A Little Trouble With The Law

Some people have asked me if the policeman in the pix was being nice to a tourist and posed for a picture. Actually, there's quite a bit more to it.

When got to Tsim Sha Tsui MTR for the first time to catch a train, the ladies got down to buying tickets as the rest of us huddled around the ticket machine. Notes and coins were passed around and soon tickets were distributed. I took my blue ticket and went towards the fare gates. One set of gates looked crowded, so I moved ahead to another set of gates ahead, alone. Once through, Mr Policeman came up to me.
"Excuse me, wait please", he asked in a stern tone "Are you from Hong Kong?".
"No, I am a tourist", I replied.
"Do you speak English?"
"Yes"
"Can I see your passport?"
I fished out my passport and hand it over. I figured this was routine (given the heightened terrorist alert status around the world, and I clearly look dangerous) and I had not done anything wrong.
"You are using the wrong card. This is a concession card, for children and elder people."
"Oh! I didn't know. My friends bought the same tickets also."
At this point he realised that I was not alone. He had assumed because I had entered the transit zone on my own. All this while, my friends were taking snaps of my encounter with Mr Policeman, shamelessly, not coming to my aid.

Conversing in Cantonese, Serene and Cheryl explained the situation and that we were all in trouble, not just poor old foreign me.

So we all got out and bought new tickets. Evidently, someone hit the concession card button the fare screen the first time around. So we re-did our entry and Mr Policeman also came around to help us out. He was less serious this time and in fact a little jovial. In his small talk, one could tell he was slightly apologetic. In Cantonese, he said "Pat tat, pat siong sek" which roughly translates to "Don't fight, don't get to know better". Wow, he probably felt he was too brusque with me and felt bad. I told him that was just doing his job and that it was ok.