You can smooth out the face but you can’t soften the spite. One China woman did, however, try

One woman, two faces. Photo illustration: Just So

It is truly remarkable that in the age of real-time video, there are still those who think they can beautify their way out of a public meltdown. Using a tweaked visage that could be based on a twenty-year-old relative to defend a present-day tantrum isn’t just delusional; it’s an admission that the current self has nothing of value at all to offer. The Chinese woman on the Air Asia flight from Chongqing to Kuala Lumpur going ballistic pre-take-off is the kind of nourishment Malaysia and Singapore needed on a warm and humid weekend. Most on each side of the Causeway would have read, seen, and reacted to the video of her charming ways that have circulated like gossip in a Google campus. Or, knock-off handbags—easily spotted as a fraud, remarkably flimsy under pressure, and ultimately destined for the bargain bin of public disgrace. As it turned out, that private citizen with a loud voice has a very public WeChat habit. The thing is, while she was effectively trying to use a flattering lie to justify an ugly truth by busy fine-tuning her jawline on Weixin, the rest of the world was busy watching the raw footage of her character disintegrating for posterity.

Perhaps few other things are as satisfying as watching social decorum set on fire in a communal hub like an airplane cabin, especially of a budget airline. Not just for the onlookers, but also those viewing it on their social feeds. What stood out to us this time was that the woman allegedly carried a Gucci bag. That was emphasised by Malaysian TikToker Ivy Ng, who referenced it so many times that she eventually called the enraged woman “Gucci Bag Lady”. It should be stated that the authenticity of the bag is not verified. However, it remains true that an expensive bag (or the suggestion of one) is no guarantee of public gracefulness. Often times, the more aggressive your luxury posturing, the more disruptive your behavior. In China, there is a very distinguishable social type: the designer-bag-toting 大妈 (dama or middle-aged woman). At the height of China’s luxury consumption, the Chinese themselves rejected the appeal of Gucci, saying that “even office tea ladies carry them”. The term 大妈 already carries connotations of loudness, assertiveness, and disregard for public order. Add an identifiably Gucci bag, and it becomes a caricature of nouveau riche entitlement. I bought a BYD and I now find walking beneath me.

From this to that: In the cabin and on social media. Original screen shots: X and Douyin respectively

And here we have a dama, except that when she did eventually make it to Malaysia, she shared reels on her socials (insisting that while she may have been loud, she did nothing wrong), not as herself, but an individual, considerably younger and with a dramatic K-beauty makeover. By now, that video of her acting out has racked up more views across China and Southeast Asia than a missed penalty in a World Cup final. Her real face was also clear enough for many to take in. So when she appeared in the reels with the digital facelift, many Netizens were shocked: that aggressive person on the plane was definitely not a chiobu! When she stood up to be escorted out of that Air Asia cabin, everyone saw an older and clearly bedraggled woman. By presenting a fake face to support a fake narrative, she has entered a state of total simulation. Just as her claim of being a China Southern Airlines flight attendant was too. She is no longer just a person; she is a malleable content asset. That face we first saw was the visage of a citizen, an unruly one who had to face the consequences of her actions, but the other one on her reels, that filtered face is the one that was doubling down and saying, “Don’t believe your eyes, and don’t believe the laws of aviation. Believe this beauty I have created for you right here, right now.” Reality is, and has been, merely a first draft waiting for an edit.

If the main character of the reels is good at managing a crisis, the main character of the situation IRL is even better at linguistic inflation. Her major discontent during the inflight fracas was that the flight attendant who came to mediate spoke to her only in English, an international language perfectly acceptable for use on Chongqing soil. She told security personnel who came to understand the situation: “我是China!” The insistence and the defiance were palpable. But what was striking was her total removal of the noun after “China” in that declarative hurl. She would have said in Mandarin, we are certain, “我是中国人”, not “我是中国”. Yet for that moment, she was no longer a quivering being, but a quaking landmass. Citing the motherland, she was claiming a personal identity, but making a geopolitical scream in a moment of genuine shame. There was, of course, something clever at play here. By invoking a country and Asia’s largest by land area (excluding Russia’s Asian portion), she attempted to elevate her personal dispute into a matter of dignity and, ultimately, power. 高射炮打蚊子. She was using anti-aircraft guns to shoot mosquitoes. The missing “人 (ren)” or person is deeply telling. She deliberately erased the human dimension, ignoring the humane, relational aspect of identity. It was the elevation of herself beyond the human, into the untouchable realm of the nation. It was nothing short of bullying, hidden behind a flag.

Just as she was about to be hauled out of the plane. Screen shot: thestraitstimes/YouTube

Linguistic analysis can help us understand how she spoke, but it doesn’t absolve what she did. Holding up a flight for ninety minutes is a serious breach of social responsibility, even when her outburst produced an interesting hybrid phrase. Her brand of rhetorical escalation is not rare. We have seen and heard it before. There seems to be a recurring pattern of entitled behavior among some mainland Chinese travellers who leverage China’s increasing global influence as a defence for poor manners. Last August, in Singapore, one Chinese woman who apparently cut a queue at Universal Studios, screamed at the person who objected to her insolence: “如果没有中国，就没有新加坡”. Without China, there would be no Singapore. When challenged, she later importuned: “如果没有中国人，你妈算个屁!” Without Chinese people, your mother is nothing (using a word that means ‘fart’). To the surprise of no one with a data plan, the incident instantly became China’s newest viral obsession (reportedly over 2.8 million views on some platforms), but what was a tad unexpected was the comment that there was no way Singaporeans or non-mainlanders could “赢得过 (yingdeguo)” or win an angry Chinese woman. Rage is a positive trait.

Despite the national shield and the digital facelift, the woman on that Air Asia flight was essentially a walking 假冒品 (jiamaopin) or counterfeit. She has the ‘labels’—Gucci and China—but everything fell apart at the seams when she was confronted. It’s a fascinating, if bleak, look at how the fandom economy encourages people to abandon their actual selves in favour of a filtered, aggressive persona that can never admit to a discernible fault, while devaluing the very nation they claim to represent by using it to aggressively justify bad behaviour. While the girl with the Gucci-fied gall is currently being marinated in Internet ginger and garlic, she has her defenders who claim that such behaviour is part of survival in China. This woman, later identified by her surname 李 or Li, is, however, not exactly on the streets 混日子 (hunrizi) or muddling through the days. Chinese cyber-detectives have uncovered her not as a high-flying member of a cabin crew, but as ground staff at a Chongqing airport—the very person meant to manage the “checking in and boarding gate” protocols she so angrily ignored. One would think her position requires rudimentary English and a baseline respect for aviation safety, but perhaps in the age of the algorithm, she’s being paid solely for vibes and toponyms. The camera for engagement is always ready to click. And she knew it well.