Too many Chinese?  Indeed, they are!

No question about it. Although ‘too many’ and ‘so many’ are two different issues, they certainly look like everywhere throughout the world I travel in these days. No wonder one out of five(?) human beings on the surface of the earth are Chinese!

So I am always overwhelmed with such ‘sea of human being’ throughout China whenever I go to China and further perceive so many Chinese overflowing, wherever I go, all over the world. But regretfully I always feel disturbed with Chinese tourists because of their casual(?) attitude, in particular, ignoring the next nearby peoples with such unique, loud, noisy conversation. I can easily confirm/identify Chinese within a minute from the distance at the airports on most occasions, distinctively different from Japanese perhaps by their language characteristics?!

I further noticed Chinese tourists I encounter are much different from my personal Chinese friends/colleagues, to surprise me; though I don’t understand their talking, my friends’ talking are different even in their tone and accent which no longer sounds vulgar at all and much well tamed I recognize whether in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Chongqing, I make a regular visit through years. Of course, my friend Chinese are all well-educated and also mannered properly so that I must have accustomed to this limited group/class of Chinese.

However, Chinese tourists are a different class I was so upset about. Since my pupil, Prof. Kurosh Parsi of Univ Sydney became the leader of the Australian Society of Phlebology (ACP) and also International Union of Phlebology (IUP) these days - he is now the president of both ACP and IUP groups! -, I had to travel to Aussy lately more often than before so that I started to encounter these rude Chinese tourist groups whenever I visit Australia for the last 10 years and got so angry and frustrated.

Indeed, I realized that they are a lot different from those days more than 20 years ago when I started to visit like Sydney and Melbourne in early ’90. Of course, there was Chinatown already in Sydney as well as Melbourne with a lot of Chinese when I made the first visit to Australia in 1994 but Chinese were not flooding the whole town, then, as they do for the last 10 years in particular.

Wherever you go walking around on the street these days, all you can hear and encounter are Chinese tourists throughout the whole country of Australia. The hotels, especially Hilton where most of the congresses are held, are now fully booked ahead of time by Chinese tourists and there is no place to sit or stand at the lobby by a big crowd of Chinese tourists all the time. Some Chinese lie on the couch at the front lobby sleeping casually while some eating the food ignoring the rule.  

So, I started to identify myself wherever I go while in Australia, shouting ‘I let you know I am NOT a Chinese tourist!’ FIRST, so that I could be treated differently by the local peoples to be sure. It worked! Even some restaurant maître d' appreciated my clearance, lamenting they are sick and tired with rude Chinese tourists, seriously considering to post the sign “NO Chinese” at the door sooner or later, reminding me of ‘No dog, no Chinaman’ in Shanghai before WWII.

Indeed, I learned Chinese tourists often come into the restaurants as a group of a dozen or more together to occupy whole restaurant but only one guy orders one cheap dish/food and ask additional dozen empty dishes so that they could put the foods they brought and throw away all the wraps/garbage under the table with no exception by their culture/custom(?) before they leave the restaurants; of course NO tips, no fee for the additional empty dishes, no nothing.

The worst thing is they simply ignore NO SMOKING sign, saying ‘we know no English’, and throw the cigarette butts all over the floor and also the outside along the street in front of the restaurants to cause the restaurant to pay the penalty of city ordinance regulation, one Korean restaurant owner at Sydney was fuming with the anger.

Anyhow, I seldom extend my stay in Australia after the meeting except when my wife should accompany me along for such long-distance traveling to take full two days in one way. But, one trip to the Cairns Region, Queensland, near Northern tip of Australia, with me years ago, after attending to the convocation ceremony at Brisbane University for my honorary membership, really turned my wife off from a further trip to Australia- she refused to come with me to Aussy no more since then! -  after we had such outrageous experience through the excursion to The Great Barrier Reef to encounter Chinese tourist group holding entire ‘limited’ seats of dining tables on the boat, piling up with their luggage to hold the seats only for them to sit so that all other non-Chinese tourists had to eat the foods/lunch while standing.

When I spilled this event accidentally to my Aussy colleagues later, I heard so many awful stories involved in Chinese tourists throughout Australia. So, I warn you that wherever and whenever you plan to travel especially in Australia, check first, on the status of the airport custom to make sure you don’t arrive or leave while encountering Chinese tourists. The hotels are the same; most of the travel consultants would know better to help you to book the hotel to avoid Chinese tourists, No Hilton! No sir!!!!

I also learned most of the major hub airports in Europe now have Chinese crowds to fill up the customs so that you could book the schedule to avoid them holding you for extra hours like CDG (Charles de Gaulle) Airport with such notorious reputation of Chinese crowds. I started to use smaller airports in Europe to detour where Chinese tourists are not congested like Brussel Airport instead of Amsterdam, for example. CDG is a nightmare! Munich is better than Frankfurt!

Bless Chinese tourists to stay away from me!

BB Lee