Yes, they’re children but they’re young boys full of beans. Missing a couple of hot meals and a night on a comfortable bed can hardly be considered traumatic.

People are quick to criticise anyone for just about anything on social media, but this time I have to agree with some of the mocking comments on the internet, ranging from sarcastic reminders of the scouts’ famous motto (“Be Prepared”) to laments about the disappearance of “real men” in Hong Kong.

We had a similar situation at the end of December 2010 when a snowstorm stranded travellers, many of them Hong Kong students in the UK, at London’s Heathrow airport for several days. They were trying to get home for the holidays and when they finally made it to Hong Kong, there were tearful reunions with parents and relatives at the airport reminiscent of scenes from war films. Many had “horror” stories about how tough it had been at Heathrow with nobody to look after them.

There was understandably a lot of public criticism back then as well, with people pointing out that these were spoiled kids sent to study overseas by doting parents – not shell-shocked soldiers returning from the battlefront or refugees fleeing the ravages of armed conflict.

Hong Kong’s spoiled kids syndrome is well documented. A City University study in 2013 found that parents in this town are producing a generation of spoiled brats with inflated views of their self-worth.

There’s even a Wikipedia page devoted to “Hong Kong Kids”, or kong hai in Cantonese. It’s explained as “an expression that originally referred to Hong Kong children or teenagers who are unable to look after themselves, have low emotional intelligence and are vulnerable to adversity, but now it specifically refers to children in Hong Kong who have weak self-management” as well.

I grew up climbing trees, jumping into ponds, playing tag-style games that could often get pretty rough, and standing up to school bullies, even if it meant getting hurt in the process. My parents followed a “positive non-intervention” policy that was only interrupted when my grades were not up to their expectations.

We had traditionally macho role models, not the skinny, plastic surgery-enhanced pretty boys from Japan and South Korea who are culturally colonising the rest of Asia these days. I cannot fathom how young men with tweezed eyebrows, eyeliner, spotless milky-white skin, lipstick and emo hair have become the male ideal. Whatever happened to rough and tough?

I saw a young man on the street just the other day with his long, gelled hair “fashionably” arranged to resemble the plumes of a bird of paradise. He was wearing something that I could only describe as a skirt, had a shawl draped over his shoulders, and was carrying a “man bag” ladies-style.

Maybe he was a boy scout once and this is the new face of modern machismo, while I’m just a dinosaur left behind in a time warp of disapproval.