In the mainland Chinese drama series (set 1977–92) I've been watching, the eldest of the three children living in the same courtyard, now a post-grad student (therefore early 20s), is out having dinner with two colleagues.
He gets paged by his cousin on his bleeper, and phones the cousin. Turns out to be a situation at home: his younger sister (still an undergrad student) has got married secretly and is found out by their parents.
He goes back to the dinner table, stressed out, and orders a dozen bottles of beer (on top of the three bottles they've already started on).
The eatery manageress tells him off, "Have you just broken up with someone or what? I'll give you three bottles for now."
Throughout this series, there're instances of people being very ready to tell people off, especially (but not exclusively) if they (the receiving party) are the younger generation.
I myself have been at the receiving end in 厦门 / Xiamen (S.E.China, 2011) and 嘉義 / Chiayi (S.Taiwan, 1998), for asking a question that the two tellers-off felt was a stupid one -- that it's general knowledge, expecting me to know, because I look like a mainlander or Taiwanese.
The culture seems to allow older people who are not a relative to tick off the party who has misbehaved, much more than it is the case in the West. I'm personally in favour of this, as I've seen all too many youngsters over here who've been allowed to get away with atrocious selfishness and lack of respect for other people.
(mainland China, c.1990)
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