A schoolboy carved his name on a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple last May, just one of the instances of improper behavior by some Chinese tourists abroad. Photo: Weibo
Yes, they may be big spenders, but Chinese tourists are also among the most unwelcome because of the behavior and attitude that some of them display.
Seeking to correct this bad image, Shanghai authorities have come up with a scheme to discipline its citizens when they visit other countries.
The municipal government is going to blacklist city residents found to have hurt China’s reputation while traveling overseas. Once on the list, they will face much tighter scrutiny and approval threshold if they want to travel abroad again, according to Shanghai Eastday.com.
Yan Shaung, deputy director of the publicity department of the Communist Party’s Shanghai committee, said the three-year program aims to teach citizens to be civilized, polite and respectful of others’ traditions when they are abroad.
However, authorities did not say how they would know if someone misbehaves during their foreign trips.
Instances of bad behavior among Chinese tourists have been widely reported: a schoolboy carved his name on a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple last May, a bunch of Chinese tourists dipped their feet in the fountain in front of the Louvre, and some parents let their kids urinate while riding Hong Kong’s MTR.
Shanghai is not alone in seeking to remind Chinese tourists of the need to observe good manners when traveling abroad. Last month, the Shenzhen government spent 10 million yuan (US$1.62 million) to teach citizens how to behave properly when in other countries.
The southern metropolis held seminars and distributed leaflets for educational purposes. Citizens were taught the basic do’s and don’ts, such as it is impolite to jump a queue, it’s wrong to harass animals and they should go to the toilet to answer the call of nature.
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http://www.ejinsight.com/20140822-shanghai-traveller-blacklist/