Chinese tourists at it again

[metisdead]

Derogatory slur posts have been removed.

[wow64]

Where are the smiles on Thai faces??

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/786521-chinese-tourists-to-bring-smiles-back-to-thailand/

Edited December 29, 2014 by wow64

[martin81]

Well is it just mainland chinese people?

I experienced nice fair queues waiting for a bus several times in Hong Kong. But maybe the culture is different in HKG?

[Toknarok]

Well is it just mainland chinese people?

I experienced nice fair queues waiting for a bus several times in Hong Kong. But maybe the culture is different in HKG?

The 'culture' certainly is different in Hong Kong. They don't particularly like the mainland Chinese. Perhaps it was because those terrible "Colonial" British taught them how to behave decently for 99 years.

[Shurup]

A nice change from a Russian bushing.

[krisb]

I had Jackie Chan one time push in front of me and I screamed GET BACK IN LINE!

He kicked my head in for that.

[Caitrin]

My co-traveler and I have had the unfortunate experience of spending our first day/night in our current location with a group of Chinese guys in one of the nearby bungalow rooms. They smoked everywhere, even where it said no smoking (I'm deathly allergic, so this is of real concern to me when traveling because I can literally go in anaphylactic shock), left bottles and trash all over their area next to the pool, spit all over the place, pushed past people, swung luggage around, etc. I ended up cleaning up the pool area, just because it bothered me so much to be out there. I took all their shit and moved it into one single small location. Less work for the staff.

That said, I don't believe Chinese are inherently like this at all, and I think any suggestion that they are is pretty racist. Just different cultural values. But as tourists, I think they have the duty to think of both other tourists AND the culture in which they are entering, and the Thai staff seemed pretty harried and put out.

Edited December 29, 2014 by Caitrin

[Tomtomtom69]

I was teaching a really nice Chinese woman a while ago, very shy and reserved woman, and one lesson was about stereotypes and such.

The topic of queuing came up and I mentioned that Chinese people are known to jump queues, to which she got a little upset and defensive and explained that it's due to cultural stuff years ago, for instance, food and stuff was scarce, people would get handouts, and you had to get in there and get your food, if you queued you wouldnt get anything once it ran out, survival of the fittest etc..

Not sure how true it is, but she says it's just been that way since.

Kinda makes sense, but there's no excuse for it today IMO. As a Brit where queue jumping is punishable by death it's infuriating seeing people do it constantly here.

Strangely enough, not sure if anyone else finds this, but I find its Asian women who do it most, not so much Asian men, whereas for westerners it's both male and female, usually American. (Not bashing Americans, just my experience)

All Chinese people I know are embarrassed about such practices and always condemn them - they will claim that only "uneducated peasants" will act this way.

Similarly, when it happens in China in places like an airport there is usually an uproar by fellow Chinese passengers.

Case in point:

Aug 22, 2014 @ Kunming International Airport: My dad and I were in the security line located after passport control prior to boarding our flight to Bangkok (unlike in Thailand where this is now reversed) and unlike in Thailand, passport control in China is fast but security processing is slow. So these two young Chinese women try to cut in line and go straight to the front of the queue, because they are quite late for their flight, I think they had maybe 20 minutes to spare and were worried they would miss the flight if they had to wait in line. In my view, this is quite legitimate and I have in the past done this too, but generally speaking I always asked permission before doing so (I remember numerous times I had to do this in Bangkok, both Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi as well as once on my last flight out of Chicago in the USA). Many of the other Chinese passengers in line, particularly those waiting first in line who were cut in front of, were screaming and shouting and telling these two to go back to the end of the line. Only the intervention of security, who looked at their boarding passes and agreed to let them proceed in front of all the other waiting passengers helped save the day.

[Tomtomtom69]

find it funny that a Thai person objected to another person queue jumping

I see it on a daily basis, Thais jumping queues ... guess it is only ok for Thais to jump queues in Thailand

Nah not really, Thais are actually quite good with queues. The only time when I've had problems is when it's unclear as to where the queue is because sometimes queues are not formed properly. For example, at 7-11s with a few customers and at least 2 counters the queues formed are sometimes a bit vague and I've found both myself and the occasional other customer pushing in line unintentionally, but certainly not with any regularity and most certainly not with any ill intent. I would put it down to ambiguous queuing, which in turn may be due to the lack of space available for queuing in many 7-11 stores, as they are often quite cramped.

[Tomtomtom69]

Some friends of mine their first trip to Thailand they got to experience some of the Chinese tour group rush ...

During the weekend before the Coup earlier this year, some UK friends of mine that lived in the States for the past 25 years came to Thailand for a diving trip in Koh Tao. Their first stop was BKK for a couple of days where I showed them around the place, took them to the normal tourist stops, some not so normal stops, and some time drinking, eating, and hanging out at the RBSC and Polo Club.

During our Wat Pho stop no real drama, nice walking around and seeing the big reclining Buddha. On the walk over to the Grand Palace / Wat Phra Keow we hit the normal folks trying to tell us the place was closed. I've been to the Grand Palace many times and this time I thought it would be good to hire a guide for my friends so they can get a better description of the place than I could give.

Our guide's nickname was Jenny. Very knowledgable. She did a great job as a guide. During the tour there were many chinese tour groups, with the requisite pushing and shoving their way through while Jenny was trying to describe the temple of the emerald buddha to my friends. Jenny turns into fire-breathing dragon lady yelling in mandarin at the Chinese tour guide pushing in between her and my friends. From what I could tell she really let the tour guide have it and the group detoured around and left alone. Turns out she speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, English and apparently a few other languages.

I had a giant grin on my face. Very non-Thai way of taking care of the pushing and shoving. She told me that they were being rude and showing disrespect and she had to say something. I told her it was no problem and I thought it was kind of fun to see. On a few other occasions some of the Chinese tourists were taking pictures where they were not supposed to and some of the Chinese tourist ladies had removed their sarongs and were walking around in shorts and she let them have it in Mandarin, very strong and loud she spoke to them, then they complied. It was pretty fun to watch. That's when I realized when they are pushing, shoving, or just standing around, if you don't address them in Mandarin (or their local dialect) you are not going to really phase them. As some others have suggested, they probaby don't give a s--t, what they are doing is normal to them.

That was the best 1000 baht I spent on a tour guide (I gave her a nice tip to make it that much).

Funny thing is that when I lived and worked in Shanghai about 10 years ago (for a year) I didn't notice as much. Yes I still remember the Chinese stuffing as many people into and elevator as they could, but with the folks I worked with at the bank and the stock exchange I didn't notice the level of pushiness that I see when the tour groups are traveling outside of China.

My first real realization about the queue-less-ness in China was boarding a domestic flight from Shanghai to Zhuhai for a business trip. Bum rush to board the plane on announcement. Funny thing was when the plane landed in Zhuhai, while the plane was still on the runway, airbrakes still slowing the plane, people started getting up to get their stuff out of the overhead bins. The stewardess would get up and shush one person down, then another would get up, she would shush them down, and another would get up. They only thing I could think of was this was a real-life chinese version of Whack-a-mole.

Most recently I was on a flight from BKK to Seoul via Hong Kong and a Chinese tour group was on the plane. They were all cramming in the priority boarding line blocking the way for the folks in the wheelchairs and the business-class and priority fliers. Thai staff tried to get them to make way but they didn't budge. So the Thai staff opened another door and let the wheelchairs and priority fliers through the other door while the tour group watched them and started making a fuss.

I don't like to bash, but when you see a stereotype in action as the stereotype exists, it's hard to ignore and becomes easy to agree with the stereotype at that point.

Since I also speak Mandarin I do the same thing. Although my Mandarin is not fluent, it's obviously good enough for the basics. Just the other day I went to Central World to drink at the beer garden and rather than drive all the way into the city and face all the traffic and the inevitable 3 hours to get out of the parking lot (yes, it can be that bad!) I parked at Ekkamai and took the skytrain in. Trains weren't that full on the way in (this was around 7pm) but on the way back around 10.30pm, there was a huge crowd.

I noticed a few Chinese people behind me and I shouted in Mandarin to be careful so as to not squash myself or my fiancee who was with me while getting into the train. The Chinese couple near me didn't really react, but as they didn't actually squash me and since it may have been the momentum from everyone else anyway, Thai people included, I concluded that it was just a poorly controlled rush but apparently this happens everyday on the subway in Tokyo, for example.

But yeah, whenever I see crap going on I say something. Luckily I can speak a few languages and thus if I feel that I had been violated I would have let everyone know in Thai, Chinese, English whatever.

[oldsalt]

I was teaching a really nice Chinese woman a while ago, very shy and reserved woman, and one lesson was about stereotypes and such.

The topic of queuing came up and I mentioned that Chinese people are known to jump queues, to which she got a little upset and defensive and explained that it's due to cultural stuff years ago, for instance, food and stuff was scarce, people would get handouts, and you had to get in there and get your food, if you queued you wouldnt get anything once it ran out, survival of the fittest etc..

Not sure how true it is, but she says it's just been that way since.

Kinda makes sense, but there's no excuse for it today IMO. As a Brit where queue jumping is punishable by death it's infuriating seeing people do it constantly here.

Strangely enough, not sure if anyone else finds this, but I find its Asian women who do it most, not so much Asian men, whereas for westerners it's both male and female, usually American. (Not bashing Americans, just my experience)

Can she explain why 300 stand together and don't let anyone else through even when asked politely multiple times until you start to force your way through and then get upset?

Can she explain why they continue to barge their way through instead of letting people with prams turn or walk ?

Can she explain why they don't flush the toilet or wash their hands ?

Can she explain why they all go and stand infront of people taking a photo ?

Can she explain why they sit down on your table at hotel breakfasts when there are plenty of free tables and proceed to talk at the top of they voices and eat like pigs ?

Can she explain why their tour leaders like to barge infront of people like they don't exist, especially when they are pushing a pram and then get aggressive when the pram hits their feet until they cotton on they are much smaller than you and ain't going to win ?

Can she explain why they push into people carrying children ?

Jeez that's a harsh rap sheet.

ps, they do eat like pigs at hotel buffets I'll pay that one.

[Caitrin]

I noticed a few Chinese people behind me and I shouted in Mandarin to be careful so as to not squash myself or my fiancee who was with me while getting into the train. The Chinese couple near me didn't really react, but as they didn't actually squash me and since it may have been the momentum from everyone else anyway, Thai people included, I concluded that it was just a poorly controlled rush but apparently this happens everyday on the subway in Tokyo, for example.

Tokyoite here, I can confirm that rush hour on the trains (JR, Metro, Toei, etc) are always like this, a very controlled and polite rush and squash. People give up personal space and a degree of bodily autonomy that they usually guard very closely. But there's never any shouting or intentional elbowing. It's just a quiet push.