Chinese tourists damaged historical site, says Taiwan media
Fort Zeelandia vandalised by Chinese tourists, according to Taiwanese reports
Chinese tourists were seen damaging a historical site and exhibiting unruly behaviour on a recent visit to southern Taiwan during the China’s Golden Week holiday, according to a Taiwanese media report.
Witnesses told television station TVBS that they had seen Chinese tourists using their fingers to poke and dig away at the fragile mortar and concrete walls of Fort Zeelandia, a grade-one national heritage site in city of Tainan.
A building with a history ranging more than 400 years, the Fort’s exterior walls have endured centuries of weathering and erosion and is now vulnerable to vandalism by tourists, the report said.
The newscast added that the tourists, speaking Chinese dialects, continued trying to hollow out the walls of the fort despite staff efforts to intervene.
In addition, some Chinese tourists were seen smoking and spitting inside the site, openly flouting the site’s warning signs.
Greater Tainan Cultural Affairs Bureau Director Yeh Tse-shan confirmed to Taipei Times that the behaviour of the Chinese tourists had violated the nation’s Cultural Heritage Preservation Act. But he also indicated the difficulties in curbing such misconduct.