If no one else wants to say it, I'll be the first one to say it. Hawaii, and the travel industry in the West, are pretty excited about the potential of the burgeoning Mainland China Chinese tourist market. I'm here to say, "fuck that."
New rich, upjumped Chinese peasants are the worst customers ever. They are rude, uncouth, rough and lack any appreciation of Western dining social norms. And worst of all they are bad tippers, they'll drop 300 buck on drinks on a food tab of 200 but they tend not to tip or tip poorly because it's not how it's done in China.
They are unbelievably disrespectful of service workers. In China, lording over the waiter/waitress is part of the dining experience you pay for. Shit is going to hit the fan when those demanding old Chinese men clash with tired, grizzled, young, female, $7/hour American service workers.
They'll chain smoke in their hotel rooms, they won't tip, they'll spit, they'll be demanding, they'll ask for free stuff, they won't queue properly in lines, they'll put their food waste on the table (cuz that's how they roll in China), they are LOUD...and they just don't care. how can you appeal to a person's sense of decency and propriety when their idea of of what is proper is ferocious survival of the fittest in a quasi-free market, semi-lawless, managed-capitalist economy?
what kind of people are we, the chinese? that we can build a powerhouse economy in the 30 years since Mao died and to do it all under a communist government? what does that tell you about the Chinese people? they just don't' give a fuck man, they'll do whatever they want. Want to build the worlds biggest dam? Drown a thousand villages and destroy countless archeology sites. Need 100,000 sneakers by next Tuesday? I can get it to you by Sunday. Need a new hotel built? Done. In less than a week. A new highway will destroy the endangered Asian Blue Necked Crane's habitat? I'll build that highway and serve you Roast Blue Necked Crane at the highway ribbon cutting ceremony, fucker.
Not to say that Chinese people are inherently bad customers. There are lots of cultural and anthropological forces at work. For example, in a country with over a billion people and over 160 cities with a million people, everyone has to develop very thick skin at a young age. If they so choose, Chinese city dwellers can make New Yorkers hold their pockets.
Also, because of the Communist Cultural Revolution very traditional and strict Chinese social norms were replaced by a godless communist creed. And when strict communist central planning started to break down under the pressure of capitalist forces, millions of young, uneducated Chinese men began to migrate to the major cities to find their fortunes. This created a HUGE population of young, single men, concentrated into congested urban living conditions. And all of them without a dominant, binding, coherent ideological structure that spelled out the rules of harmonious social interaction. Like what happened to dating and gender roles of america in the 60's, the Chinese had unknowingly destroyed long established social rules of etiquette and found themselves in social anarchy (say what you will about the repressive nature of these old norms, they did at least provide structure). Which is why, I believe, we have the arrogant, uneducated, mean, sexist, classist, cheap, uncaring Chinese tourist we find today.
Of course, not all Mainland Chinese people are like that. There are plenty of well educated, polite, considerate and gracious Chinese people too. But they are in the minority.
Does The West, as a collective economic region, really want to depend on these kinds of people for revenue?
PS: Fuck the koreans too. The Japanese are cool.
New rich, upjumped Chinese peasants are the worst customers ever. They are rude, uncouth, rough and lack any appreciation of Western dining social norms. And worst of all they are bad tippers, they'll drop 300 buck on drinks on a food tab of 200 but they tend not to tip or tip poorly because it's not how it's done in China.
They are unbelievably disrespectful of service workers. In China, lording over the waiter/waitress is part of the dining experience you pay for. Shit is going to hit the fan when those demanding old Chinese men clash with tired, grizzled, young, female, $7/hour American service workers.
They'll chain smoke in their hotel rooms, they won't tip, they'll spit, they'll be demanding, they'll ask for free stuff, they won't queue properly in lines, they'll put their food waste on the table (cuz that's how they roll in China), they are LOUD...and they just don't care. how can you appeal to a person's sense of decency and propriety when their idea of of what is proper is ferocious survival of the fittest in a quasi-free market, semi-lawless, managed-capitalist economy?
what kind of people are we, the chinese? that we can build a powerhouse economy in the 30 years since Mao died and to do it all under a communist government? what does that tell you about the Chinese people? they just don't' give a fuck man, they'll do whatever they want. Want to build the worlds biggest dam? Drown a thousand villages and destroy countless archeology sites. Need 100,000 sneakers by next Tuesday? I can get it to you by Sunday. Need a new hotel built? Done. In less than a week. A new highway will destroy the endangered Asian Blue Necked Crane's habitat? I'll build that highway and serve you Roast Blue Necked Crane at the highway ribbon cutting ceremony, fucker.
Not to say that Chinese people are inherently bad customers. There are lots of cultural and anthropological forces at work. For example, in a country with over a billion people and over 160 cities with a million people, everyone has to develop very thick skin at a young age. If they so choose, Chinese city dwellers can make New Yorkers hold their pockets.
Also, because of the Communist Cultural Revolution very traditional and strict Chinese social norms were replaced by a godless communist creed. And when strict communist central planning started to break down under the pressure of capitalist forces, millions of young, uneducated Chinese men began to migrate to the major cities to find their fortunes. This created a HUGE population of young, single men, concentrated into congested urban living conditions. And all of them without a dominant, binding, coherent ideological structure that spelled out the rules of harmonious social interaction. Like what happened to dating and gender roles of america in the 60's, the Chinese had unknowingly destroyed long established social rules of etiquette and found themselves in social anarchy (say what you will about the repressive nature of these old norms, they did at least provide structure). Which is why, I believe, we have the arrogant, uneducated, mean, sexist, classist, cheap, uncaring Chinese tourist we find today.
Of course, not all Mainland Chinese people are like that. There are plenty of well educated, polite, considerate and gracious Chinese people too. But they are in the minority.
Does The West, as a collective economic region, really want to depend on these kinds of people for revenue?
PS: Fuck the koreans too. The Japanese are cool.
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