A TikToker has caused a stir online after posting a video about someone who wanted to swap seats with her neighbour on a flight.
Anyone who speaks multiple languages knows the weird satisfaction of being able to communicate with someone without the people around you knowing what you're saying.
However, one woman took that to another level using someone's ignorance of East Asian languages to convince them that she was friends with someone she had just met, so that the lady next to her wouldn't swap seats.
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The TikToker, who goes by the handle not.christinayang, had been travelling on a flight from Hawaii to Seattle when another person approached the row she was on and told the lady sat next to her she wanted to swap seats to be next to her friend.
Her neighbour had been about to acquiesce when she told her to 'sit down Connie!'.
She explained: "We’re in premium economy. We’re like in row eight with all the unlimited drinks and snacks. So the lady next to me is like, 'Oh you know we switch seats? Um, OK, right.'”
"And so she starts getting up and I’m like, no!
"I was like, 'Except for the fact that we are traveling together. Hello? We’re both Asian, of course, we know each other. And 26 is not premium economy... it’s like you can smell the toilet back there".
She added: "The little Asian lady next to me is like half like standing up and… she looks over at me and I go, 'Sit down, Connie!'”
However, the person asking was not convinced that the pair were actually travelling together. So, Christina employed a trick and spoke to the woman next to her in Cantonese, assuming that as the person asking was not Asian, she wouldn't know the difference.
She said: "I look over at the Asian lady next to me and I start speaking to her in Cantonese, which is totally the wrong language for her, but this lady [in 26] is not Asian, so she’s not gonna know the difference."
It seems that her companion immediately caught on. She said: "The Asian lady looks at me and she’s like yeah, and then she responds to me in Japanese. And I’m like, 'Mmhmm, that’s right.'”
The trick appears to have worked as the lady returned to her seat. Christina finished off her video saying that if they had wanted to sit together they should have booked seats next to each other, 'not 20 rows behind'.
Another day, another traveling etiquette battle - when will the people learn?
Kit Roberts