FROM opening emergency exits on planes while mid-flight to defecating as they please and destroying toilet facilities, tourists from China have gained a reputation of notoriety and boorish manners.
So much so, that China has come down hard on its own citizens by putting in place tough tourism laws that target these badly-behaved tourists in a bid to improve the country’s image. Those found messing up, so to speak, will face criminal charges in China’s courts of law.
And boy does China mean business. A woman was recently taken to court in China for opening the emergency exit on a Seoul-bound plane while it was moving.
The woman probably didn’t know it then, but her simple act of opening an emergency door cost an economic loss of approximately RM19,600, which accounts for a four-hour delay on the flight, and disrupted airport operations and rectification works for the emergency slide which was deployed when she turned the handle.
This lady is the first person in China to face criminal charges for endangering public safety in a tourism-related incident. If found guilty, the lady faces face between three and 10 years in jail.
The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) has also made it a point to go after badly behaved tourists who have tarnished the country’s image and to teach them a lesson. The CNTA will be keeping a list of Chinese nationals who are reported to have violated order on public transportation, damaged public facilities or historical relics, and ignored social customs at international tourism destinations.
We have heard of many other cases involving tourists from China. The famous White Temple in Chiang Rai, northern Thailand had to resort to building separate toilets for
non-Chinese tourists, just because, and according to a temple official, tourists from China “defecated on the floor, urinated on the walls outside and left sanitary pads on the wall of the bathrooms”. Just imagine that.
There were many other cases which made international headlines. The infamous throwing of hot water at an AirAsia flight attendant by a Chinese national in December last year, and the Chinese teenager who scratched his name on the wall of an ancient temple in Egypt in 2013, just to name a few.
A friend who works as a local tour guide in Sarawak recounts his experience with tourists from China at the Semenggok Wildlife Centre during feeding time for the orang-utans.
“They totally ignored the park official’s advice and warnings not to be noisy, despite being reminded many times by their translator, they had no interest in observing the orang-utans and went on chatting at the top of their voices and calling out to one another. Tourists from other nations were rolling their eyes and even reprimanding them, but they could not be bothered! And they indiscriminately tossed their tissues on the ground!”
Another friend quipped that this particular group of tourists may have been disappointed to find out that ‘feeding time’ did not mean that they get to dine on orang-utan meat.
The phenomenon of badly behaved tourists from China has even become the subject of study by academicians and faculties in universities. Reasons given for such bad behaviour were that these handful of tourists were uneducated, ignorant and also impatient.
Chinese tourism expert Wang Xinbin stated that these tourists were prone to bad behaviour, which included speaking loudly, spitting in public and queue-cutting because “many Chinese tend to focus more on their own interests and convenience without considering how their actions might impact others”.
How true. The Eye recently observed a tour group in town who were doing the very things that this expert mentioned – spitting, talking loudly and totally disregarding those around them.
Eye do not mean to stereotype or seem racist towards tourists from China. The sad thing is, there are many educated Chinese tourists whom the Eye met who are well mannered and have a genuine interest in appreciating our diverse culture and beautiful nature here in Sarawak.
The government of Sarawak too, seems to be building on economic ties through industrial investments and tourism with China.
There should be some way to entice quality tourists to Sarawak, instead of those who merely jump on to a cheap tour package to go jalan-jalan and expect to dine on exotic meat. We do not need their ‘cheap’ money. We do not want to see our tourism sector go to the extent that the temple officials in Chiang Rai had to go to just to cater to these obnoxious tourists.
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