An armed fracas broke out on Saturday between a group of eight tourists and waiters in a restaurant in Lijiang, a city in Yunnan Province in southwest China, over an order of soy milk that took a long time before serving.
The group of tourists angrily inquired about the soy milk they ordered, telling the waiters to hasten the delivery of their order. But as the order took time to arrive, trouble broke out between the tourists and the waiters, prompting the intervention of the police, said the Global Times.
The police then left the scene after trying to reconcile the two brawling sides. However, the attempted reconciliation appeared to be in vain after the tourists were attacked by people armed with sticks and knives as they left the place.
Through a Weibo post, the Lijiang Public Security Bureau said that the five attackers were friends of the restaurant owner, who admitted to have been greatly incensed by the tourists' behavior towards the waiters. They singled out one of the tourists, named Zhao, for his violent behavior.
Details on the incident reported by ECNS revealed that the landlady, named Zeng, reported that Zhao shouted at her mother inside the restaurant as he was angry over not having his soy milk served. He then smashed the bowl of beverage on the ground when it was finally given to him.
Zeng's husband, named Wen, was in fact the leader of the group who attacked the tourists, who did so out of anger over the soy milk incident. All five members of the group are currently serving 10- to 15-day administrative detention sentences.
Lijiang has recently attracted negative publicity over its safety for travelers. Last year in November, a woman only identified by her surname Dong was beaten up by 12 men while eating in a restaurant, while a lady backpacker was sexually assaulted by a hotel owner.