Before the stereotypical Chinese tourist, brash Americans and red-faced Britons were drawn to Hong Kong
From the camera-gear-laden Japanese to loud-mouthed Australians, tourists always stand out no matter how hard they try to blend in
Let’s face it, when travelling, most of us like to think we could pass for a local. But what marked out tourists in Hong Kong in the past – as distinct from resident foreigners?
National stereotypes abounded – mainly because archetypes were plentiful. Australians were loud-mouthed and casual; Britons were perpetually red-faced from exposure to the tropical sunshine; the Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians wore rucksacks, sensible footwear and a few sartorial nods to their travel: tie-dyed trousers from a Bangkok night market, a shawl from Nepal, or tribal jewellery from Laos, made them exotic stand-outs among Hong Kong’s conventionally clad office workers.
That brashly eager American tourist stereotype, Howard T. Globetrotter III, who told everyone that asked – and many who didn’t – that he proudly hailed from Buttcrack, Nebraska, and was here to see Asia, end-to-end, in three weeks flat, became the stuff of gently amused, post-war travel-writing legend.
How could he be recognised? Loud Hawaiian shirts, baggy shorts, long socks and the inevitable baseball cap proclaimed to the world that he was “on vacation”. Another giveaway was half the contents of a camera shop slung around his neck, ideally located for opportunistic street-corner snatch thieves.
A plaintive tendency to ask for local prices “in real money” saw more than a few wide-eyed American adventurers quoted what they felt was a reasonable amount in “dollars”, and peel off a wad of greenbacks – instead of Hong Kong currency – in payment, while the inscrutable Chinese shopkeeper bowed, smiled enigmatically and saw them swiftly on their way. As the city’s formerly well-merited reputation as a “shopping paradise” declined through the 1990s, these travellers largely evaporated.
From the late 70s, with Japan’s extraordinary post-war economic recovery, and the lifting of exchange controls on the yen, hordes of salarymen, sometimes accompanied by their wives, started to appear in tourist destinations. Hong Kong was hugely popular as it was close to home, inexpensive relative to Japan and – much as with mainland Chinese visitors today – the brand-name luxuries that Japanese consumers so avidly worshipped could be easily had at duty-free prices.
Like the Americans, dress was an immediate giveaway; the Japanese have costumes for every occasion, and holidays are no exception. For the men, sober clothes in colours that don’t show the dirt, fisherman’s cloth caps (women’s versions exist) and baseball caps were usual. And like the Americans, early Japanese tourist arrivals were heavily burdened with camera gear. Japanese food, hotels and shops were preferred.
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Like it or not, mainland Chinese have become the latest global tourist stereotype and many uncomfortable home truths reside within the clichés. A key difference between contemporary mainland Chinese tourist arrivals and earlier national groups is sheer volume. This, in turn, means the actual number of tourists who push, shove and queue-jump, spit (or worse) on floors, put their feet on seats, screech at the top of their lungs to companions in close proximity – the gamut of thoroughly well documented, unlovely mainland Chinese tourist traits – remains disconcertingly high.
Attempts by others to modify such behaviour frequently result in abusive tirades or other emotional meltdowns. And with smartphone cameras always at the ready, foul-mouthed temper tantrums are impossible to downplay or deny.
