Five more Chinese tourists have been placed on the national blacklist, a policy developed earlier this year aimed at deterring misbehaving mainland tourists from tarnishing the country’s reputation abroad. The five were involved in separate incidents spanning from August to October.
Three of the travelers were the ones involved in a scuffle over legroom on a flight from Cambodia destined for Chengdu, though the three were booted from the flight before they even got off the ground. The fracas began because a woman angered a man by reclining her seat, and once relatives got involved, the argument became violent. The pilot determined that the parties involved were a danger to air safety and had the two men and one woman from Sichuan removed from the plane.
Another of the five was a Shanghai man named Rong Jiaxin, who punched a Family Mart clerk in Japan on his nose after the clerk asked Rong’s wife to pay for her food item before she opened it. Rong claimed the clerk had embarrassed his wife.
The fifth blacklisted tourist is Huang Jiankui, a man from Hunan Province who used a teacup to hit a tour guide after becoming angry that his child could not receive a free ticket during their one-day tour of a mountainous resort in Sichuan province in August. His child was reportedly too tall to meet the requirements for the coveted free child ticket.
According to the National Tourism Administration, sixteen badly behaved tourists have been placed on the blacklist so far this year. Twelve of the sixteen were involved in incidents related to air travel, such as one of the busy travelers who forced open the emergency exit door of a plane.
Among the rest of the sixteen is the group that belted out the Chinese national anthem in a Thai airport, and the husband and wife duo that made bomb threats and poured steaming hot noodles on an unfortunate Air Asia flight attendant.
These tourist will remain on the no-go blacklist for one to three years. They are banned from air travel during that time and their credit score is downgraded.
For shame!
By Mary DeMay