Reflections | The irony of Cathay Pacific discrimination scandal given China’s traditional view of service staff
- Service occupations were widely despised in traditional Chinese society and workers occupied a low social status, not seen to be deserving of respect
- This notion continues in Chinese and many other societies in the present day
While I have never been discriminated against by Cathay Pacific or its staff in all the years that I’ve flown on the airline, I have seen, on more than a few occasions, the shabby way some of its cabin crew treat certain passengers, especially passengers from mainland China.
A passenger recorded the derisive, supercilious remarks made by the flight attendants, who had been talking among themselves in the galley, and posted it on social media, where it quickly went viral.
Understandably, many in the mainland were upset by the condescending attitudes of the cabin crew, and many shared their own similar experience with the airline’s flight attendants.
Some media headlines have described the behaviour purely in terms of linguistic discrimination: the flight attendants were making fun of some passengers because they could not speak English well or at all. This is being disingenuous.