"They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and some other uncivilized behavior. He stressed that the behavior affected the overall image of China ( The Guardian, 2013): According to the Telegraph, in May 2013 former Vice-premier Wang Yang asked the Chinese citizens who are able to travel overseas to improve their behavior. This behavior also didn't go unnoticed within China itself. Take all these points together and we might call this behavior ‘uncivilized’. Many more negative beliefs can be found online. Everywhere they go, they take 10,000 pictures.They burp, puke, and smoke wherever they want.They spend a lot of money at shopping malls.Chinese tourists want to see everything in a hurry. The following Western set of beliefs is drawn from the online sources in the introduction: As I mentioned above, there is a lot of negative stereotyping of Chinese tourists online. Before I explain the behavior of ‘new’ Chinese tourists, I will first focus on the Western stereotype. This is also the case with Chinese tourists. Therefore, it is easier to rely on existing stereotypes than to create new ones. Once a stereotype is widely ingrained, it takes a lot of effort and energy to change it. Stereotypes can be defined as a socially shared set of beliefs about traits that are characteristic of a certain social category (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Finally I will go into the current changes in behavior and the role of social media therein. In this article I will first focus on the Western stereotyping of Chinese tourists and its countermovement, then I will dig deeper into the history of China to explain their touristic behavior. Because of this, I asked myself whether Western stereotypes of Chinese tourists still fits the current behavior of Chinese travelers. Appadurai (1996) calls the phenomena of local cultures becoming more global ‘culturescaping’.Īs mentioned above, the travel behavior of Chinese tourists has changed into a more free and independent manner of traveling. It is no longer necessary to first travel to China before knowing something about their culture. For example when I want to know something about Chinese culture, I can use Facebook. Therefore habits, customs, and behavior that fit a particular local culture can become more global. Through social media, people all over the world can connect with each other. The influence of social media is a feature of globalization. Social media, and especially the Chinese social media giant WeChat, have had a big influence on this change. However, the travel behavior of Chinese tourists has changed in the past years from an ‘altogether, all-in vacation’ to a more ‘free and independent’ way of traveling. For example: 5 reasons why Chinese tourists are so rude, a Swedish video about how the Chinese need to behave in Sweden, a video about How to be a Chinese tourist, a video about Chinese tourists who need to stop pooping, making noise, stop picking, and stop yelling when they are abroad - and there are many more examples. On the internet there are many negative articles and videos that reflect this stereotype. This description is the mainstream Western image, or rather stereotype, of Chinese tourists. They come together in big troops, they like to take many pictures, and they do not recognize your garden as private property. Chinese tourists: they are immediately recognized all over the world.
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