Before the camera started rolling, the man yelled racist taunts such as, "Do you f---ing speak English?", "Japanese c---s" and "why did you come to Australia?", predominantly at the woman, Heidi said. Racist rant ... a screengrab of the video posted on YouTube. The racist rant shocked Heidi, a 30- year-old office worker of Chinese descent, so she and another passenger told the man to get off the bus and started filming. However, she said she was even more shocked at what came next. "We didn't receive any support from the other passengers," she said.

"Some told us to sit back down and be quiet and everyone just looked really blase. No one did anything about it. In fact, two girls sitting next to me thought it was funny and burst into laughter." "I said 'why is it funny? It's offensive, we should do something about it'." She said the two women who laughed at her, one of whom can be heard on the video speaking to a friend on the phone, were of Aboriginal appearance. "The fact that the Aboriginal girls found it funny that a white male [was] telling another racial group to get out of the country because they don't belong here really puts the icing on the cake," she said. The incident happened at 7.30pm on Easter Saturday at Town Hall on the 470 route from Circular Quay to Lilyfield.

No one did anything about it. In fact, two girls sitting next to me thought it was funny and burst into laughter The State Transit Authority has been contacted for comment. Heidi said she didn't see what provoked the man to start abusing the Asian tourists but it started midway down the bus and continued as the man got up and alighted at the front. At one point, the Asian man apologised to the abusive man in an attempt to pacify him but it only seemed to further enrage him. "The only thing I could think of at the time was to film it," Heidi said.

The incident is the latest in a string of racist rants on public transport to be filmed or shared on social media. In March, a video filmed on a Perth bus showed a woman verbally abusing another woman, who she refers to as Chinese, for speaking in another language. In February, ABC newsreader Jeremy Fernandez tweeted about being called a "black c---" who should "go back to his country" by a female passenger on a Sydney bus. He was told by the bus driver to move seats but refused to. In November last year, footage of a racist attack on a French woman on a Melbourne bus went viral after she was called a dog by male passengers, threatened with having her breasts cut off and told to "speak English or die". Heidi said she had seen a viral video of the Melbourne incident and felt like the scene she witnessed on Saturday was the "Sydney sequel".

"It felt really surreal," she said. "It upsets me when Asians (or any other racial groups for that matter) are the targets of racist abuse. But it disgusts me more when we get told we shouldn't stand up for what's right."