On social media

PHOTO: WANG XIAOFEI/WEIBO

SCOLDED FOR HIS ACCENT: Chinese businessman Wang Xiaofei, who is married to Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (both above), often shuttles between China and Taiwan.

At about 3am on Wednesday, he posted on China's Twitter-like Weibo a video of him having an altercation with a taxi driver in Taipei. He wrote: "It doesn't matter if I am alone in Taiwan, you can scold and curse me because of my Beijing accent. Taiwan used to be a place powered by love, but it is now full of hatred."

In the video, Wang asked the taxi driver to apologise for using an expletive, but the driver challenged Wang to a fight instead and accused him of being drunk.

Later on Wednesday, Wang deleted the post and video as he wrote in another post: "I have deleted the video and do not want to cause further divisions out of anger... My heart is heavy today, as (Taiwan) is no longer the place I knew from 10 years ago."

Several Chinese netizens expressed their support for him, as they said many Taiwanese now treat the mainland Chinese like enemies.

Wang, 38, and Hsu, 43, have a five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son. Hsu is best known for playing Shancai in hit Taiwanese idol dramas Meteor Garden (2001) and Meteor Garden 2 (2002).

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 17, 2020, with the headline On social media. Subscribe