Rant

Mallika Kaup

Published: 10:39pm, 10 May 2014

Last month, a video of a mainland mother clutching a nappy as her toddler squatted and urinated into it on a street in Mong Kok went viral. It's a scene not unfamiliar to parents of young children the world over (when a child's gotta go, a child's gotta go) but the video became yet another flashpoint in what was already a tense relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland. That incident ended in a scuffle, which led to the arrest of the mainland parents and caused an uproar, both online and offline, in Hong Kong and the mainland.

The story I am about to tell you is of yet another child answering the call of nature in public. This time the setting is the Hong Kong international school at which my five-year-old son, A, is a Year One student. A has just finished his first swimming class and I am at the school helping him shower. As he washes, X, a Year One classmate, comes over and asks me if he can join A in the shower. Noticing the little lad is wet and shivering, I say, "Yes, of course". The boys laugh and splash around under the warm water. So far, so fun. Then X turns to his mother (who is most definitely not a mainlander) and asks her something in Cantonese, to which she nods in the affirmative. X then proceeds to pee right there in the shower, through his trunks, with A standing close to him, as I watch, agape. X's mother is looking on with a sheepish smile.

I am horrified. Why would a Hongkonger do that when a urinal is less than 10 steps away? I quickly pull A out of the cubicle.

There is no video - and so that is where the story ends.

Or does it? Might even this little episode get blown out of all proportion?

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Pee-brained

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