Tuesday 7 February 2012

Don't Eat Noodles on the Hong Kong Subway

Language Log is always totally fascinating. Today, Victor Mair's admirably informative post about linguistic aspects of the politics of Hong Kong - a subject I would never otherwise have heard anything about - contains the following aside:

I should mention that Kong's tirade against Hong Kong was prompted by viral videos of a conflict between local passengers on a Hong Kong Metro train and mainlanders who contravened regulations by eating noodles on the subway.
I wonder if it's specifically noodles, or is it eating anything at all that is forbidden on the Hong Kong subway? On the Underground we only have sweet cartoony posters saying "Don't Eat Smelly Food". It would be fairly difficult to eat noodles on the Underground, but I suppose it could be done. Maybe the Hong Kong metro has a smoother ride?

4 comments:

francoise_hardy said...

And was it a Saturday night? I always feel thats an exception to the "Don't eat smelly food" rule - at least, I don't look snootily on the people that do. Just the people eating bananas, because I hate the smell of them with a passion.

Elizabeth Brinton said...

Sounds like the title of a very funny movie.

Sir Fopling Flutter said...

From memory, I think the MTR in Hong Kong prohibits all eating and drinking

Anonymous said...

Even at home, noodles manage to find that internal tube that links my mouth and nose. Naso-pharynx ? Breathing noodles is quite unpleasant. Not what you want on public transport. There is also a Yoga exercise of 'flossing' the nostrils through the mouth, so it's probably harmless. Jalneti ?