Charles Kirtley

    cek100248@hotmail.com

    THERE has been a rash of news lately about bad behavior of Chinese tourists abroad. They’ve been criticized for being rude, loud, poor tippers and generally obnoxious. Most of the criticism, it seems, comes from other Chinese who are embarrassed by the behavior of their countrymen. Some call it uncivilized behavior.

    I disagree. If a Chinese person disrupts a restaurant by talking too loudly, it doesn’t mean he’s uncivilized. It means he talks too loudly, nothing more. If a Chinese fails to leave a gratuity it means there is no tipping in China and the practice is unfamiliar to the tourist.

    By now, most people have heard the story of the 15-year-old Chinese boy who scratched his name onto a 3,500-year-old temple in Egypt’s Luxor. The incident has created a furor worldwide, especially in China, unlike some of the more minor offenses. But it hardly means that all Chinese are anxious to damage ancient relics. It’s nothing more than poor behavior by an individual.

    There was another story in the news recently about an American tourist breaking a finger off a 600-year-old statue in Florence, Italy. Was breaking the statue an example of uncivilized behavior? Of course it was. Does that mean all American tourists are uncivilized? Of course not.

    Money is the great unequalizer, and according to an unsigned article that appeared in British publication “The Corner,” 83 million Chinese travelers spent US$102 billion last year (up 40 percent from 2011) making them the most lavishly spending travelers in the world.

    Many people think if they pay money for goods or services, it gives them the right to be demanding or abusive. Undoubtedly this attitude is not strictly a Chinese trait.

    Once I was in the Budapest factory store of Herend, a famous Hungarian manufacturer of fine porcelain and china. A group of Japanese tourists came in at the same time. One man collected tea cups and wanted to buy one. The clerk told him they were only available as a cup and saucer set. She wasn’t allowed to sell just the cup. After ranting loudly for a few minutes, the man bought the set. Then he proceeded to smash the saucer on the floor before storming out of the shop with the cup only.

    Did this mean all Japanese tourists are obnoxious slobs? Absolutely not. Most members of his group seemed embarrassed by his behavior. All it means is this one guy was a poor representative of his country. There are examples of poor behavior to be found everywhere.

    Yong Chen, tourism researcher at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said most “bad” tourists don’t intend to be “bad.” They are just being themselves. He went on to point out that their knowledge of the destination country and its culture is often outdated or completely nonexistent.

    Another researcher, Liu Simin of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, arrogantly noted: “Objectively speaking, our tourists have relatively low-civilized characters.”

    Bad behavior involving Chinese tourists doesn’t all go one way. In the news recently was a story of some Chinese who were shaken down for money in Cambodia. There was another story of a Chinese student being charged more than US$4,000 for a taxi ride in Chicago. And there are always a few stories of Chinese tourists or students being crime victims.

    Most people who work in the tourism industry understand that all people are not alike, and don’t expect everyone to act the same. They instinctively realize the best way to end bad Chinese behavior is for more Chinese to travel.

    As Wang Wanfei, a tourism professor at Zhejiang University, noted: “Traveling is a learning experience for tourists. (Chinese tourists) learn how to absorb local culture in the process (of traveling), and get rid of their bad tourist behavior.”

    (The author is a retired American businessman who lives in Shenzhen.)