They numbered about 30 and entered the exposed eatery, overlooking the majestic Andaman Sea, amid a cacophony of Cantonese. They were mainland Chinese tourists.

I was sitting at a small rattan dining table, on a rattan chair, with my lover, Heidi. The only other diners were a conservative-looking, middle-aged German couple and two young Frenchmen, who were ostentatiously gay.

The Chinese attacked the breakfast buffet with an aggression that was in conflict with the tranquil beachside setting and the equally serene Thai staff. Plates were thrust into bain maries, like excavators, to scoop up food.

Thailand's beloved late king, Bhumibol, looked on, rather sternly, from a large gold-framed portrait hung on a wall. Buddha, in the form of a large gold statue, looked somewhat pensive.

Wow. You don't see that every day, I thought.

"I'm not sure what to make of this," Heidi whispered.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's just their culture. They no doubt consider some western traits to be strange or off-putting." I looked at my wristwatch. "Now, eat up. I've got a rub and tug booked for 9.30am."

"What did you say?"

Oh f**k. Did I say that out loud?

"You bastard!"

The Germans and the Frenchmen glanced at us.

"Take it easy," I said to Heidi. "I was joking. Obviously. Ah, come on. Don't be like that. Sit down. Please."

Heidi passed a 40-something man entering the restaurant. He was jiggly fat in shorts and a red Hawaiian shirt, his neck jowl wobbly jelly.

"Get outta the way, people!" he said. "I'm starvin'."

Telling the Chinese to part was twofold problematic: it's unlikely they understood him, and they were a group of hungry Chinese at a buffet. So, Moses parting the Red Sea without God's help would have been more likely. They observed him with a detached curiosity, then resumed loading up.

Unfortunately for the Chinese, their willfulness was trumped when the man mutated into his true self - a most destructive and hideous creature: the pro-mining, climate change-denying, anti-vaccination politician - who, in this case, was George Christensen.

The poor Chinese plebs didn't stand a chance: the ones who didn't flee in time, or weren't harmlessly shunted aside, were trampled on as he ferociously and grotesquely grabbed handfuls of food and shoved it into his mouth. It was a nauseating, one-man feeding frenzy that included him picking up bain maries and pouring the contents over himself - prompting the German woman to gibber like a crazy person, the Frenchmen to run from the restaurant and three of the Thais to cry.

When Christensen stopped gorging, he stood in the middle of the room like a soldier following an ancient battle. Except instead of blood and gore, he was covered in tomato sauce and food. He wiped his mouth with the back of the wrist, belched longer and louder than I thought possible, hawked up a big gross glob, and leaned back and disgorged like a fire hose.

Mark Bode is an ACM journalist. He uses satire and fiction in commentary.