From Islands to Utensils....

It's official; China, you've arrived as a first world country.

 

Asians LOVE to steal silverware (I have spent time working in Asia, therefore I am an expert on this).

I HATE to steal silverware.

-bigtexxx

 

I like how the article went on to name every single negative incident an Chinese tourist has committed in the past year.

 

What's the problem? They told them it was to be re-used. They should have been more clear.

 

Back in 2008, I was in China for about a month, and I saw this happen a lot. I was in line to use the restroom in a pretty nice restaurant in Beijing, and as I was approaching the urinal, a man in his 40s cut in front of me, and tried to use it before me. I shoved him out of the way because I was pretty annoyed, and he had the audacity to look at me in disgust. He went back to the line where he was berated by an elderly man waiting in line behind me, who apologized to me while I was washing my hands. I'm guessing the guy was his son.

 

I like how the tour guide told them to stop it because it would hurt China's image, then the article goes on an hurts China's image. At least as much as an incident like this can. I'm not sure if them keeping the silverware would've made them look much worse.

FWIW, Singapore Airlines is easily the best airline I've ever flown.

 

Since they've hurt China's reputation abroad anyway, they should have just kept the silverware.

But, it's not like the Chinese have a corner on the boorish tourist racket anyway. Lots of people are that way. I remember seeing a English tourist sit in Napoleon III's chair, not because he wanted to be able to say he sat in Napoleon III's chair but because he didn't realize it was an historic artifact even though he crossed a velvet rope to get to it. That family was so embarassing (for that and other things), I only spoke French with my wife during the tour so nobody would think I was associated with them.

 

a couple of weeks ago i was on a southwest flight. if you know SW you know they don't assign seats, it's first come first serve. an elderly lady sat a few rows behind me. as the plane began to fill up, someone wanted to sit in the empty seat next to her. she refused to give it up claiming she's saving it for a friend. this was close the back of the plane so you can't just turn around to look for another seat with 8 people behind you.

well, the flight attendant told her she can't save seats. she didn't respond in english so i don't know if she understood the FA or not. this went on for a couple minutes when the lady's friend finally spoke up who was in line behind 5 other people. i'm sure the people in front of her were fed up with the entire exchange and just let her sit there.

probably irrelevant to the OP. i just wanted to share.