A viral video posted to Twitter shows a Chinese woman, who is married to an American man, gloating about buying up all the facemasks across several stores and US supermarkets.
The woman originally posted the video to Douyin–the Chinese equivalent of TikTok–where the woman expresses her contentment at buying all the masks with her compliant husband doing the heavy lifting.
The video was introduced to Twitter with the caption:”A Chinese woman proudly filmed herself buying huge amount of facemasks from multiple US supermarkets and loaded the masks onto her pickup truck.
“It feels so awesome to buy all the masks! I didn’t leave a single mask for the Americans!”
English subtitles added for everyone who would like to understand what she was saying in the video.
The line –
“It feels so awesome to buy all the masks! I didn’t leave a single mask for the Americans!” is the title of this video she posted. pic.twitter.com/Pe7qmlz70i— W. B. Yeats (@WBYeats1865) March 31, 2020
In the translation, the woman reportedly said the following in the video:
“It’s so awesome, 3M masks now have 40 masks per pack. I am so happy, I keep finding masks even when the trailer is attached to my car, I can arrange more masks if I arrange properly.
“Yeah, I’m so happy–so, so, happy! Normally, we look for masks in the paint stores. This time, we went to another place and we found the masks! I am so happy!
“There are more, I will buy one more box.
“People outside the city area are nicer–thank you so much, you are so kind! (She says to an attendant.)
“They still don’t know about the purchase limit on masks. Let me pay and get out of here. I am sweating because I am scared.
“A full shopping cart, I bought all the masks. The shelves are empty; you can see my sweat. I feel hot, I am nervous; I feel like a thief.
“The people here don’t know I drove an hour and a half to central Florida. There are less Chinese here. They still don’t know about the masks.
“Once again, I successfully pay for the masks. It feels so nice. One more full shopping cart.
“The truck is full, I can only move the masks here.”
She later goes onto boast that what she had done was a “historical moment.”
Needless to say, the video stoked social media’s wrath drawing several negative comments over the woman’s selfish actions.
A social media user reportedly tracked down the person in the video. The person involved was reportedly booked for a domestic violence incident in 2018.
— jason Kirkpatrick (@jasonKirkpatri5) April 1, 2020
“While the act itself is contemptible, the way she and many other Chinese are displaying prides in achieving the “taking advantage of others” or “cheating the system” is just disgusting,” remarked a Tweeter.
One commenter reported that a New Yorker landed himself in trouble, mentioning: “A Brooklyn guy just got arrested for hoarding 80000 N95 masks. Selfish greedy people are trying to profit from other’s tragedy, regardless their race. Chinese got really disgusted by her behavior and exposed her.”
The act of buying in bulking for resale abroad has been highlighted by a number of social media posts originating in several western countries.
“They’re called #daigou and they do this to resell in Asia. They do this a lot with baby formula too,” posted one Twitter account.
They’re called #daigou and they do this to resell in Asia. They do this a lot with baby formula too.@laowhy86 and @serpentza both reported on this in January which is why I went to buy my stuff then too.
The daigou had already cleaned out Amazon in January.
— Rachel Stephens 🌈✝️👑 (@RachelNStephens) March 31, 2020