THAILAND: Chinese Tourists Quarrel At Thai Beach

A video in which a mainland tourist tells of scolding another who wanted to take home a piece of wood from a Thai beach has recently become very popular on China’s video streaming websites.

In the video, taken at Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Leh, about an hour’s speedboat ride from Phuket, a woman who is part of a group tour recalled a group mate’s rude behaviour and called for her compatriots to abide by rules in sometimes vulgar language, and her three-minute speech has been widely applauded.

According to the middle-aged woman, wearing sunglasses and sporting short hair, a tourist from Jiangsu province saw a piece of wood on a beach they were visiting and wanted to keep it as a souvenir. She quarrelled with the tour guide after being told that was against the local law.

The offending tourist gave up after the woman intervened, the second woman said, and told the tour guide to let the former take the piece and let the customs authorities deal with her.

The woman telling the story said on the video that it was such disrespect of other nations’ laws that had made Chinese tourists unpopular.

“Without such a law, I think Chinese tourists would take all the sand here back home within one year,” she said, “and what for? To put it in fish tanks!”

She also recalled a Chinese boy who tried to take a bottle of water that belonged to her group without asking for permission and, when she stopped him, the boy’s mother said it was nothing and offered to exchange it for another bottle of drink.