The story narrated in Chinese-style discipline: 01 (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/12/chinese-style-discipline-01-mainland.html), about the mainland Chinese eatery manageress telling off the post-grad student for ordering a dozen bottles of beer, reminds me of what I'd witnessed on a Singapore Airlines flight back to Singapore in 1993.
I was in the aisle seat of the right hand row of three seats. The middle row had five seats, and there were three in the left hand row. There were two aisles.
Not long after take off, the drinks trolleys came round.
I then heard the air hostess in the aisle between the left hand row and the middle row of seats say to two white boys (mid-teens?): "You want a beer?! Where's[sic] your parents?!"
I worked out that the parents were smokers, seated at the back of the plane, so the boys were taking the opportunity to have some alcohol. (Or maybe they didn't even need their parents to be out of the way for that, as I've seen Western parents, British ones anyway, allowing their below-age children to drink alcohol at parties. I've also seen French people allowing children as young as ten to drink diluted red wine.)
A few more hours into the flight and the plane was going through some turbulence. The signs for fastening the seat belts lit up, and the air hostesses went round checking.
The next thing was: I heard the same air hostess say to the teenage boys, "Can you not see that the Fasten Seat Belt signs are on?! Fasten your seat belts! Do you want a slap?" (Of course, this last bit, even if only as a verbal warning, wouldn't be allowed nowadays, even if the boys had been guilty of refusing to fasten their seat belts, which obviously they were.)
(en route to Singapore, 1993)
