Once again, Chinese tourists shame their countrymen.
In the latest controversy involving Chinese tourists – a group of mainland travellers have upset Singapore Airlines staff by refusing to hand over 30 sets of stainless steel tableware during a recent flight, Chinese media reported.
That’s from SCMP, which continues:
The Chinese passengers were on a tour of Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. While onboard the Singapore Airlines flight, they had intended to keep the stainless steel knives and forks provided during a meal, the Qianjiang Evening News reported on Tuesday.
The utensils were apparently stainless steel and reusable, so naturally, airline staff weren’t happy. Neither were the tour guides in charge of these wonderful travelers.
The affair finally ended when the guide told the tourists they were hurting China’s image abroad. “Stop hurting the reputation of Chinese people,’’ he said.
Better or worse than getting drunk on a flight and trying to take away a bottle of wine?
For reasons that will not surprise anyone, the behavior of Chinese tourists has been in the news lately. No, it’s not good.
“Why Do Chinese Tourists Have Such a Bad Rep?” goes this Andrew Sullivan blog post (and here’s part two!). Basically, just a bunch of anecdotes of Chinese tourists behaving poorly. Maybe you’ll want to only skim a few lines, lest you get the impression that all Chinese travelers are like this.
Bad apples abound though, as they statistically would when a country sends so many tourists outside their borders every year. In this case, the travelers’ mistake was thinking they could steal in bulk. One or two sets of cutleries wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows. Thirty? Yeah, they’ll stop you then, probably just to make you understand your own stupidity more than anything else.
Chinese passengers anger airline staff by refusing to hand over in-flight tableware (SCMP, h/t Alicia)
Airlines should just give Chinese passengers disposable chopsticks for every meal in the future, regardless of traveling “class” or what kind of meal.
“Steak, pork chops and soup, sir? Here are your kuaizi.”
Then they cry racism.
This story doesn’t surprise me at all but with 100 million predicted to travel in 2015 and 83 million traveling last year… you are bound to have a few bad stories. It takes time to learn how to travel properly.
You’re right. It does take time to learn that theft is not commonly accepted outside of China.
When Americans were the yokels traveling to Europe (maybe they still are), did they steal the in-flight cutlery then instruct their kids to pee…well, everywhere?
Well…
“I’m american citizen and I do as I please”-stories tell you that they weren’t as civilized as you pretend.
“B-b-b-b-but I thought… Mark Rein said… ”
Welcome to China. This is not China Eastern, this is SINGAPORE AIRLINES. That means these tickets were not cheap. May I introduce you to China’s successful, worldly and well-heeled. Granted they aren’t the elite (those are the politicians) but still. Here they are, the highly connected of China.
In North America we might call this behaviour … white trash. Actually, the whole shitting on the elevator thing.. we’ve never seen anything like it. Stealing cutlery? Awesome, you’re literally now parodying every redneck’s first visit to a ‘fancy’ hotel. Don’t forget the towels.
By the way, you do know it’s stealing right? This isn’t culture clash.
I thought the douche of China patsy was Shaun Rein?
This is just ridiculous, and I thought talking loudly and cutting queues was bad enough. I remember I was at Thailand, waiting to board a flight back to Singapore, there was this bunch of Chinese tourists, we were all waiting for the boarding gate to open, everyone else naturally formed a queue, those Chinese tourists just had to be special, the whole line of people seemed invisible to them and they just cut and went in, my mom got angry and told them off ending with, “This is not China”, they looked at us nonchalantly and continued cutting the queue anyway. I don’t particularly hate Chinese tourists, but they always have to be different, I don’t understand.
If they were in Business Class or higher, they should be allowed to keep them.