Without grandparents or other forms of child care, many running their own restaurant in China can only bring their young children to work with them. Most, however, do not then tie them up to prevent them wandering off. Most of them, that is.
It was in Nanjing’s Pukou District that on 13 January, a child was seen tied up in a noodle shop which was experiencing its evening peak in demand.
To prevent the child, a young boy, from getting lost, the shop owner had tied him to the leg of a table with a rope.
The incident went viral on the Chinese internet after a customer at the restaurant captured the toddler in his predicament on video.
The video was published yesterday, 18 January, by media outlet, The Paper, and can be seen via this link and on that publication’s YouTube channel.
Tied to a Table with a 1-Metre-Long Cord
With one end of the cord tied to the table and the other to the child’s arm, it can be clearly seen in the video that the young lad may only stray as little as half a metre from the table.
In a telephone interview with local media, the customer said he had gone to the noodle shop for a bite to eat at about 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening. He found that the shop was very busy with a long queue.
Commenting that he interacted with the child for a short while, the customer also said that he found the boy to be very sensible, although he felt very sad to see such a scene.
Just as in many western countries long ago, the physical abuse of children in China was in the past quite commonplace. As to the noodle shop owner’s actions, while nothing can condone them, that the incident has captured so much public attention is indicative that the Chinese now have no appetite for such occurrences.
