From previous posts, you will have gathered that I find Chinese tourists a little irritating at the best of times. There were a few times during the National Day holidays that really made me dislike Chinese tourists even more so. It’s not just the following the flag and the cheesy poses in front of tourist hot spots. It’s not just the way they think they can hike 25km wearing high heels, or the way that they think they may starve so feel the need to carry a week’s supply of snacks on a 2 hour walk. It’s the noise, rudeness and the lack of respect for others.
Crowds at the Summer Palace
You assume that most people visit beautiful areas to appreciate the nature and the stillness that nature normally brings. Not so in China. Loud chattering, shouting at the top of their lungs and playing stereos are all part of a visit to a Chinese place of natural beauty.
Crowds near Tiananmen Square
About half way down my descent of Huang Shan, I felt like I had entered a Chinese nightclub. So, curious and prepared to be unsurprised if I did stumble across a nightclub (after all, there were several basketball courts at the summit!), I carried on. As I walked around the corner, I didn’t discover a nightclub, just a middle aged Chinese man carrying a small stereo on his day trip to the mountain. This is fairly common in China, however even the Chinese tourists around him were not happy with the noise. Interestingly, despite their grumpy looking faces, no one said anything. Enter laowai wearing a yellow poncho and a death stare. I marched up to the offender, shaking my head like a grumpy old lady, and very firmly said, “Bu hao” (“Not good”) whilst pointing to his stereo. To my surprise, he turned it off! There was a peaceful silence (for a little while at least!)
'Leave nothing behind but your footprints and take nothing away but your memorable experience' ...... oh and don't forget to leave your rubbish on the mountain!
The thing that bugs me the most during day to day life here in China was compounded on holidays. “Hellllooooo!”, “Nihao!”, “Laowai” are frequently said to foreigners, all in a ‘I’m taking the piss out of you’ kind of way. It really annoys me and I was so sick of it at the end of my few days on the mountain that my standard response became “Nihao, wo ming bai! Ni ming bai (insert rude comment) ……….. “Hello, I understand you. Do you understand (rude comment)?” Extremely rude I know, but it sure shut them up. The interesting thing was that it was only men in groups saying this and they stopped saying it as soon as I found a fellow single traveller to walk with who interestingly commented that he had not had the same problem.
Danger! No climbing!
I know that China is a developing country but in the more developed cities and tourist areas, I find this behaviour is downright rude and racist. In Australia, can you imagine if we went up to an Asian person and pointed at them, whilst sniggering and saying “Look! An Asian!” It just wouldn’t happen. I feel uncomfortable even just thinking about it.
Follow the flag .... and the yellow poncho!
Now, I’m sure that all Chinese tourists are not like this and I understand that there are differences between cultures, so I apologise for the generalisations that I have made here in this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment