A video screengrab shows passenger David Dao being dragged off a United Airlines flight at Chicago O'Hare International Airport in this video filmed by @JayseDavid April 9, 2017. Jayse D. Anspach via REUTERS
By Mai Nguyen | HANOI
Outrage spread to Vietnam on Wednesday over United Airlines' handling of a passenger dragged from his seat after it emerged that the 69-year-old U.S. doctor was Vietnamese by birth.
Although United Airlines has no direct flights to Vietnam, there were widespread calls on social media for a boycott after video showed a bloodied David Dao being yanked out of the plane by airport security on Sunday to make way for United employees.
The ire in Vietnam grew quickly after it was reported that Dao's origins were not in the Southeast Asian country's old enemy, China, as many had at first assumed.
Vietnamese also fumed at allegations over Dao's past reported in the United States as irrelevant and possibly racist.
"Watching this makes my blood boil, I'll never fly United Airlines," commented Anh Trang Khuya on Facebook, the most widely used social media platform in Vietnam.
Nguyen Khac Huy wrote: "Boycott United!!! This is excessive! Let's be loving and united, Vietnamese people!"
There was no immediate comment from the government or in state media.
Video showing Dao being pulled from United Airlines Flight 3411 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport on Sunday went viral and the worldwide backlash hit the airline's share price and prompted an apology from the company chief executive.
Kentucky's medical board website shows that a doctor David Dao graduated in 1974 in Ho Chi Minh City - then known as Saigon and the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam before its defeat and the reunification of Vietnam under communist rule a year later.
Around that time, Dao left for the United States, according to U.S. media and Vietnamese websites.
Vietnamese media said that Dao was also a songwriter and crooner of soulful ballads - including one about the memory of rain falling in Saigon.
Reports in U.S. media of an offence that had led to Dao losing his medical license in 2003 were dismissed in Vietnam as a probable smear campaign.
"Dr. Dao didn't do anything wrong on that flight and that's the main thing," wrote Clarence Dung Taylor in a post that had more than 4,000 likes.
The attitude to the case shifted dramatically in Vietnam once it was reported that Dao was not from China - an ancient enemy with which Vietnam continues to have a maritime dispute over the South China Sea.
When initial reports had suggested the man being dragged from the plane was Chinese, some Vietnamese had posted strongly unsympathetic comments about him.
"So funny," wrote Bui Nguyen Trong Nghia. "Now they know he's Vietnamese, most people stand up to advocate. Whether it's Vietnamese or Chinese, there'll be discrimination as we're Asian."
(Writing by Matthew Tostevin; Editing by Robert Birsel)
9 comments:
If the dragged passenger were a Khmer, would there be any outrage spread to Cambodia?
......This is a violation of passenger's right!! ........
......Well this be the norm how corporate treat their customers?....And get away with it...,..?...?...it seem to be so....Urrrrrrrrr
I remember coming back from Cambodia in 2013 at MN Pl airport-------I knew nothing of Boston Bombing until I got a rude awaking for leaving my bags unattended to go to bathroom. The so called "security" jerks acted like jerks alright. They threaten to keep my bags if it happens next time______! Also while in the air two passengers are at each other throats from Korea to USA like spoil brats, they were adults.
Oh, did you hear about some Asian ladies from California going somewhere to a . . airbnb [Bed N Breakfast] to be refused after they almost near their destination because of their race? Well people, accept racism as part of life no matter what the politicians would otherwise tell us. Laws will not erase racism.
1:58 am
Definitely for sure !!!
No!
The answer is no. That was nothing compare what khmer have seen/experience under somdach archko Hun Sen regime.
10:41 am
You should not draw similar analogy here.
Dictator &Traitor Hun Sen is mass murderer.
Draw an objective reference.
The US Congress Transportation Commitee and the
FAA should fine-tune the Passengers Bill of Rights.
8:40 am
And stop kidding yourself, were they outrage when their countrymen/women were being mistreated in Thailand and Malaysia.
Besides they need to ask permission from the dick-head, Sar Kheng, to be outrage or they are at risk of being thrown in jail
The people may be outrage, but for Hun Sen, he enjoys seeing Khmer oversea mistreated.
That Vietnamese American is a RESPONSIBLE father of 5, with a DUTY for a patient waiting to see him at the end of the flight.
He is a DOCTOR and 69 year old, which mean he should be respectable as an elder.
I am sure if a Khmer American who successfully raises 5 children, accomplishes as a Doctor, at age 69 would command the same outrage as that Vietnamese American.
The key here is: Being a Docter has its own prestige, trust, sympathy.
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