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Man confronts Asian women at Greater Vancouver rapid transit station

Man claiming to be a lawyer demands to know why the women were not speaking English.
Man at Richmond skytrain
A video of a man telling people to speak English at a Richmond skytrain station has been posted to social media

A video posted on social media appears to show a Caucasian man making racist remarks towards an Asian women at a Richmond Canada Line station.

In the video, the man, who claims to be a lawyer, demands to know why the women were not speaking English, making references about Japan, even though they appear to be of Chinese ethnicity.

TikTok user Donna Lu recorded the video at Brighouse station on Sunday, where the masked man was seen asking one of the women where she was from.

It appears to be the same man who confronted a group of Asian students in Vancouver about two years ago, and the same man who made racist remarks towards anti-racism protesters at Brighouse station last year.

@donnamlu “You’re in Canada you should speak English” “You move to Japan, you can speak Japanese” #racist #yvr #richmond #vancouver ♬ original sound - Donna Lu

On Sunday, when the Asian woman responded she was from Canada, the man then asked where her friend was from and where she lived.

When Lu spoke up, calling the man "a racist" he defended himself, claiming not be racist.

During the interaction, the Asian woman calmly told the two parties to not fight in an attempt to de-escalate the situation.

"Excuse me? I'm a lawyer," said the man in the video, adding that his "mother tongue is French" and that he was "born, raised and educated here."

Lu then told the man that he didn't have "the right to tell people" what language they could speak in, to which he replied with "if we have to bend over backwards to accommodate, then that's a problem. Why do we have to bend over backwards? You move to Japan, you speak Japanese."

The encounter eventually ended with the man taking his bicycle towards the elevator as Lu accompanied the Asian women up the escalator to the platform.

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