‘Subway judge’: justice warrior who slapped entitled train passenger in face for seat-hogging comments hailed as hero on social media
- Young man listens intently to passengers arguing about seats, then stuns fellow travellers by ending dispute with a slap to protagonist’s face
- Despite his use of physical force, man is hailed as hero on mainland social media after video clips of incident went viral
A young man in China who intervened in a seat dispute on a train and brought the altercation to a stop by slapping one of the protagonists in the face has been dubbed the “subway judge” on mainland social media.
The argumentative incident involved three elderly people, two women and a man, who were quarrelling about who should sit where in a subway carriage in eastern China’s Shandong province on September 4.
Online video footage shows a young man in his 20s coming all the way from the neighbouring subway car to listen to what was going on more closely.
The poster of one online video clip said that the two elderly women sat next to each other were rowing over sitting space when one dramatically accused the other of “occupying two seats”.
The other woman’s husband rose to her defence saying: “We can occupy 10 seats if they are empty.”
At this point, the young man, who had been listening carefully to the argument, decided it was time to act.