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| Chinese visitors at Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul, South Korea, during China’s weeklong National Day holiday.Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters |
BEIJING
— Two young Chinese tourists carve their names on the Great Wall. Hundreds
of picnickers leave their garbage moldering on the banks of the Yellow
River.
Such
episodes during the recent National Day holiday are raising questions as to why
a “tourism blacklist” the government set up last year to name and shame
misbehaving travelers does not seem to have had a greater impact.
In May
2015, the government announced the blacklist to counter the impression left by widely
publicized episodes that included travelers storming a buffet in Thailand to
consume all the prawns, throwing hot water at a flight attendant, carving
inscriptions on an ancient Egyptian monument, allowing children to relieve
themselves in public places and opening emergency exits on airliners “for fresh
air”.
People
may land on it either for legal crimes or for moral offenses at home or abroad, according
to the Communist Party’s main newspaper.
Possible
offenses include interfering with aircraft or public transportation; damaging
public property or the environment; defacing cultural relics; disrespecting
local customs; and participating in gambling, illicit drug activities,
prostitution or “dangerous sexual activities.”
People
added to the list remain there for three years, during which their names are
made available to travel companies, airlines, work units and the Public
Security Bureau, among other groups. This puts the people on notice that they
are under watch and could be barred from tour groups. They may be barred from
flying or from visiting scenic spots. But there is no financial penalty.
Over
all, the blacklist appears to have had a slow start, suggesting the difficulty
even in an authoritarian nation of policing human behavior.
The
list is unavailable on the website of the China National Tourism
Administration. But according to
the Shenzhen Metropolis newspaper, only 24 people are on it.
That
number includes two people added over the recent holiday,: Hou Geshun from
Heilongjiang Province, who was accused of burning Vietnamese money in
a bar in the Vietnamese city of Danang, and Lu Shan from Beijing, who beat up
her tour guide in Yunnan Province.
Hundreds
of millions of Chinese people made 593 million domestic trips on national
transportation networks during the weeklong holiday. That number does not
include trips by private car. An additional six million traveled abroad during
that period, the tourism administration said.
Last
week, after the fresh round of episodes over the holiday, Xinhua, the state
news agency, questioned the list’s effectiveness. “Carving Names and Drawing Pictures on the
Great Wall, Throwing Garbage in the Yellow River, Why Does the Blacklist not
Control Uncivilized Tourists?” its headline asked.
One man
added to the blacklist shortly after it was set up said that being on it
did not change his life much.
“I got back from Thailand and am off to
Korea,” said the man, from Jiangsu Province and identified only by his surname,
Wang. “At the worst, you can’t join a tour group. Independent travel is the
thing to do.”
Edited From The New York Times
