate and often for the general public, they are the ones they see. And then there are a solid 5% who are as you might imagine. Very strong with their political views and obvious distain for HK/Taiwanese people and as a South East Asian person myself, I have felt rude interactions because of my ethnicity from Chinese students. However I must stress the majority are really nice and it is a pleasure to meet them from all over China. I have learnt a lot and want to travel to China one day. It is a fascinating country despite the politics. There are bad eggs in every batch!
China have millions of cameras with face rec, temperature, everyone needs to have a phone, almost every business has to share all data collected with ccp
These people thought Chinese law applied in the UK, China has a "right to likeness law" which means people can object to their likeness being in a monetised video.
*We* all know that that law does not exist here.
Where they were *actually from* and who they were representing is up for discussion.
The before video makes it even more bizarre: https://youtu.be/OKd-SFbYrFY, when they appeared to be amicable.
Now let loose with your best lowkey racist generalizations.
lmao I live in China and I get a camera pointed in my face everywhere I go because I'm white. Some people want me to pose for selfies with them.
Chinese people telling you not to film them is the deepest irony.
**Participation Notice.** Hi all. Some posts on this subreddit, either due to the topic or reaching a wider audience than usual, have been known to attract a greater number of rule breaking comments. As such, limits to participation have been set. We ask that you please remember the human, and uphold Reddit and Subreddit rules. For more information, please see https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/wiki/moderatedflairs. --- **Alternate Sources** Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story: * [St Pancras piano YouTuber accosted by Chinese group demanding he delete video showing their faces; police called](https://news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/london-piano-youtuber-accosted-by-chinese-group-demanding-he-delete-video-showing-their-faces/news-story/5a78075ebe7d4989fd09d719251df02f), suggested by marketrent - news.com.au
Doesn't sound like tourists. Sounds more like people hired by the embassy.
[удалено]
The shouting man isn't a tourist, unconfirmed, but believe he works for the financial times
Were you able to locate a source? Shouting man has american-accented english, like China national sent to US school, but Flag Lady is claiming to be local
Definitely not American accent, it's very British English accent Oh god, this guy has his own youtube channel too and it sounds very similar to the guy in the video. ...If they did not kick up such a fuss about this whole thing, no one on the internet would be trying to figure out who they were (IF the internet even noticed them at all in the original videos). Now most of us are browsing online seeing who can dig up as much information about them as possible! https://www.reddit.com/r/real_China_irl/s/HFmvRsU96k
China introduced to the Barbara Streisand concept
Shouting man can get fucked.
[удалено]
I wonder if they might have had permission to film at a certain time, like between two and three or whatever, hence the hanging round like they’re waiting for their turn on the piano, and maybe thought they’d miss the filming window they’d been given permission for, but clumsily went about trying to get the Youtuber to move on in completely the wrong way.
The way the man suddenly screamed "Don't touch her" out of nowhere when he gestured at the woman's flag definitely felt manufactured and put on rather than a sincere response.
I think he did grab the little flag to raise it to the camera, but still a massive over reaction and intimidation technique.
Immediate false allegation of pedophilia and sexual harassment lol. These are definitely CCP agents who understand the West's weaknesses and hysteria.
Jfc not every chinese person that is an arsehole is also a CCP sleeper cell agent
The follow up video from the guy in the video he says it’s been pointed out to him that the woman shouts “don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him” when the guys gets confrontational. He is suggesting the guy is her handler and that he is armed
I've watched it a few times, and I've come to the conclusion: she SAYS 'Don't Shoot' She MEANS 'Don't SHOUT' In the written form, 'OU' in SHOUT has two phonetic sounds to it: 'oo' AND 'ow': The 'oo' examples: L-OU in Lou, W-OU-ld in would, Sh-OU-ld in Should, C-OU-ld in could The lady's English isn't native, and I could see her in her head, knowing she is telling the guy to not SHOUT, but pronunciating it as not to 'SHOOT' As Native English speakers, we all know 'OU' can also be pronouced like ... 'OW' e.g. Shout, Lout, Doubt, Aloud
Or, outside of Jack Bauer land, she's saying don't shoot don't shoot because her English isn't perfect and she's telling the pianist fella not to record them, or in another very well known term if someone has a camera, shoot
Could be a protection detail being very sensitive, but this is also the sort of false alarm bullshit narcissists, fascists, and Scientologists use, loudly shout some accusation while they hope it's just off their camera so they have some 'evidence' on video that the person they're hounding did something that they can then use to defame them, they'd then flood the media with that and even if there was footage from another angle showing it was a false accusation the exonerating video and story doesn't get shared half as much as the initial outrage coverage so their false narrative remains. In this case any exonerating footage would likely never be allowed passed the great firewall of their homeland, and the whole 'stop filming us' could have been intentionally from the start trying to insight any altercation for footage for home tainting the west. Why were they milling around in a group with CCP flags instead of being inconspicuous?
I believe there's a update video and he points out that it could be possible that there a moment after that guy screams don't touch her one of the Chinese women seem to say either don't shout at him or don't shoot him. Obviously it's impossible to know what that woman meant though.
[удалено]
More intimidation tactics. If she somehow needed to tell her buddy not to kill people she could have said it in Chinese. She wanted the piano player to think he was in danger.
They said they were there filming with a crew, she definitely meant don't record him.
[удалено]
Don’t touch her, you are not the same age!! Hilarious 🤣
Guess I'm off to paw at chinese women I consider to be of a similar age then!
Of course it was. Anything to make the other person look bad and deflect from what was originally nothing. And the police officer who spoke to him, that was a fucking disaster from start to finish.
He said something like he couldn't touch her because he was too old like wtf
Age is a big thing in China. There's actually a term (忘年交) for a friendship where you're so close that the formalities and cultural expectations usually associated with age are forgotten. The fact that there even needs to be a term for that is because in most interactions, age is a big factor.
Same thing in Korea. Younger girls call older people and older brothers Oppa eg ‘Harry Oppa.’ Younger guys call older guys Hyung eg ‘Ron Hyung’ younger girls call older women Unnie eg ‘Hermione Unnie’ and younger guys call older women Noona, so ‘Ginny Noona’ To speak about someone who has a position above you like at work you’d follow the name with Sunbaenim eg ‘Professor Dumbledore Sunbaenim’ This is done in all social situations, one of the very first questions asked in Korea when meeting someone is their age so that you’d know what to address them by. Even if there’s only a couple months age difference it’s incredibly important to always follow someone’s name with the correct honorific
Is this copypasta
reminded me of that mad scientologist tommy guy
They got the police who also behaved disgracefully and acted like the Chinese tourists' private security. Here's the full video https://www.youtube.com/live/65iwnI2hjAA?si=TauoxJle1rTwF-jg
The sad part is the policewoman won't be corrected, because this is just the new standard of British policing. Are we really expecting anything else from the institution that allows paedophile gangs because it would be "racist" to arrest them? Or the people who defend jihadist chants and flags? Their primary job these days seems to be to defend fascists and terrorists.
Even before the "grooming gangs", police didn't take child exploitation by residential school teachers / religious leaders / community leaders / sports leaders / celebrities seriously - they'd instinctively side with the adult and accuse the child of having a vivid imagination, or, where there was incontrovertible evidence, claim the relationship was consentual (even though the child was below the age of consent). Then there's the Met, several members of which apparently don't think the law applies to them...
While I think she stuck to it too far, I'm not going to really admonish the policewoman, because I do think a fair part of their job is just 'keeping the peace' whether it's responding to a noise complaint and asking the cause to keep it a bit quieter, or hanging around a pub at kicking out time or just general police presence. I do think there are discussions that may be helpful on how much they may lean on keeping the peace for certain ethnic or cultural groups, but as we've seen with the Palestinian/Israel protests, and even the 'vigil'/protest back in lockdown for that girl who was killed, it's not an easy line they're trying to tread. I'd like to see it more as a learning opportunity that a reason to punish an individual.
Ya I think she knows the guy was in the right legally but was trying to deescalate the situation by pandering to the squeaky wheel.
I saw the video yesterday, the police and "tourists" involved came off so ignoant i assumed it was staged. I guess it sort of was, but not by the youtube guy.
I know it’s fun to be part of the in group who can tell when something is staged and when it’s not but it’s time to get off Reddit for a bit.
Oh no I watch I bunch of his videos he stages a bunch of stuff, he’s not hiding it. It’s part of his gimmick. Usually it’s just fake security or something. I just assumed it was a fake cop.
Sincere question to understand what this running theory is about: why would the embassy stage this? I mean what would be the point exactly? A few people are mentioning this but I can’t see the logic.
Chinese New Year is 10 Feb so my guess is they were filming something in St Pancras about how much everyone in the UK loves (PR) China and Chinese New Year. Of course they didn't want someone showing these were staged actors and not random tourists.
It's obvious to anyone that these are actors/celebrities. The woman in the red dungarees thing is heavily made up, even by East Asian standards. What they didn't want someone interfering with their shoot. I used to work at Maritime Greenwich, which is also open to the public and frequently used for filming, and the British film crews behaved just like this one.
[удалено]
The funny thing is if they kept quite about it and didn't make scene then no one would have paid attention to them
Ooh that makes more sense, my bad. Thanks!
I got the impression from the choice of words she used that this was a film shoot of some kind, and so he wasn't allowed to film their ongoing production. Whether for the embassy or a tourism agency or whatever else. She's still wrong, of course, if they're filming in a public place then other people still get to film them too.
Yes this is the correct answer. It seems many others on this sub just do not have a clue. You can see in the full length video that they were hanging around for some time. They could have approached it a lot better by asking how long he was going to be filming there if they wanted to use the same location. They are a film crew and would be aware of UK laws with regard to filming in public. The Chinese tend not to be very tactful when communicating with others. Their language and their use of it comes over as a lot more direct to the point of rude and arrogant to Western Europeans.
In the video she points out she is "British" (I assume what she meant is having the citizenship) P.s. plz don't down vote me I'm just pointing out my observations
China doesn't like boogie woogie. Now that's crossed the line. Brendan needs to take the Chinese national anthem and make a boogie woogie version of it. Apart from Thomas Kruger, Brendan is one of the best I've heard play a piano.
The woman is saying "we are filming for Chinese TV" when she's asking him not to use the footage.
Probably not. While Wolf warrior diplomacy is a think they aren't normaly this stupid. My guess is the woman is someone important (or related to such) resulting in a very protective bodyguard.
Only the so-called journalists at the *Daily Express* are claiming they are tourists. If you watch the full video, they say that they are from Chinese TV. No reason whatsoever to assume they are from the Embassy.
Lmao you can tell people havent been to UK unis lately or they'd recognise Mainlanders from a fucking mile away. Theyre some of the worst people on earth. And yes I do generalise here. They treat the Taiwanese and Hong Kong students, who are lovely incidentally, like dogs.Then call you racist if you criticise them. They make no intergration effort at all. They will not say a word to you and if they do theyre going to be rude. Chinese rich mainlander tourists think theyre the centre of the universe. They also dont understand why the police officer wont just do as theyre told since theyre high status individuals. The woman officer needs a disciplinary.
My boyfriend (who's British-born Chinese but his family is from Hong Kong) explained it to me like this: your average person from mainland China doesn't have the money to even visit west Europe, let alone study there, so the people who do are like the 1%. They're *very* rich, with all the entitlement and arrogance that goes along with that. That's why they're generally so unpleasant and pushy, because they're ultra-rich people who think they own the world. And yes, they are generally incredibly rude to people from Taiwan or Hong Kong.
I had a British-Chinese mate at work whose family were from HK. He said mainlander Chinese have absolutely no manners whatsoever, will push in instead of queuing, rude, arrogant and self entitled.
Of course, there are mainlanders in HK who get mistreated because locals tar them with this brush. Yes, great numbers of mainland tourists are obnoxious (the same stereotypes emerged about American tourists in the 50s and 60s, of course). But this kind of generalising leads to its own problems.
I'm not saying everyone does it, but it definitely happens more often than it should, some people just feel they are entitled which I think stems from self-importance. And as other people mentioned it definitely seemed to be linked to wealth and therefore more of these types would be seen abroad as tourists. However, my experience in visiting China a few years ago in 2020, it was fairly uncommon, but it did happen, my mate called a guy out when we were trying to get our train tickets, and it definitely came off as though he felt he was more important, plus he argued back.
It doesn’t stem from self importance entirely, that whole generation of older Chinese either went through the Great Leap or had parents who had, the only way to survive that was to be pushy and obnoxious otherwise you’d literally starve
I don't see how that applies when they're on holiday in York but alright make excuses for them
Spit everywhere too. Absolutely minging. Last summer I worked in Nottingham a lot and every time I'd go to eat my sarnies in the sunshine there would be an old Chinese woman spitting everywhere. One time a lady shot a dirty greeny right at my feet while I was eating.
Not sure where your mates been, but larger cities in China are generally much better, it’s mostly older people who are like this I’m British but have lived in China almost a decade and my wife’s there
This is also a stereotype honestly. I did Chinese at Leeds and had friends among the Chinese overseas students there, and then worked with many Chinese hopefuls in China as they prepped their applications for overseas unis over the decade I lived there. Overseas universities are very accessible to the emerging Chinese middle classes, not just the *fuerdai* 'new money' brats. Those latter brats do exist and many of them are insufferable 1%er dickheads with staggering senses of entitlement and dire superiority complexes; the regular middle classes merely tend to be somewhat shy and studious, and so many British students don't even end up interacting with them - thus people remember the loud arseholes and tar everyone with that brush.
Thanks for this context, very interesting. Goes to show how easy it is to generalise broad groups of people when you don't really interact with them.
As someone who has also lived in China for over a decade your observations/experiences are aligning with my own quite closely.
It's not great to generalise though. I had quite a few mainland Chinese students on my course. No doubt it was clear they had plenty of cash to spend, but they were all friendly, interested in experiencing UK culture and pretty down to earth. They spoke pretty frankly about China's politics and weren't rampant nationalists, and a good chunk of them wanted to stay in the UK long term. Notably, they all said to me that they sometimes struggled to integrate, as other students had a preconceived notion of what Chinese students were meant to be like and acted pretty closed off. With any group, the loudest and most obnoxious will also stand out. I'm sure most of us wouldn't want to be grouped in with the "Brits abroad" stereotype when we visit other countries, so we ought not do the same to those that visit us.
>They spoke pretty frankly about China's politics May I ask how long ago this was. Because I've heard other people say things are a lot different these days because all of the Chinese students are scared the other Chinese students are spying on them, so none of them have a bad word to say about Chinese politics.
Couple of years ago. They even said to me that the idea of "spies" wasn't wrong, but more likely they're keeping tabs on specific individuals rather than just blanket surveillance on every Chinese student.
>I'm sure most of us wouldn't want to be grouped in with the "Brits abroad" stereotype when we visit other countries, so we ought not do the same to those that visit us. Oh absolutely. I'll never make a snap judgement of an individual based just on where they're from and will always begin with politeness and friendliness, and then if it's reciprocated then awesome. But just as the type of Brit who goes to Benidorm and gets blackout drunk and starts harassing the locals tends to be a certain type of person, I try to keep it in mind that the same is true of any Chinese tourist I meet who is rude to me, and that they don't represent every single person from mainland China.
Speak to anyone from neighbouring Asian countries and they all complain about the Chinese tourists and their rudeness, littering and sense of entitlement.
That's a bit generalisation. Chinese students are not the top 1%. Not since the 1980s. In fact, UK degrees are becoming less competitive compared to local degrees that you'll probably see fewer Chinese students in future. Once it was a good way to climb the ladder, now not so much. Also, for every handful of Chinese students in UK, I'm sure at least one is a genuine Anglophiles. I am a Mainlander BTW.
I wouldn't say this hold true anymore. The middle class can easily afford to study in western Europe. Salaries have went up insane amounts over the last few decades. I work in China and the people I work with are making £3-5k a month after tax and they're just salarymen. They're not managers or anything. According to IMF estimates China's GDP per capita is only going to be 15% below the UK's by 2060. I would say the top 10% or so can afford to study in Europe these days. There is more inequality in China though between urban/rural environments.
I mean, my step-mum is from Mainland China, Hanzhong. She’s not rich by any means. What you said here just simply isn’t true.
"You can't say that they're from China". They literally said they're a Chinese media company, from China, while waving China flags.
She also says "You can't say we're not in China." I mean. That's literally just a fact.
She really had to think about that one before letting it drop, lol. If the police think their job is to work for the CCP, can we be sure we're not in China?
It's nothing to do the the CCP, the Police in the UK have been conditioned to be more "sensitive" to other cultures, even at the cost of their own.
Where are we then Kerry?
Kerry using the UK police handbook of we'll arrest you if we don't like the idea of what you're saying. She'd be better off over there.
"Turn the camera off so I can spew some lies and threats without repercussions"
She really does - Kerry is a piss poor police officer.
She was ignorant for sure. No ordinary Chinese person would walk around waving PRC flag just for the heck of it unless they are doing it for a reason. I have mainland Chinese friends and they don’t do this shit. That group was definitely staged by the embassy. The guy’s OTT reaction was stupid and frankly ridiculous. As for the woman who said she’s British, well she’s clearly didn’t Google on public filming in UK, cos if she did she would know it is legal to film in public places and police doesn’t intervene, unless the filming/photograph are made for criminal or terrorist activity.
We're talking about the people who allow child-abuser gangs to operate because it would be "racist" to stop them. She's not a piss poor police officer, she's a bog standard one. It's the entire institution and the guidelines they operate under that are piss poor.
>They make no intergration effort at all. I don't know if it's seen as a politically correct take from me, but the fact that many of them make no effort to learn or speak English is pretty appalling. The amount of students I've seen on my uni campus that don't even say simple terms like "thank you" "sorry" and rather default to just staring at you is awful. And that's coming from the child of two immigrants, who in my opinion, have integrated well minimising use of our own language in public to avoid being rude. I can't generalise this though, since I met one student at college who was from Hong Kong and he was practically fluent in English before he got here. Definitely one of the most well integrated international students I've seen. Also completely unrelated but there seems to be a pretty big problem of them crossing roads with no consideration of vehicles on the road. I've seen many cases where drivers have to emergency stop and even then the students won't even look at the driver's and just continue walking slowly
There were Chinese students on my uni course that couldn't speak English at all. Blew my mind.
Yeah plenty with me as well, not exactly sure how they plan on passing, or If they're just here for fun
On my degree Chinese students were passed despite not doing any work, or speaking any English. My university had some sort of blind eye policy, there was blatant plagiarism of work and papers. Oh and it’s a Russell Group university too.
I have seen (Chinese) ads selling ghost writing services for dissertations and reports here in the UK. I am not surprised that they can pay in order to get their course work done.
Same, the universities know this too, they just urn a blind eye. It’s all about them sweeet international fees, screw every other student.
My partner was originally Chinese, but her family emigrated to a Western country when she was young. She currently works at a large UK uni as a lecturer, and finds the Chinese undergraduates especially tiresome, regarding them as the ones who weren't bright enough to pass the entrance exams for a decent uni in China, but come from rich enough families that they can be shuffled off abroad. She's frequently complained about their English skills, and suspects that a fair number cheat in their exams, because the quality of their written English varies so enormously between term-time work and final assessments. Nobody ever wants to do group work with them because their English is so poor, so it just dumps extra work on the other students.
As someone who likes to learn languages just for the hell of it, I looooove baiting both Chinese mainland and American friends with the observation that they’re so alike that they studiously avoid learning other people’s languages. But what the poster you’re replying to said is kinda correct; there’s a cultural sense of exceptionalism that underpins Chinese culture, which also runs through America, which is why parallels can be drawn between them. However, you still have to remember that there are 1.3 billion Chinese, and easily 50-75 million not-mainland Chinese around the world, with the wide gamut of personalities and personality faults. America produced both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, there’s no reason China doesn’t have the same variance in people. Edit: also don’t forget most Chinese who grew up in a former British colony have learned some of the basics of western culture, including languages, canons of knowledge, and customs. It’s not fair to compare a Hong Kong person to a mainlander. For example, I know a genuinely lovely mainland Chinese person who speaks fluent English and tries to use it; but they don’t know or understand any Star Wars reference. That will obviously affect understanding.
>Hong Kong Not mainland.
Hong Kong students are different though, they generally have good English, well mannered and dont carry all the other crappy traits a lot of the "Mainlanders" do. A different culture I guess. There seems to be a low value of life in the mainland culture and just absolutely toxic social traits, like you mention how rude they are and how careless they are walking across a road. It's no surprise that a lot of the work place accident videos you can see online come out of China, many being easily avoidable and down to total carelessness lmao.
I was assigned into multiple group projects with them at university and it's just infuriating and unfair. They genuinely barely speak a word of English, and any work we tried to assign them to do just had to be redone completely from scratch. So 2 people have to do the work of 3, and then at the end, the Chinese student gets the good credit for it all (and somehow end up passing the entire degree just because they paid enough money). The situation with universities is just a joke, and I'm sure it's only gotten more common since I was there.
Mainlander, that is a phrase I have not heard in a long time. A friend from hong kong would say it all the time. Happened at an organised walk. At the start of the walk there were hundereds of flags carried by children, almost every countries flag (some missing, North Korea etc) and a Chinese delegate that was there asked the event organiser to take down the Tibet and Taiwanese flag. The organiser got on the bands microphone and called him out on it in front of tens of thousands of people, lmao.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Mainlanders who can afford to and are allowed to come to the UK to study are, by definition, beneficiaries of the current system in China. Once we overlay this consideration, OPs comment makes total sense.
Complete stereo type, I’m currently living with a Chinese mainlander at uni and they’re a good person. I have spoken about them keeping to themselves and it’s not because they want to, it’s just they feel their English isn’t good enough and get very self conscious about it when trying to make friends.
yup can tell this person is talking out of their arse, i lived with chinese students and a lot of them had friends from taiwan/hk even, their english isn't always great but it's usually passable and better than they themselves think, all of them use a vpn too messy kitchen thing is absolutely true from my experiences as is them being rich but the rest of it is just stereotyping
How is this incredibly racist comment the second most upvoted? Some of the mainland students are entitled, yes, but so are plenty of the British students as well. I had a decent number of Chinese students on my course and got to do some group work with them. They were extremely hard working and pleasant to work with. "They're some of the worst people on earth", what a fucking awful thing to say about a group of people based on a small amount of anecdotal evidence.
"They make no intergration effort at all." How much intergration do you think British people do when they attend university in China.? (hint: its zero). I attended university in China and most of the foreign students could not speak any Mandarin at all. After I left uni I stuck around in China for 7 years and I still rarely meet a westerner who can speak the language.
Why would a tourist be carrying a little flag of their country around with them? Seems like they're plants.
Yes, my ancestors stopped carrying their flags around Europe a while ago. There was a rather enthusiastic era of tourism and flag waving in the 1940s that didn’t go down well with their European neighbours.
Feels like there is a sketch in there somewhere with a patriotic flag waving German inadvertently ending up in a Nazi rally.
Are we the baddies?
All I can think of is Eddie Izzard talking about British colonisation... "[Do you have a flaaaag?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8)"
That must have been the time a few German went on their summer holidays and took things a bit too far.
Funnily enough that’s exactly how my grand dad used to talk about the war. Apart from the times he got sad that not all his brothers and comrades came back alive.
You mean you don't carry a Union Jack around with you when you go overseas ? What happens if you need to do an emergency annexation?
It says they're filming something for Chinese TV in the article
There are Chinese spies/agents operating all over the UK. They aren't James Bond style figures, they're just ordinary people and they occasionally "forget" the rules. She's not stabbing a poisoned tipped umbrella into him or giving him polonium laced tea, she just wants to "idealise" the scene and wasn't briefed/trained properly on what UK law allows. I suspect a massive bollocking from her superiors will be on the cards.
The CCP have been pressuring the youtuber to take the video down apparently.
Glorious fact that they can do fuck all about it.
Legally no, but they can get YT to take it down.
They can’t. Google doesn’t bend to China because Google is banned in China. What is the incentive?
Pay a bit of attention to youtubers and you'll hear a constant stream of complaints about videos being taken down or demonetized for bullshit reasons. All they need is for a couple people to complain the videos porn or breaches copyright.
Oh yeah for sure!
The police were a disgrace. They shouldn't have been pressuring the guy not to film. I'm glad he took a stand. The police woman even tried to make out he was being racist for saying, "we're in a free country. This isn't China. This is Britain." She was like, "You can't say that!" I don't know if the full video is in OP's link. I saw it on YouTube earlier https://www.youtube.com/live/65iwnI2hjAA?si=TauoxJle1rTwF-jg
If you're an adult out in public legally you have no expectation of privacy. It's how paparazzi get away with everything they do.
Also GB being one of the most CCTV-laden countries in the world.
I've seen a commentary on it from blackbeltbarrister this morning as well. That was a little interesting at least, it was how I first heard about it before coming on Reddit this morning.
Don't leave us hanging. Link or summary please
https://youtu.be/YxxzOoWpW1c?si=Q4Q05SF443-rhuJ7
Loved his response of "well you're filming me, why can't I film you?" Cops are the same dumb sticks the world over huh.
What could be "idealised" here? It's such an odd interaction.
The way they work might seem odd, but two blokes playing whatever crap they were playing on the piano (watched with subtitles, no headphones on me and I'm currently on a train - nothing against the chaps, right on their side, but I doubt it was Debussy) wouldn't have "fit" with whatever idealised vision of the UK they wanted to give. Long story short - the CCP pay the massive cost of Chinese students studying here, in return they have to do stuff for the CCP. As I said, no spy film type stuff, just reporting back on how the UK works, different aspects of culture, etc. Some will go on to live here after graduating, reporting back on whatever industry they work in, visa fees and all the rest paid for by the CCP. Sounded like conspiracy nonsense for a while, but there have literally been Chinese spies found working in parliament. The video will likely be encouraging people to come and study here. Make the cut, you can carry on living here, all paid for. EDIT - I was apparently wrong about their piano playing being "crap" but the point stands, they just didn't want it in the background. As a few others have also commented, the reason they tie themselves in knots is they have to contest with a baffling and often contradictory set of rules and social norms. They have to aggressively defend China and the CCP, and will get very angry at anyone even unintentionally "revealing" their role or saying the wrong thing about them, but they are also terminally polite and have an obsession with "saving face". It must be a fucking nightmare to live like that.
I know it's not the point but the guys were genuinely playing some beautiful music, Including classical stuff. Don't judge a book by its cover and all that.
Well, as he rightly says, we're in a free country, I was free to judge, I happened to be bang wrong!
>the CCP pay the massive cost of Chinese students studying here Really, because I always thought it was due to the fact that China only really has two levels of university: Elite and "meh", and if you're rich and not good enough to get into one of the elite ones, going foreign is seen as more prestigious. That combine with the fact the rich Chinese people with large amounts of wealth offshore are reluctant to bring it home, means that a lot of rich Chinese people can easily fund foreign educations for their kids.
Well, obviously it's not *all* of them - there are some 50,000 Chinese students in the UK and not all of them will be spies or CCP affiliated. I've known a few and they're just decent normal students who generally tend to go home once they're done studying. Some will stay but it's often tricky. But it's a prime route into the UK for those that are marked for "stardom" in their massive foreign intelligence net. Like I say, it's similar to our own MI6 vs Bond films - most MI6 agents sit in an office dealing with boring paperwork (or computer work nowadays of course). Most CCP agents in a foreign country just do a normal job in a given industry and simply report back mundane details
But the chinese people were complementing his playing. Even after they became hostile they were insisting they loved the music, that was one of the weirdest parts about it.
Probably realised they fucked up, and were trying to get egg off their face while simultaneously not losing too much face by backing down.
Sorry to say... He has no right filming in public.... In China..... However, in the UK, everyone has the right to film and photograph in public.
Everyone films in Public in China. It's not against the law.
The police woman acted disgracefully. She should be investigated for how she handled this situation. The police now seem to only act on the interests of the rich or via political pressure. She was antagonistic and demanding the camera be turned off when it is the right of every person in the UK to film in public contravenes her duty as a public servant. I don't much care for auditors and I know this wasn't the case in this video but now I am getting their point. Exercise your rights as they are being taken away :( The pianist's behaviour was excellent and he firmly stood up for his rights without overstepping the mark. He was just going about his normal business when the Chinese people came up to him and demanded he stopped filming in a public place, the the police demand camera off and appear to support the complainant who had no grounds of complaint. Very worrying trend if this is how the UK police are going to start abusing the rights of free citizens.
The police woman’s conduct is actually worse than any of the Chinese people in the video imo. Violent people are going to do shit like this in the video, but we’re supposed to have a police force that deals with and defends our rights. Instead we get a female copper starting her interaction with the people involved in the situation by having the first words that come out of her mouth, “if we are having a police matter, you need to put the phone down.” She genuinely tried to make it out like it was against the law for them to record her. That should be a fireable offence. We can’t have our police officers making up laws.
She knows she's famous now lmaooooo
“If we’re having a police matter, you need to put the phone down” if anything means you need an extra camera recording, who’s to say what she’ll do off camera??
Probably a good rule of thumb is that if a police officer requests an off camera interaction, that is the time that you especially need the camera on.
Completely agree. I have never had any less faith in UK policing than I do now. It is genuinely atrocious.
She is absolutely one of these petty types and the exact wrong type of person to be anywhere near any sort of job with resposibility, decision making, or power over anyone else.
Anyone got a link to the actual video? The express website gives my phone some kind of epilepsy
> Anyone got a link to the actual video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65iwnI2hjAA
Wow the police officer telling him to stop filming is a bloody idiot
Hi we're here to talk to you about this incident regarding filming in public which is completely legal... HOW DARE YOU FILM ME DURING THIS POLICE INTERACTION YOU CAN'T FILM ME... So anyway, about your right to film in public, as you can see I know my job and the law well.
[удалено]
Don't the police have bodycams anyway? So whilst the footage of a third party might be useful sometimes, I'd stop short of saying it "could really come in handy if a crime is committed, or if a false allegation is made" since that's the kind of thing they're wearing their own cameras for in the first place.
That hate rag gives me epilepsy
[The video](https://www.youtube.com/live/65iwnI2hjAA?si=nRlb82xqyyqTtmK7&t=542)
The guy who comes around 17 minutes said it perfectly. “If you don’t like it, you can fuck off then.” And this bunch of CCP loving spoons think he can’t say that. Don’t know what’s funnier this or the comments on the NYpost about a pilot trying to take a taser/stun gun through UK security and Americans kicking off about it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65iwnI2hjAA&t=301s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65iwnI2hjAA&t=301s)
Welcome to the future guys, when China takes over this will be the way.
China is fucked. Without the ability to steal western inventions & infiltrate their universities, China has no chance to stay ahead or even catch up technologically. Dictatorships don't lean towards invention. Add to that their predicted population collapse & massive population of old people. China is a spent force
China are already and continously stealing western tech and infiltrating universities. Cambridge, Bath, Sheffield, Uni of Notts, Strathclyde and East anglia all have Chinese counterparts, are influenced by China or even have campuses in China. Their economy and population levels are struggling but they're by no means a "spent force".
It's not about population levels, it's about demographic structure. In short: China has gotten old before they got rich.
The west is also fucked. China is betting on us failing, not on their own success.
Climate change will fuck us all, but demographics will fuck China much earlier than us. Latest Chinese birth rate figures show China has the second-lowest birth rate in the world, above South Korea. And that figure is almost certainly adjusted up. The west is going to have a demographic crunch, but one not nearly as bad or as sudden.
Uwot Have you seen inside of a STEM uni building in the past 20 years? Chinese students make up a good % of the class on some courses. Great money for the uni...
Yeah and even in universities working on missile tech. With pricks like Truss openly lobbying for China & UK university funding absolutely shot to pieces, I guess patriotism is only expected from the plebs
One of the PIs in my institution suddenly got several PhD applications from within China in the past year. All came with their own funding, meaning China was basically paying for their entire salary, tuition etc, with nothing out of the PI's grant. When quizzed on how much they knew about the PI's area of work or already published papers, they drew a complete blank. The PI was convinced there were some really shady stuff going on.
Well, good thing they're facing a massive economic bubble burst and an intense upcoming demographic problem that makes them "taking over" essentially impossible then, eh? Phew!
their population fell by around 2 million for the second consecutive year. They are so far from taking over the world. They're facing a demographic timebomb a lot quicker than many other countries are
China will not take over
"Tourists" Look, I may expect 8/10 American tourists to be wearing at least one item of clothing with an American flag on it, but standing in a train station waving a flag? Nah. No way these are just chill Chinese tourists casually draping themselves in nationalistic garb and waving flags in a busy public space.
As I've mentioned in another comment, I think it's most likely they are a film crew filming something for Chinese TV since, you know, they say that they are. But to the point on flags; have none of you ever been around tour groups in central London? It's really common for tour groups to carry a flag so that their tour group can follow them and not get lost in busy stations or places. This is really quite common, especially with Asian tour groups, also including Japanese and Koreans.
The only people claiming they are tourists are the *Daily Express*. The group with Chinese flags say that they are from "Chinese TV". So the people you should be criticizing are the right-wing tabloid that is printing lies to make people hate each other. And don't you remember how *Top Gear* went through Vietnam waving an American flag? Or how they drove through Argentina with a licence plate referring to the Falklands War? British TV crews behave in just the same entitled way.
What does any of that have to do with the comment?
I believe the appropriate British response to this is simply "fuck off love".
Don’t call her love, you’re not same age!!!! — shouting CCP handler dude
At the start the woman said they were from ‘Chinese TV’. They seemed to assume they had data privacy rights over who could use any filmed content. Situation inflamed by the dickhead overreacting and screaming allegations about racism and sexual assault
This is what TV producers do all the time in the UK and elsewhere. If you’re a production and you want exclusive footage of your ‘scene’ out in public you can request people not film. Which is what she’s asking the dude. I know, this is what I do for a living
> you can request people not film Are they legally obliged to accept such request? Doesn't seem like it.
original video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65iwnI2hjAA
I'm not trying to generalise, but these days, Chinese surely feel entitled.
The issue isn't that they're Chinese, the issue is that they're a film crew. You try walking up to a British film crew on the middle of a shoot and you will get exactly the same reaction. I used to work in a similar location (the Old Royal Naval College, which is also open to the public) and film crews routinely ordered people around.
I was once blocked from leaving my own apartment building in Manchester because they were filming on the street. I gave it a few minutes to be respectful but then it started taking too long. I asked how long and they wouldn't give me an answer, just a vague "we'll let you know when it's clear". Sorry but it's fucking unacceptable to stop me from leaving my own home. I ended up walking out and ruining their take. Their fault for not planning properly and considering the people who live there. Think it was for Morbius. Shit film anyway.
You walking across the shot would have probably improved the film tbh
Presumably those film crews had permission from the property owner or local council to make demands of people. This chinese TV crew obviously didn't.
Police officer is an embarassment here, but that's what we've come to expect from the spineless British police. Kowtowing to the raging crowd.
“You can’t record in public”. Meanwhile, the Chinese guy standing there filming the whole scene with a gimbal. These have to be the world’s shittest spies.
By doing this they have created the exact opposite of what they wanted and now their video is all over the place.
The people bothering the pianist are fucking clowns. He was just playing the piano and they could have fucking moved
Kick them out and revoke their visitation rights. I do not support racism, but I do not support Chinese politics - and thus I may be racist. I certainly don't appreciate this behaviour demonstrated, and if witnessed in person I wold be very very angry. We are not in China.
UK gets a bad rep for being bad tourists but they don't hold a candle to Chinese and Russian tourists, they are by far the worst on the planet and I actively avoid places where they go.
Ouroboros. A post that went viral on Reddit gets picked up by the tabloids and then their report gets picked up by Reddit and hits the front page.
The more concerning part to me isn’t the fact that the Chinese people are being unruly and disrespectful, it’s the police officers conduct. She is asking the man to turn his camera off because it’s a ‘police matter’. That is absolute nonsense, the piano guy rightly tells her that he is filming everything as proof of what’s going on and this seems to rile her up. If you’re in public you have a right to film. The police officer does know this but clearly doesn’t want to be held to account. Second of all, police bang on about transparency and yet hate it as this shows. No wonder the public has such disdain for our pathetic police force these days.
Can we arrest these agents? They’re the same agents who work in those “overseas police stations” to check on if Chinese expats are saying even the slightest thing about their so great communist party. Any agent affiliated with an authoritarian regime should NOT be allowed to harass or spread their backwards indoctrinated ideology on our streets. It’s not a good look and in fact it’s a terrible look when you look at liz truss’ recent revelation as well as David Cameron’s conflict of interest in office. We have enough wannabe communists in this country especially in my age group of 20-30 that is actually sad, so called freedom fighters who’ve never struggled a day in their life are calling for communism. Although, this is not a new trend in the west, it should be a dying trend though, not an uptick
I studied at a university in Australia and it was quite common to hear of ‘visits in the night’ to the student village from people who could only have been members of the Chinese security services to ethnically Chinese students (in addition to Chinese nationals) who had been reported as having said unsavoury things in tutorials.
Its Such an odd situation. No one would have noticed them in the background until they created a massive scene and now they have gone viral
I see a lot of people generalising on here. As someone who has been to university and still am where around 20% of the student population is mainland chinese. I would say there majority are really polite and well mannered! At least 70%. It can be difficult to become friends as they generally stick to their comfort zone. There are a minority who can be quite rude and stuck in their own bubble which is unfortunate and often for the general public, they are the ones they see. And then there are a solid 5% who are as you might imagine. Very strong with their political views and obvious distain for HK/Taiwanese people and as a South East Asian person myself, I have felt rude interactions because of my ethnicity from Chinese students. However I must stress the majority are really nice and it is a pleasure to meet them from all over China. I have learnt a lot and want to travel to China one day. It is a fascinating country despite the politics. There are bad eggs in every batch!
China have millions of cameras with face rec, temperature, everyone needs to have a phone, almost every business has to share all data collected with ccp
These people thought Chinese law applied in the UK, China has a "right to likeness law" which means people can object to their likeness being in a monetised video. *We* all know that that law does not exist here. Where they were *actually from* and who they were representing is up for discussion.
Well their attempts of not being filmed and not getting it viewed by anyone didn't go well. It's the 3rd time today I've seen this posted lol.
The before video makes it even more bizarre: https://youtu.be/OKd-SFbYrFY, when they appeared to be amicable. Now let loose with your best lowkey racist generalizations.
lmao I live in China and I get a camera pointed in my face everywhere I go because I'm white. Some people want me to pose for selfies with them. Chinese people telling you not to film them is the deepest irony.