A 63-year-old Beijing woman who claimed to be Manchurian royalty has been detained for verbally abusing passengers on a bus with “discrimination language”.
The behaviour was captured on video by another passenger and showed the woman, identified by the surname Wen, sitting on a bus shrieking and calling a younger woman a “beggar”.
Wen initially became angry with the other woman for not acting quickly enough to give up her seat for her.
“You filthy people from outside Beijing. You came here to beg for food. What are you arrogant about?” Wen said in the video.
“I look down on those from outside Beijing. You have low civilisation qualities,” she went on to say. “You don’t even take an initiative to offer seats for people who are old, weak, sick or disabled.”
According to a witness, Wen shouted “offer a seat to me” upon getting on the bus. But she did not appear disabled.
“I am a member of Plain Yellow Banner. Look, I have a tongtian wrinkle here,” said Wen, taking off her hat and pointing to her forehead to show a wrinkle.
The Plain Yellow Banner is one of the eight banner groups that Manchurian families were divided into before the Manchu founded Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was established. This social and military structure was abolished following the fall of the last emperor of China 1912.
The branch the woman belongs to, the Plain Yellow Banner, was a privileged group because they were directly led by the emperor. It is said that descendants of the Plain Yellow Banner have a vertical tongtian wrinkle on their forehead.
Beijing Public Transportation Police said on Tuesday that Wen had been put under administrative detention for using discriminatory language multiple times towards other passengers on board the bus.
