Rumpus at the dinner table leads to a drama in three scenes

you, you should have come to me,” she screams. “You could have beat me. Yes, I admit I was at fault for not keeping my daughter under control. So I can say sorry to you, but how dare you kick a small child.” (Curtains) The ever attentive spectating netizens are of course as fast as ever to take sides, and to cast votes or cast stones. In this enterprise two other parties also take up the cudgels on opposing sides, mainstream media, which seem to side with Song, and social media, which predominantly side with the student.

Many internet users give their moral support to the young woman, saying there are too many spoilt children around misbehaving in public. Had they been in the student’s place they would have lashed out with a foot, too, they say.

“If parents can’t teach their own children, others are going to have to do it,” one says.

“What this mess shows is that both the mother and the student lack basic family education,” one of my friends chips in. “It’s what many Chinese lack.”

What is clear in all of this is that some Chinese tend to be unaware of their social surroundings, and some parents always find excuses for their misbehaving children, saying they are too young to know any better.

Of course, the mother ought to have given her daughter lessons on how to behave in public, and the student ought to have complained to the mother about the rumpus rather than taking it out on a chair or a child. And of course the mother should not have hit the young woman or the waiter.

Children will always misbehave, but there really must be limits.

In this tale only three players seem to have come out with any credit: the waiter who tried to keep the women apart, the police who seem to have acted perfectly as peacemakers, and that chair.