China embarrassed by badly behaving tourists at Xian and Buddhist Shaolin Temple during May Day holiday period

Tourists engage in embarrassing behaviour including damaging ancient walls and writing graffiti on historic steles

In some instances parents were seen encouraging children to damage ancient and sacred sites

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Tourists climbing on bamboo at the sacred Shaolin Temple site in Henan, central China. Photo: Handout

Published: 10:10pm, 6 May 2021Updated: 11:04pm, 6 May 2021

China’s tourism industry may have returned to pre-pandemic levels during the May Day holiday, but tourists have once again been called out for bad behaviour.

Tourist attractions across mainland China saw various boorish behaviours including climbing up ancient walls and drawing on centuries-old steles as the government recorded 230 million trips during the 5-day public holiday, which was up 103 per cent from the same period in 2019.

In Xian, the ancient Chinese capital famous for the Terracotta Army, some tourists were caught on video climbing up the ancient city walls, another major attraction of the city built over 600 years ago, causing bricks to fall, according to China Youth Daily.

Tourists climbing and damaging the ancient city walls at Xian, centra China, despite requests they refrain from doing so. Photo: Handout

In a video published this week some adults were seen scrambling up Xian’s ancient exterior wall in order to take photos, while others were seen pushing their children up so they could play on the ruins.

This has become so common that the attraction’s service centre has to repair the ancient structure after each tourism peak, said a worker.

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