We’ve all experienced a flight with a crying baby before, haven’t we?
The piercing noise might be irritating, but empathy for the tiny human, who didn’t choose to be in this stressful situation, usually helps us stay calm.
However, not everyone shows such understanding. In flights across the US, you might hear someone rudely telling the parents to “shut that baby up” or something similar, but in China, two women allegedly took things to an extreme level.
This incident occurred on a Juneyao Airlines flight from Guiyang to Shanghai, a journey that lasts a bit over two hours, on August 24.
It is reported that a grandmother agreed to let two strangers lock her granddaughter, who is just a toddler, in the plane’s toilet to “educate her.”
The situation went viral after one of the strangers, Gou Tingting, recorded the event on her phone and posted it on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok.
The video shows her carrying the little girl, reportedly as young as one, into the plane toilet, locking her in, and allegedly telling her she could only come out if she stopped crying.
Immediately, she was labeled a “bully” as users on the platform defended the child.
One user on the Chinese social media platform Weibo wrote: “We should be thinking about how public spaces can better accept and accommodate young children.”
Another commented: “Children cannot control their emotions when they are one or two years old. What’s wrong with crying? Didn’t you cry when you were young too?”
So, what was the woman’s explanation for her actions?
She stated on her Douyin account, which has since been made private: “I just wanted to calm the child down and let everyone rest.”
She added that she “prefers to take action rather than be a bystander.”
In a statement from Juneyao Airlines, it was confirmed that the child’s grandmother had consented to the strangers locking her in the bathroom.