Has anyone experienced the chinese tourists?
Spent the past 6 weeks travelling and never seen so many.
My experience was a massive cultural clash that i found hard to deal with.
I know quite a lot of chinese people that i have daily contact with and they are sound and very pleasant to deal with esp in business.
But on my travels the language barrier and attitudes made it almost impossible to connect with and find common ground.
Since returning i have been on google and it seems the ski resorts now have a massive chinese influx esp in Swiss.
Dont want thread to take a negative direction and need to overcome this cultural difference so does anyone have experience of dealing with this type of chinese tourist?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@hawkwind, do you 'need' to connect and find common ground with tourists from anywhere? Personally I have no real interest in other tourists and have very little interaction with them. If I REALLY had to communicate in a language I don't speak I would use Google translate and do it in writing. I had to do that with my Hausmeister as I don't speak german
I've never noticed Chinese tourists in ski resorts. Loads in London and they tend to be in groups with a leader
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Sun 21-02-16 13:16; edited 1 time in total
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
hawkwind wrote:
Dont want thread to take a negative direction and need to overcome this cultural difference so does anyone have experience of dealing with this type of chinese tourist?
Normally its not an issue , common ground is various tourists,travellers etc all respecting each others space and having a good time without causing others distress.
In my experience recently a small amount of chinese tourists totally disregard for that unspoken respect.
They will cut in line , stop in the middle of roads , slopes , pavments and start arguing or taking selfies , they will shout at any staff member and generally act worse than any vision of the lout stereotype of western drunken tourists.
Its just hard to not let it annoy you as they are so rude and so loud and in groups so large you cant help but have your personal space invaded.
If you havent seen them yet look out they are on their way! Imagine immense groups of kardasians with iphones in plastic pouches yelling at the hired help , its a sight to behold.
Note , only small groups but boy do they give an entire nation a bad rep!
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@Alastair Pink,
Love it
and thats very indicative of the lack of cultural respect
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I noticed quite a few Chinese people in Wengen getting the train up to Kleine Schwotsit - I was just baffled at what they were wearing, some were dressed in mini skirts, tights and trainers..... It was -11 up there! My friend who lives in Switz said they seem to have many coach trips to resorts like Engleberg and Wengen for the day, then they go and stay down the valley.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Nadenoodlee wrote:
I noticed quite a few Chinese people in Wengen getting the train up to Kleine Schwotsit - I was just baffled at what they were wearing, some were dressed in mini skirts, tights and trainers..... It was -11 up there! My friend who lives in Switz said they seem to have many coach trips to resorts like Engleberg and Wengen for the day, then they go and stay down the valley.
The last time I skied at Wengen was like 6-7 years ago. There was a Japanese group (I speak a bit of Japanese) on the train. The only problem, it was snowing and zero visibility. So why were they taking the train to the top when there's nothing to be seen?
At least they were dressed in more seasonally appropriate clothing. (I suspect some of the Chinese tourists simply didn't bring any winter clothing for their mostly city tours?)
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Quite a few Chinese in St Anton last month. Majority were skiers in onesies who stayed on the blues near the nasserin.
Didn't see any Chinese, Russians at night.
Lots of Irish. Who were in top form in the moose.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Not a surprise because they are the largest travelling nation on Earth now. I've seen them being herded up the Jungfrau and many in Salzburg but seems to me they aren't there for the skiing, they're on some whirlwind tour of Europe. In the summer I often do beers on the deck of the Tattershall Castle on the Thames and whole tourist boat loads of Chinese pull up close and snap pictures. Its bizarre, they must go home and show pictures of office workers quaffing lager.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
I think Chinese now are becoming as ubiquitous as Japanese seemed to be 20 years ago. Unfortunately, they are not as meek and conformist as the Japanese stereotype, so you see the loud, brash behaviour. But this is not like Brits in Benidorm, I believe it's how they behave at home also. So correct to call it a culture clash rather than a bunch of people being rude to foreigners (see Novy Russki for that).
A Belgian colleague has been married to a Greek lady for years. He said the first time he went to her house, he asked what had been the massive argument at the dinner table. She said "What argument?" Apparently it was a normal discussion - just with a level of decibels and emotion that he wasn't used to.
When I was in Canada at the millennium, the Japanese were treated good humouredly - all wearing identical yellow and black or orange and black or red and black ski suits, and all following the instructor obediently in groups of 20 or so at a time. The collective noun was a swarm.
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Sun 21-02-16 17:22; edited 1 time in total
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Yes, we get lots of Chinese, Japanese and Koreans here to visit the Jungfraujoch. They're all on pre-booked excursions so they take pot-luck with the weather.
It all started with the Japanese of course. Emperor Hirohito came here on a grand tour in 1921. This popularised European tours and they've been coming ever since. The Jungfrau region spends an absolute fortune on marketing in Asia and the Far East.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Bowness on Windermere is often full of Chinese mainly feeding the swans I often wince when I see one trying to hand feed the swans.
I don't think Chinese children are bought up on the same myths as British children about swans that can break peoples arms, as you often see the British giving the swans a good 10 yard radius whilst the Chinese seem to try to get a selfie with Mr killer swan.
Always seem polite enough and bringing in much needed money.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Can't say I've seen any Chinese round these parts, but there are loads of Japanese in Zermatt, it must be on a 'tourist trail'.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Chamonix has many Chinese tourists, no problems so far. Generally if they look Asian and are misbehaving they are Korean, but the well traveled ones , some of whom are now outdoor industry journalists are trying to correct this trend.
The Indians on the other hand are a real pain.
They are only here at shoulder season because despite being wealthy they refuse to pay high season prices.
They don't understand personal space and push and shove in very inappropriate places (Aiguillette due Midi), they try and haggle with every vendor/ticket office.
They NEVER listen to their tour guide, and some times cause lift delays and they themselves miss their next appointment.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Quote:
They don't understand personal space
That's the worst thing especially if it is accompanied by noisy eating of packed lunches. For me it marred going up the Jungfrau.
That's the worst thing especially if it is accompanied by noisy eating of packed lunches. For me it marred going up the Jungfrau.
Packed lunches, I wish. They push so hard to occupy the space in which I'm standing (not that I have an room to move) that they are pierced by the Ice Axe on my pack !
Sounds like another good reason to ski somewhere nobody outside France has heard of.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Must admit I have seen more groups of Chinese in Swiss resorts than any other country I've skied in. Never witnessed any cultural differences until last easter on a restaurant terrace in First. A group of, I presume, Chinese skiers had just finished lunch. They then en masse started to cough and cough and cough up loads of phlegm and spit it onto the snow and their feet. Apparently this is the norm in China, coughing into a hankie and putting in your pocket is seen as socially unacceptable behaviour. This did attract a lot of scowls and catcalls from the locals.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Orange200 wrote:
Unfortunately, they are not as meek and conformist as the Japanese stereotype, so you see the loud, brash behaviour. But this is not like Brits in Benidorm, I believe it's how they behave at home also. So correct to call it a culture clash rather than a bunch of people being rude to foreigners (see Novy Russki for that).
Yep, it's just what's normal for them.
Take restaurant etiquette for example.
In the west we seem to expect waiting staff to be our friends, asking us if everything's alright and if we need anything every 5 minutes and hoping we have a nice day when we leave. Placing an order take 5 minutes while they talk you through the menu what they/the cook think is especially nice (i.e. is about to go off). To your native chinese tourist this is just really rude. You're here for a meal with your friends and just want to order and enjoy their company and don't want someone stranger butting in to your private conversation every 5 minutes. You're not a baby and if you want something are more than capable of asking for it.
On the flip side a westerner think's it's the staff and chinese customer who are rude in a ethnic chinese restaurant. The staff because they just leave you sat at a table for 15 minutes without coming over to take their order (they were waiting for you to call them when you wanted them) and when they did take your order did it by walking up and saying just "What do you want?" (trying to minimise how much they interupted you). And the chinese customers because when they wanted some more food/drink they just shouted to get the attention of the staff (how else are the staff meant to know you want them?).
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Why would you want to mix with strangers on holiday? Especially as you found them hard to connect with.
I try and make friends with the barman, and head waiter/waitress, the man at the ski shop, and that's it.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
God you guys have issues... Russians are bad, east Europeans are bad, French are bad, of course everyone German speaking are bad as well, not to mention Dutch... and on the end, you don't really live in Alps either, so you are one of those annoying tourists too in case you missed that, so I don't really see what gives you right to complain about "so many other tourists, with who you can't connect or go on your nerves".
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
primoz wrote:
God you guys have issues... Russians are bad, east Europeans are bad, French are bad, of course everyone German speaking are bad as well, not to mention Dutch... and on the end, you don't really live in Alps either, so you are one of those annoying tourists too in case you missed that, so I don't really see what gives you right to complain about "so many other tourists, with who you can't connect or go on your nerves".
May I take this opportunity to wish you the very best of luck.......
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
I was in Cambridge a couple of weeks ago.
Mobs and mobs of Chinese tourists viewing the obvious sights with their guides.
Lots of them with surgical face masks on...not a surprise, its a cultural thing, but still odd.
A LOT of them with selfie-sticks in permanent use....and this was really odd:
They are filming themselves looking at Kings College Chapel, Trinity, Caius etc...but not a single shot of Kings College Chapel, Trinity or Caius etc.
What a weird holiday movie that will make:
"Look Mother, here is the look on my face when I saw the beauty of Kings...and then me squinting a bit when looking at Trinity...oh, I do look a bit strange, that was when I trod on somebody else's foot trying to get a good view of Caius"
Weird.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
I was hoping this thread was going to have suggestions of where I can get a good chicken chow mein in ADH
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Tue 23-02-16 15:10; edited 1 time in total
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
A couple of Chinese friends have just come back from a family ski holiday. They love it and go every Feb half term, they don't mind it being busy but said they had seen a marked increase in the number of westerners trying to make friends and engage in conversation.
God you guys have issues... Russians are bad, east Europeans are bad, French are bad, of course everyone German speaking are bad as well, not to mention Dutch... and on the end, you don't really live in Alps either, so you are one of those annoying tourists too in case you missed that, so I don't really see what gives you right to complain about "so many other tourists, with who you can't connect or go on your nerves".
What's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted around
in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in
their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their
Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea - "Oh they don't make it properly
here, do they, not like at home" - and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling
fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in
their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw
swollen purulent flesh 'cos they "overdid it on the first day." And being
herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their
modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools
full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and
frightening the children and barging into queues and if you're not at your
table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the
first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the
hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with
nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a
big back bottom presenting Flamenco for Foreigners. And adenoidal typists from... ...
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I spent Christmas in Cervinia and saw a few Chinese skiing and having fun. One evening a saw a group of them in the Dragon . They were having fun , as I spent time working in China I asked one of them where they came from and the reply was "Australia" with an aussie accent. All of them were friendly and polite even the "white male" one with them.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@andyrew, My folks let me have a vinyl copy of Python's Previous Record when I was about 8
An ill advised choice given some of the subject matter and language. This didn't really dawn on my parents until the line "because she's a f**king princess, that's why"
that had that sketch on it. Didn't have a clue what Watney's Red Barrel was but always made me laugh.
God you guys have issues... Russians are bad, east Europeans are bad, French are bad, of course everyone German speaking are bad as well, not to mention Dutch... and on the end, you don't really live in Alps either, so you are one of those annoying tourists too in case you missed that, so I don't really see what gives you right to complain about "so many other tourists, with who you can't connect or go on your nerves".
What's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted around
in buses surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Coventry in
their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their
Sunday Mirrors, complaining about the tea - "Oh they don't make it properly
here, do they, not like at home" - and stopping at Majorcan bodegas selling
fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in
their cotton frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw
swollen purulent flesh 'cos they "overdid it on the first day." And being
herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their
modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools
full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and
frightening the children and barging into queues and if you're not at your
table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the
first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the
hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with
nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a
big back bottom presenting Flamenco for Foreigners. And adenoidal typists from... ...
This was well worth repeating in full, excellent, quite made my day
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Mjit wrote:
Yep, it's just what's normal for them.
Take restaurant etiquette for example.
In the west we seem to expect waiting staff to be our friends, asking us if everything's alright and if we need anything every 5 minutes and hoping we have a nice day when we leave. Placing an order take 5 minutes while they talk you through the menu what they/the cook think is especially nice (i.e. is about to go off). To your native chinese tourist this is just really rude. You're here for a meal with your friends and just want to order and enjoy their company and don't want someone stranger butting in to your private conversation every 5 minutes. You're not a baby and if you want something are more than capable of asking for it.
On the flip side a westerner think's it's the staff and chinese customer who are rude in a ethnic chinese restaurant. The staff because they just leave you sat at a table for 15 minutes without coming over to take their order (they were waiting for you to call them when you wanted them) and when they did take your order did it by walking up and saying just "What do you want?" (trying to minimise how much they interupted you). And the chinese customers because when they wanted some more food/drink they just shouted to get the attention of the staff (how else are the staff meant to know you want them?).
I'm a westerner and I'm definitely on the side of the Chinese in your example above. I hate being interrupted repeatedly during a meal to be asked if everything is OK. If it wasn't I'd have told them.
I noticed quite a few Chinese people in Wengen getting the train up to Kleine Schwotsit - I was just baffled at what they were wearing, some were dressed in mini skirts, tights and trainers..... It was -11 up there! My friend who lives in Switz said they seem to have many coach trips to resorts like Engleberg and Wengen for the day, then they go and stay down the valley.
. . .ditto Wengen this time last year . . .I actually thought their inappropriate clobber was interesting, and couldn't work out what they were actually doing at half term in a ski resort . . .ONLY mild cultural problem I had was with them blatantly taking photos of my kids in front of me on the train - which they stopped doing when I asked them politely . . .in hindsight I should have charged them - it was Switzerland after all
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Never seen any chinese in ski resorts though a lot of arabs in Burkhas in Zell am See.
However I have the pleasure of visiting the Maldives for diving occasionally and this is on the chinese tour map. They come for only about three nights so make the most of every minute. Have boat trips, dolphin watching (no doubt licking their lips), and the special gourmet dinners that no one else seems to go to. Whilst the europeans dive or sun bathe you can see young chinese women walking around the island in haute couture taking endless pictures of each other.
As the sun goes down they take to the sea. As none seem to be able to swim they are wearing arms bands, flotation devices and polyester hoodies to keep the sun off. Unfortunately these are not very buoyancy neutral and every year there are some drowning where they tip over with legs in the air and head underwater and are unable to get their mouths back to the surface. Some also float away in the current to be be picked up drowned by the dive boat
I have never witnessed any diving but a fellow diver saw them doing 'try dives' with a chinese diver instructor on another island. Apparently he was basically dragging them down two at a time for a few minutes then bringing them back to the surface. They were non-swimmers. Surprised he did not get the Bends.
The last island I stayed on had a problem with a 'tame' napoleon wrasse being harpooned by chinese guests (some must be able to swim). Which is illegal. Also there has been a reduction of the crabs on the sea walls as the chinese were boiling them in their kettles.
Never been a problems to me as they never attempt to interact with anyone else (can be said for those at my local university) and do not smoke as much as our fellow europeans.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Nadenoodlee wrote:
I noticed quite a few Chinese people in Wengen getting the train up to Kleine Schwotsit - I was just baffled at what they were wearing, some were dressed in mini skirts, tights and trainers..... It was -11 up there! My friend who lives in Switz said they seem to have many coach trips to resorts like Engleberg and Wengen for the day, then they go and stay down the valley.
Japanese have been going to Wengen for years, from 1992
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Growing up in a famous golf place, I always used to find the Japanese tourists funny, always saying "thank you, thank you" and taking photos. Having spent years away from that sort of tourist spot, I had totally forgotten, until a recent trip to Japan...
About 99 % of my time was spent gesticulating with my camera and saying "Arigato! Arigato!" to anyone who looked in my direction!
Cultural differences are a part of modern life. You should have seen some of the reactions we got for having a pram on the metro in Tokyo at rush hour... There are probably forums full of pictures of us on the Japanese inter webs!
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
My folks let me have a vinyl copy of Python's Previous Record when I was about 