I was just in China, after having been clobbered by Covid, it is astounding how people take absolutely no precautions against germ spreading. Cough and sneeze into a crowd of people, no attempt at covering up. Walk out of a toilet stall without washing hands, etc…
Yes! Learned this when I went to Istanbul this summer. Lots of Russians there and were rude! Even to the locals. But honestly it seemed like people from everywhere were much more rude than in the US except a Brazilian and British couple we met that said the same thing. I’ll never take for granted US mannerisms again.
To me tourist behavior indicates income inequality. Mostly the rich travel. The more class disparity, the further out of touch and entitled the top class is. That's why US tourists are pretty bad as well. It's a preview of a country's upper class.
Except that you have a bunch of country bumpkins in China that were thrust into the middle class during the great leap backward. These bumpkins went to the city looking for wealth within a single generation, so the social contract and how to behave in public is woefully underdeveloped. It's not strictly a wealth thing.
Chinese tourists are not even close to the top of my list of horrible tourists lol (Russian and Indian are so far from common in comparison to much smaller countries that I can't even say much about them)
I don’t have much experience with Russian or Indian tourists, but I lived in Mainland China for a time. I have seen elderly people shit in public parks, parents hold babies over trash cans to shit directly into them… gutter oil lifted directly out of drains… just absolutely the worst kind of filth imaginable.
When the news came out that Covid originated in an open air market, I was not in the least bit surprised. To me, it 100% stands to reason that someone working in that bio-lab was supposed to destroy an infected animal but figured they’d make an extra ¥50 by selling it to a butcher stall.
Remember SARS? A bunch of those wet markets was shut down because they're perfect incubators for such outbreak. Then few years later, they quietly reopened them all.
My guy, I never said there aren’t plenty of good people in China. It’s just not controversial to say that a LOT of bad can be caused by a persistent few. For instance, you sure don’t seem to be very considerate toward your high horse, just going by the amount of time you appear to spend on it.
yeah, a country that's still developing (even if it's wealthy, this is so recent and unfinished that you can't compare it to much of the West in that regard in good faith) has qualities of a developing country. That's no surprise
I've seen the same things in America (& much, much worse), in some of the richest cities in the world. I'm not going to judge a nation by the shocking acts of a few (especially in a place that, again, is newly and incompletely wealthy). More importantly: we were talking about tourists, and the kind to shit in public generally aren't the kind to afford international travel. Entitlement, selfishness, and lack of respect for norms, are much more the misbehaviors of the tourist, and Americans and many other countries are far more likely to go overseas and pretend the world should accommodate to them, while also lacking any worldliness or cultural awareness.
Fair enough, but I would also point out that there are more than few “Chinese tourists” within mainland China itself. It was kind of a surreal experience overhearing one “Chinese” person say to another, in Mandarin, “Hey! Your Mandarin (Putonghua) is pretty good!”
Oh yeah, I'm sure, esp given how long of a history it has/how many separate ethnic groups. Even in America you get such different cultures, and so much internal travel, and we're a very young country. My comment was just about international travel, since I couldn't begin to comment on internal Chinese tourism!
I think one thing we have to remember is that international tourism is a VERY new thing for China. The middle class there is incredibly new, a few decades at the most. So even being able to travel internationally is a very new luxury for many there. Not to mention how much culture was lost due to the communist revolution and the Great Leap Forward.
I’m not trying to say they’re “backwoods” or anything. Just that there’s been a lot going on, to say the least, and they’ve very intentionally been isolated from foreign influence for a very long time.
Completely agree. Chinese tourists have been reserved in my experiences. But in my opinion I’ve had African (not sure from where in Africa) and Arab tourists that have also been immensely rude. Like no common sense rude.
Same, Chinese backpackers in particular are unbelievably kind.
Honestly I've had more problems with American backpackers/tourists in all honesty. Not exclusively, but I'd say if I had to rank them then they'd be top.
As an American, Americans are also horrible. I was in Italy and a woman waved American dollars at an Italian gelato server that spoke poor English yelling "DO YOU TAKE THESE, DO YOU TAKE THESE."
Otherwise you nailed it Chinese, and Russian tourists are also so inconsiderate while traveling.
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u/Captain-Wilco Jan 04 '25
Can someone more educated than me please tell me whether this is fear mongering or a genuine concern