On Sunday evening, a mainland traveler was spotted squatting over a steaming rice cooker in Terminal 1 of Hong Kong International Airport, preparing his dinner beside one of the airport's 256 electrical outlets adjacent to a branch of Kee Wah Bakery.
Wu Jiayong, a 47-year-old electrician from Shandong Province, had overslept and missed his flight back to Ji'nan earlier that day.
Wu told reporters from Apple Daily that he had gone to work in Singapore to pay for his parents' medical treatment, but was fired after just over a month and was now heading back home empty-handed - save for the rice cooker and bag of rice he'd purchased in the Lion City.
When he awoke from his deep slumber on an HKIA departure hall bench, Wu has to pay out the last of the money he had in his pocket to change his ticket to another flight. After paying agency fees he had to pay to the middleman that arranged for the job in Singapore, sending money home and now changing his ticket, he didn't have a cent to his name and was tired and hungry.
"I have no money! I still haven't eaten anything! I don't have a dollar and I can't get on the plane!"
Hongkongers' usually unforgiving assessment of misbehaving mainlanders was softened by unhappy story behind "Rice Cooker Brother." "Even though he clearly overstepped a line," said one comment, capturing many people's sentiment, "I still really feel sorry for him!"
Wu, who rocketed to local stardom after just a single afternoon in Chek Lap Kok, said that he never ate a single good meal the whole time he was working in Singapore, subsisting on a diet of white rice and pickled vegetables so as to send more money back home to his family.
[Images via Apple Daily]
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