BEIJING — “Ding Jinhao was here.”
It was a banal declaration scratched by a teenager into an artifact at a 3,500-year-old Egyptian temple that has launched a round of soul-searching about the bad behavior of Chinese tourists.
The Chinese-language graffiti was discovered at Luxor this month by a Chinese tourist who posted a photograph on a microblog in which he deplored the behavior of his countrymen abroad. “I’m so embarrassed that I want to hide myself,” the microblogger wrote last week.
Within days, Chinese had outed the vandal as a boy from Nanjing who had visited Egypt with his parents.
The incident has set off a very public debate in China about etiquette and the country’s image abroad. In response, the National Tourism Administration issued guidelines this week advising Chinese going abroad on eight key points of etiquette, from waiting in line to refraining from spitting and littering.
“They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and (engage in) some other uncivilized behavior. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact,” Vice Premier Wang Yang complained.