"Tails" of Ignorant tourists
 

I wonder if any of you have tales about the most ignorant tourists you've come across in your travels.

About 5 years ago I was spending a couple of days in Hong Kong. I took a harbour cruise on a chinese junk that finished up in a rather nice harbour side restaurant for a dim sum lunch.

I sat at a large round table with a party of about 6 middle aged American tourists. I was surprised when they all insisted on vegetarian dim sum. I enquired that it was unusual to have so many vegetarians together. They said they weren't vegetarians, far from it, they were Texans. They just didn't want to eat dog, rat and cat. I explained that it was very unlikely we would be getting either! They weren't convinced.

I enquired as to their holiday. They were about to board a cruise liner and sail up to Korea where they were to spend a week or so. I suggested they should try Korea's finest food at their Poshintang Restaurants, without explaining what is served at these places.

I should add that I certainly don't advocate the eating of dogs, and this was me being mischevious with grotesque ignorance.

christ just any mid westerner or american for that matter is bound too say some stuppid arse thing while traveling.

the thing that drives me nuts is hearing tourist say.. wow look they have a KFC wow look they have a 7-11

Don't know if this counts but....just 2 days ago I was lamenting to a co-worker that I couldn't find affordable airfare to Vietnam and was looking at all my options. She said "can't you just drive there from Bangkok?"
Sure, and take about 3 days solid, each way, out of my 2 week trip. Not to mention that this would be by train and bus combo. It just seemed odd to me.
Some other coworkers we talking just yesterday about the "eating dog in other countries" thing. I told them, "don't worry, it's a "delicacy", no one would every serve it to you without making a big deal of telling you first". :-)

It's true about how they are amazed at the KFC's and the MacDonalds,but then they are amazed as well as to why the comforts of home are NOT there. Such as when I overheard an elederly lady whine, "well for crine out loud, it's a drug store and you'd think they'd have Pepto Bismol like at home and put what's in these here bottles in English so I can read 'em."

Don't leave home without it. Or better yet, DON'T leave home--period.

I was on a flight from Vancouver to Almaty in Kazakhstan via Frankfurt with Lufthansa. There had obviously been a feeder flight up from Seattle as two Americans behind me were talking loudly about how glad they were they weren't on an Airbus.

When the flight attendant asked them to do up their seatbelts in perfect English with a light German accent, they said, "Speak English!"

Getting tired of the yelling (they were wearing their earphones while having their conversation), I turned round to say, "Excuse me. You may not realise this because of the earphones, but you're yelling very loudly."

"Speak English!" I was told.

Later when I went to the lavatory one of them was waiting in line. A German passenger helpfully pointed out to him that a cubicle further down the plane was free.

"Speak English!" he was told.

What on earth these people were doing going anywhere overseas I've no idea, but could only hope that at some point in Germany they'd have some sense beaten into them.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

Oooh, I have so many ignorant tourist stories...my top picks are,
1. 'Bohemian' backpackers and lonely planet types in general are the worst. I understand the use of backbacks under certain conditions, but being filthy and smelly and wearing nasty sandals (in good restaurants while I'm trying to eat) and t-shirts that say 'I'm with stupid -->' are pathetic at best and well, you get the idea...
2. Was in China and ran into group of Japanese men in a tour who showed a little too much interest in the nude paintings in the museum where we were. And they seemed to love my tall blond wife. The cameras were clicking away. It was really creepy.
3. The French girls sunning themselves topless on our Nile river cruiser (I admit, it wasn't THAT bad...). I don't know what was worse, the girls getting nude in a conservative muslim country, or the boats crew that seemed to individually walk up on deck to 'clean out the ashtrays' all afternoon. It got so bad, even the chef came up on deck to clean the ashtrays, dressed in his whites and tall hat...

Make sure you take river slippers when you trek along a river.

pj; love your last sentence. lmao!!

I got a huge kick out of a female tourist outside of Bejing coming out of the ladies rest room complainng to everyone she encountered about the "primitive toilets" - they were state of the art auto flushing squat toilets. Modern and beautiful.

My husband and I were at the Acropolis in Athens, there was a group of "cruisers" there in port for the day. One woman with her Southern accent loudly asked if they accepted dollars there for her entrance fee. My husband and I looked at each other and cringed.

Pretty funny stuff here. It always amuses me that people are disappointed when they travel that things aren't the same as at home...especially when travelling to a third world country. Why leave home if you want things to be the same?
I have a coworker friend who tends to seek out the KFC's and McDonalds to get some "safe food". I prefer to experiment a little and try different things and heck, maybe even learn something along the way.

We have all been ignorant or Naive at one time or another.My Aunt was in Japan and bought a sony radio. She was worried it would pick up US stations.But it happens here too. I heard Bush I was campaigning in Texas in a Mexican Restaurant. He was given a tamale and he bit into the corn surrounding the Tamale without opening it up.

The outrage that many tourists express on discovering that not all foreigners speak English is particularly ludicrous and often embarrassing. You'd think that native English speakers should feel grateful that several centuries of English imperialism, followed by a century of American global domination, have implanted the language so widely that for the most part we can traipse around the world cocooned in our own language. This linguistic imperialism helps to isolate us from our hosts' cultures, and group travel just makes the situation worse.

Another peculiarity, not confined to people from 'Anglo' cultures, is that travel seems to bring out the worst in some of us. People who on their home ground are courteous and considerate can become arrogant monsters when confronted with the need to deal with a foreign culture.

I too wonder about people who travel thousands of kilometres to eat the food they get at home, especially the bland, tastless pap sold by a certain large franchise operation. Recently on the Australia/Pacific board an intending traveller worried that she might not be able to get American food in Australia. True.

Once again, though, it's not just an 'Anglo' problem. In a Vietnamese hotel offering a choice of cuisines for breakfast I was amused to see all the Vietnamese guests lining up for a bowl of pho, all the French and German tourists lining up for a 'Continental' breakfast and all the Anglo-Saxons lining up for their bacon and eggs. There seemed to be no cross-cultural feeding going on at all.

Okay, I had to jump in. My two favourites are:

Taking a Caribbean cruise on board the Costa line (Italian) and playing BINGO in 5 languages with English being last. An Ameircan women thought she was at a disadvantage and stood up and ask the Bingo guy to call the #'s in American. What's American? I'm Canadian but I don't speak Canadian? Or do I, eh?

Second one was while working part-time in a travel agency (now remember I'm in Toronto) and a customer asking about Hawaii because she wanted to find a cheaper place than Florida. Duh!! And then she asked what kind of currency was used there? I said the US Dollar and she said, "oh no, not another island forced to use the US $$." Duh again. I had to tell her Hawaii WAS part of the US.

Some people know nothing about the world, even countries beside them.

Betty in Toronto
Leaving in 2 weeks for Hong Kong (10 days) and Hawaii (2 weeks)

What about the woman in the American Express office in Athens who was changing her Greek currency back into American currency because it was just too hard to understand? Or the American woman in the Hong Kong Tourist office at the Kowloon side Star Ferry wharf who said they had just arrived from the States and that they had to meet up with a Mr Wong followed by the question..Do you know him?

OK - I'll jump in too! Got back to Oz from Vietnam yesterday - why do some Western women insist on exposing as much body flesh as humanly possible to people that mostly clad themselves from neck to ankle? So what if the weather is hot - put up with it! On a tour of the Mekong delta there were some extremely overweight European youngish women in their cut off tops and lowcut hipster pants (ironically the Vietnamese girls could easily get away with this style as they have such great bodies) and this is where the lowliest labourer who works in a rice paddy manages to keep himself covered. Was please to note at the end of the day the rolls of unnecessarily exposed fat were well dotted with mozzie bites.

Once on a tour in London the driver was pointing out some WWII damage inflicted by Germany in London blitzes - an American woman's loud remark to her husband was "honey, I didn't know Britain was in the war-aaah"!!

In Hanoi I saw an Australian woman turn to an unusually persistent postcard seller and announce loudly "Look, not all of us tourists are rich, you know!" The kid was so astonished by this self-evidently absurd statement that he stood there dumbstruck while she walked off.

:(
Gosh, I hope none of you make any ignorant comments while on the road.

Travel has been a consistent pleasure throughout my life. It has opened my eyes, and more importantly, my mind. Travel to far off places also reminds me how much I don't know about the world. I try and be respectful to the country I visit. Not all people are, but most of the tourists that I have encountered who behave ignorantly have, in fact, NOT been Americans. Sure some have been, but in general, I think Americans are good tourists. It has been my experience that Americans are warmly welcomed in other countries because people find us friendly and open.

Les

Hmm... a three year old thread pulled up by a new poster with a provocative comment... Some people just like to stir up trouble.

Neil Oz. Had I been there, I would have been lining up for bacon and eggs too. Apart from the fact that I prefer that over 99% of "local dishes" anywhere, I have had various stomach upsets through eating local foods that I thought were safe and the last thing I want while on holiday is to have to stay near a toilet.

In most countries in the west, there are Indian, Thai, Chinese, Korean, etc restaurants which westerners eat at in preference to local foods.

Great thread! First off, A bit of travel ignorance by myself. First time to Europe, on a bus tour, back in 1984, when you changed currency from one country to the next. We left Italy and entered France, Avingon I think with no chance to exchange lira for francs. My elderly mom was hungry and I said we'd have to get some Italian money, but she was very insistent that she needed to eat NOW. When time to pay, the waiter (of course) could accept neither lira nor dollars. He then began singing quite loudly (no doubt making fun of us in Italian) as he kept Mom hostage while I went to a bank for some lira.

Another time in Jerusalem we were touring the Church of the Sepulchre and the guide was telling that the church was owned by seven differnt sects and one lady stated "The Catholics own part of it but so where is the Lutheran part?"

Went to China recently. When my friend heard I was going to the Great Wall, she asked if I was going to hike all of it!

Kathie,

While doing a search, I somehow came upon this thread. Actually, I didn't realize that it was 3 years old, which reminds me to read more carefully. I certainly have no intentions of stirring up trouble. Your comment has surprised me.

I'll return to posting and searching on current travels.

Les

I have also run into ignorant locals in Hong Kong....but they are always westerners *lol*.

On my first day of moving to HK to take up a job with a local newspaper I was invited on a junk cruise of the harbor with a group of locals (all Europeans - and there were about 10 couples in all).

The crew of the junk was naturally Chinese.

About 15 minutes into the 3 hour cruise (which was delightful I must say), one of the pompous women, who had a voice like a foghorn, remarked, as wthe non-European waiters passed around food and drink): "I must say that it is so bloody pleasant to be able to get away from all those dreadful Chinese....."

It was as if - even though she was on a vessel crewed by Chinese seamen and waiting staff - they were totally invisible to her. *lol*.

kaneda, I should have included myself in that - faced with the choice I'm definitely in the bacon-and-eggs camp, although I like to eat local for dinner (a big English breakfast means I can skip lunch).

Back on-topic - we just got back from Bali, where our stay in Ubud coincided with the 6-monthly Galungan festival (that's six Balinese 35-day months, BTW).

On the big day we wandered down the road to visit the old temple in the Sacred Monkey Forest, donned our sarongs and sat quietly to one side of the open-air enclosure as local families, dressed in their best, arrived with offerings and stayed for a period of prayers.

It was a peaceful and relaxing way to spend an hour - until two thirty-something French couples arrived, ostentatiously kitted out in the full Balinese fashion, and sat among the locals with their hands raised in prayer. I'd dismissed them as laughable but harmless Eurowankers until one of them, the dreadlocked one, got up, walked in front of everyone else (the equivalent of positioning yourself between congregation and altar in a Christian church) and started taking photos, to the evident dismay and annoyance of everyone else - evident to all but him, that is, as he kept prowling around until a couple of locals moved him on.

Les, I apologize if I misunderstood your intent. The Asia Board prides itself on its helpfulness and friendliness and thus, we have sometimes had to point out posters who assume a new name to stir up trouble.

I'd like to support Les on one of his points. In our limited experience we've found Americans to be generally polite and not especially insensitive. Even en masse I doubt that they're any worse than my own lot. I can't say the same for certain Europeans (delicacy prevents me from nominating a particular nationality).

Kathie,
I assume you are talking about me. I didn't check the date of the post. So sorry. /:) I was doing a search on something and didn't realize this was so old.

I absolutely hate threads like this that make fun of others. Personally, anyone who travels has my kudos. So, I called the posters on it. Big deal. If this is your idea of friendliness and helpfulness, well, you can have it.

As far as being a new poster who stirs up trouble. You are right. I am a new poster on the Asian board but an old one on the European board. My name is a variation of my old name (SloJan) b/c I forgot my password.

les, kathie is one of the friendliest, diplomatic, informed, and giving posters on this board. most of her opinions are neutral, maybe except for staying on the river in bangkok, but as a whole, alot of readers have benefited from her comments. me included.

perhaps her initial comments concerning your post of 7/14 may be viewed as unwarranted by you, but in the past we have had several of posters who have so much time on their hands that they "cruise" forums for the purpose of stirring the pot.

kathie apologized for misinterpreting your intent, so why can't you be big enough to accept her apology, and move on?(not meaning to move on from here, its a free country). :-)

Hi, not an Asian story but embarrassing nonetheless.

In 1994 I got the chance to work in California for a year (I'm Australian). My wife and I had never been to the States before, so naturally the first thing we did was organise a trip to Disneyland. We booked it all through a travel agent and were flying from Oakland to Anaheim.

When we collected our tickets at Oakland ariport we were horrfied to see we'd been booked to fly to Ontario! What had that crazy agent done? The only Ontario we'd ever heard of was in Canada.

After finally working out how to use the pay phones (a whole separate embarrassing story) we got onto the agent who couldn't help herself and just about cried with laughter down the phone to us when we started squawking to her that we didn't have the right clothes for Canada and we really wanted to go to Disneyland.

Kuranosake

I too have read Kathie's posts in many threads on this forum and she has provided excellent advice and timely information. The gist of her comment, I believe, really referred to "implement a search" before you ask a question or bring up a subject, not that someone is causing trouble.

Some tales are priceless, especially Pumbleshook's; however, not all incidences are funny. Once, at a tourist spot in Bangkok, my wife offered to take a picture of this couple, with their camera. They refused her offer and as she walked away one loudly called her a "stupid americano." However, immediately after that, a lovely Japanese lady came up and offered to take our picture. We remember her with fondness. The other couple? Maybe his boyfriend didn't want any pictures. Who knows?

I believe Jamles response was not being as critical as you thought, just surprised. So just chill out and take the chip off your shoulder and don't be so critical Enjoy the travel stories people have to tell. Maybe you'll learn something - I know I have.

Bonjour Slojan,

"Gosh, I hope none of you make any ignorant comments while on the road"

I'm pretty sure everybody on these boards have at some point made an ignorant comment during their travel, and that someone, somewhere, has made a whole discussion forum laugh about it. I know I have, and some of my Japanese and American friends will some time remind me and we'll have a good laugh about it.

However, I'm pretty sure I've never shown the kind of thoughtlessness, arrogance and rudeness shown by some tourists who obviously think that they deserve to be treated like royalty as soon as they leave the comfort of their home.

I've met some really nasty and embarrassing people during my travels, from the 4 Americans complaining they couldn't pay their Kyoto hotel bill in dollars despite "having won the war, after all", to the dozen Frenchmen who were doing judo throws in the middle of a temple (I'm French, had to tell them off), by way of the Swiss girl who started undressing in a overcrowded subway train because she was hot (and loudly observed that the way people stared at her showed that the Japanese were not tolerant), or the Swedish girl who sarted a feminist rant against the men who wouldn't give her a seat in a commuter train at peak hour, among a few examples ...

And I can tell you, telling it all here is a heck of a good therapy towards recovering from the sheer embarrassment you feel when you're in the middle of it all ...

First, to Kathie: Of course, I accept your apology. Thank you.

Second, to Kuranosuke: Your comment was the very reason I did not reply to Kathie's post. I did NOT want to keep anything negative going and thought it best to leave it alone. So let's do that.

I am most appreciative of the invaluable resource that the Fodor's board is. The generosity of people's time is quite special. I'll close my posting with wishes for safe and enjoyable travels to all.

Les

Hi jamles,
Well done on ignoring the snide, unwarranted and unwelcome comments flowing from your post. Most posters here (and in the European section) are, as expected, well-mannered and not given to ill-considered and petty posts that need follow-up apologies. Hopefully a lesson has been learned. Otherwise, this is an incredibly helpful, friendly and informative site. I myself have enjoyed reading your "three year old thread pulled up by a new poster with a provocative comment." I wouldn't have read it otherwise. Thanks.