Hero of the week

Politician fights for his flight

Everyone knows the panic that sets in when you're running late for your flight. You yell at the duty-free saleswoman to hurry up and process your transaction, and you kick small children out of the way on the moving walkway in a race against time to make the boarding gate.

Yan Linkun, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Shizong Committee, endured such a traumatic ordeal on February 21 at Kunming Changshui International Airport. However, rather than accept his fate like a loser, he bravely took a stand.

In front of his two children, Yan unleashed hell during a violent tantrum that saw him smash a computer monitor and keyboard at the check-in counter and try in vain to kick and use a sign to smash a window. His wife also chipped in by waving her finger menacingly at security guards too timid to intervene and smashing other check-in counter items.

A four-minute video of the scene captured by a surveillance camera didn't provide sound, strengthening our suspicion Yan is actually an elite counter-terrorist agent who had received a tipoff there was a bomb on the plane.

Villain of the week

Phantom pregnant commuter

For too long, outdated notions of chivalry, respect for one's elders and sympathy for the disabled and pregnant have hijacked public transport etiquette and forced innocent commuters to surrender their hard-fought seats.

Artificial replicas of pregnant women's abdomens, made of silica gel, are among the hottest must-have accessories for women plotting one of the ugliest acts on Beijing's subway: seat theft.

A Beijing woman, surnamed Zhang, was busted this week wearing a silicone stomach on the subway in an attempt to dupe others into giving up their seat for her.

Fortunately, her ploy was foiled after a belt tying the fake belly to her waist came loose and it fell like a plate of jelly, leading her to be ridiculed by other passengers. The lesson for commuters who spot an allegedly pregnant woman is simple: either study her cup size to see if it corresponds with the "baby bump," or resort to the fail-proof tactic of obliviously staring into your cellphone. If you can't see her, it's not your responsibility to get up.