News

Woman in Viral Video Scolding Bus Captain Responds; Says Video Was Edited to Make Her Look Bad

2022-03-18 , 12:35 pm

On 13 March, a seven-second video of a woman yelling at a bus driver was posted on the Singapore Incidents Facebook page and widely viewed and shared online.

At the time of writing this article, the video has accumulated 110,000 views, and has been shared more than 2,200 times.

In the short video, a Chinese lady in a floral blouse and shorts was captured, shouting in mostly Chinese, “You’re a bus driver; we don’t owe you anything!”

Although it’s barely visible in portrait mode, the Chinese woman is standing in front of a baby pram.

The Video Taker’s Perspective

The person who posted the video also attached an explanation of the situation in the description, stating that the bus driver had signalled and asked for the helper with the pram to “wait” (等一下) in Chinese because there was an elderly in a wheelchair alighting first.

From the video uploader’s perspective, it seems that the helper didn’t understand, so she called out to her employer with the address of “Mum”.

They continue to write that the foreign Chinese lady “kept shouting and raising her voice to the bus driver”.

Afterwards, the person uploading the video indirectly points out that the Chinese lady was being self-entitled, as they remark that the Chinese lady wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere if it were not for the existence of bus drivers.

This incident took place at 332 Sumang Walk, Punggol.

Ms Wang: The Narrative Was Misconstrued

The mother featured in the video, who chose to be referred to as Ms Wang, went onto Channel 8 News & Current Affairs to explain the full circumstances that led up to that short seven-second video clip.

The 34-year-old Ms Wang felt that it was necessary to clarify the situation because the entire situation has been construed from the literal perspective of the video taker.

Ms Wang stated that the incident happened on Sunday (13 mar), around 11am to 11:30am at Block 332B Sumang Walk bus stop.

At that time, Ms Wang had been with her other three family members, and their helper.

After the bus came to a halt, she was going to step on the bus with her older son and husband from the front door, but the doors to the bus weren’t open yet.

Meanwhile, her helper and her infant daughter were standing further back in order to board the bus from the back.

“I looked back from my position (at the front door), and I could see that my helper wasn’t standing in the middle of the door, she was standing at the side of the door. She was checking if anyone was stepping off, but she didn’t see anyone, so she was prepared to push the baby pram onto the bus.”

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An Obligation to Protect Her Children as Their Mother

Ms Wang continued to recount that her helper saw that there was movement on the bus and thought that some passengers were alighting, so she pulled back the baby pram. Her helper tried to get on the bus a few times, but she didn’t get on in the end.

The whole time, all Ms Wang could hear from the bus captain in the bus was this: “You wait for a moment” in Chinese. This was repeated to Ms Wang and her family two to three times, in a very loud voice.

Despite being outside and standing at the front, Ms Wang recalled that she could hear it very clearly and it gave her a fright because she didn’t know what was going on.

“I could feel that my helper and children were frightened too,” Ms Wang adds.

Ms Wang continued to say that her helper couldn’t see where the bus captain was at during both calls, nor did she catch a glimpse of the wheelchair on the bus.

As a mother, she felt that she had the obligation to step forward and protect her children. “I just felt that my family members, my children had all been given a scare. The bus captain only walked down after the third time, telling us that a wheelchair needed to get off.”

At this time, Ms Wang tried to talk to the bus captain reasonably, saying, “Why couldn’t you speak properly? Why must you shout? Why didn’t you tell us that there was a wheelchair that was going to alight? And then the later seven-second video clip happened.”

The Video’s Virality Has Affected Her Life

Ms Wang expressed that the argument arose because the bus captain had touched her bottom line. If she hadn’t been so incensed by the bus captain’s initial poor attitude, she wouldn’t have reacted with such anger.

She also noted that the bus captain’s attitude only improved slightly when she requested for the bus captain to pull up the CCTV footage.

Towards the recorded line of “You are a bus driver, we don’t owe you anything”, Ms Wang explained: “What I was trying to say was that you’re a bus captain, you should know what you need to do. You should have informed [us] that a wheelchair was alighting, and there was no need to yell at us, we don’t owe you anything.

“It takes two hands to clap, if she didn’t yell at us first, we wouldn’t have done anything.”

Ms Wang believes that the bus captain must have gone through training and should understand that the passengers need to be informed that a wheelchair was alighting first, instead of constantly telling them to “wait” from inside the bus, because the passengers outside the bus would have no way of knowing what was happening inside.

Video Taken Out of Context

Moreover, she doesn’t understand why that netizen only recorded and shared that last portion, instead of uploading the entire proceeding on the internet.

“[They] have taken it out of context, what are they trying to gain from this. They are attacking my reputation, and I can no longer live a normal life.”

Ms Wang revealed that she had asked for the video to be taken down, but from the Facebook description of the video, the video uploader had seen her request as a “threatening message”.

Image: facebook.com (Singapore Incidents)

Additionally, Ms Wang has been blacklisted by the video uploader since then.

Hence, she lodged a formal report to the police on Monday (14 Mar).

The police have received her complaint, and they are currently investigating the incident.