Lei Xiangping

    lagon235@163.com

    ON Sept. 5, a video uploaded online showing dozens of Chinese passengers from a 260-member Chinese tour group breaking out into the Chinese national anthem to protest a delayed flight at the Bangkok airport went viral and sparked massive criticism over their irrational behaviors.

    Their impromptu display of “patriotism” was ironically triggered when Chinese passengers at the Don Muang Airport learned that their flight back to Chongqing, initially planned to take off at 5:40 p.m., would be delayed until 3 a.m. the next day due to bad weather and maintenance issues.

    Chinese passengers frustrated by flight delays often lash out at airline staff, but protesting by singing the national anthem was a new tactic. Nevertheless, instead of showing sincere patriotism, singing the national anthem on the wrong occasion disgraced China’s international image.

    Flight delays are not characteristic of Thailand’s airline industry, but delays are a part of traveling everywhere in the world. It would have been proper for the Chinese passengers in the video to ask for an apology and compensation from the airline or to be switched to another carrier. However, even though the airport staff brought the passengers food and offered to book hotels for them, the Chinese travelers refused the offers and became enraged, so much so that many Chinese netizens who commented on the video deemed their misbehavior as a naive farce.

    Several Chinese media outlets have attributed the irrational overreaction to the fact that the air-conditioning system was malfunctioning, which had caused some elderly passengers in the tour group to feel ill, and that the Thai police officers were impolite when they ordered the Chinese passengers to abide by the airport’s rules. But after watching the video, we can make one conclusion: the irrational passengers had mistaken the way they were treated by the Thai airline and police as a slight against China’s dignity, which in turn escalated the conflict from safeguarding the Chinese passengers’ legal rights to defending China’s dignity.

    One passenger in the video angrily said, “Our dignity is important; we have plenty of money and the RMB is a strong currency.” Another passenger added, “Thai police forcefully make Chinese passengers accept their arrangement, which is looking down on China.” Worse still, when some passengers in the group were willing to accept the airline’s arrangement, they were cursed at by the irrational passengers, who proclaimed that all Chinese passengers should unite together to safeguard their legal rights.

    One tour guide who advised the group to comply with the airline’s arrangement was labeled as a “traitor.” One Chinese witness told www.thepaper.cn, an online newspaper based in Shanghai, that one “patriotic” passenger lashed out at cooperative passengers saying, “We are struggling in tears to protect our interests and national dignity while you are arranging to go to a hotel and sleep comfortably. Are you Chinese?”

    Instead of lodging their complaints through the regular process, these irrational passengers chose to act wild and flaunt their superiority with arrogance, alluding that “we Chinese pay to have fun here, not to be bullied here.” They claim they are defending Chinese people’s face, but they are doing the opposite.

    Undoubtedly, many Chinese passengers on the spot might have felt ashamed to be a part of a tour group with such irrational travelers who would break out into the Chinese national anthem, which should not have elicited compassion but sheer lament. Given that those who protested only accounted for a small part of the tour group and the majority was cooperative enough to show respect for local rules, we can’t jump to the conclusion that Chinese tourists are all uncivilized.

    The sudden increase in wealth among some Chinese has helped some of them transcended from feeling humble to overconfident in front of people in other countries. However, money doesn’t come with a guide to better etiquette and manners, so some Chinese people are considered uncouth nouveau riche. This disparity between wealth and civility can also explain why several Chinese passengers in the video uttered such rude sentences that even ordinary Chinese would be embarrassed by them.

    Although the irrational passengers have been blacklisted by the Chongqing Travel Authority because of their behavior, Chinese people have to remember: as China has become the largest country in the number of outbound travelers, the uncivilized manner and rude behavior of some Chinese tourists have tarnished China’s international image.

    Judging by the Thailand incident, we can’t say the Thai airline did a flawless job of managing the Chinese tourists properly, but every Chinese tourist should have realized that what he or she says and does represents Chinese people’s general image in the eyes of the world. Only with civilization and etiquette can we travel comfortably and leave a good impression at the same time.

    (The author is an editor with the News Desk at China Radio International.)