A woman dining at a stew While sitting in a restaurant in China, the tables were literally turned when her unremarkable meal fought back, sending her into a painful seizure.
The moment was captured on video and posted to a TikTok account that documents food and rural life in China. In the minute-long clip, which has been viewed nearly five million times, the woman can be seen picking up the animal by its antennae — her first mistake — and attempting to drop it into a pot of boiling broth, along with a cluster of crab claws.
But when the shrimp wriggled out of her grasp, she tried to grab it with a pair of chopsticks. On her second attempt, the shrimp grabbed hold of her right wrist with one of its front appendages, and when she tried to pull it off, she managed to impale her left finger.
As the poor woman screamed in pain, a second person, who appeared to be a restaurant employee, came to her aid off-camera. But the shrimp was really hooked and it took about 50 agonizing seconds to get it loose, with her screaming and crying the entire time.
The woman’s ordeal didn’t garner much sympathy in the comments, however, as many fell squarely on Team Shrimp’s side. “Good for that shrimp!! He didn’t get away without a fight,” one commenter wrote, while another added that they were cheering for the shrimp. “When food attacks back,” another user joked.
As many commentators have also pointed out, the shrimp in question was most likely a mantis shrimp. The carnivorous species have powerful predatory appendages that they use to attack and kill their prey, either by impaling, stunning, or maiming them. In fact, mantis shrimp are sometimes called “thumb splitters” because of their ability to inflict painful wounds if not done carefully, as this woman no doubt learned the hard way.
But despite the inherent dangers of handling them, mantis shrimp are eaten in many parts of the world, including China, Japan, the Philippines, and the Mediterranean. They are prized for their sweet-tasting meat, which is more like that of lobster. Of course, there is a reason we don’t touch lobsters with our bare hands, and anyone attempting to prepare live mantis shrimp should exercise extra caution.
