‘Disgusting’ China tourist swaps used water bottle for new souvenir flask at British Museum, angering mainland social media
- Incident goes viral after online observer reveals ‘shameful’ behaviour
- Mainland Chinese tourists have developed poor reputation for behavior abroad
A visitor from China touring the British Museum has come under fire after she opened a box containing a souvenir flask and replaced it with a used water bottle.
A video of the incident went viral in mid-March after a user on Xiaohongshu, China’s Instagram, brought attention to the incident and said she felt “speechless” when she saw it, according to the news outlet Illnews.com.
Online sleuths are confident the woman is from China because the water bottle was marked in both English and simplified Chinese characters, the mainland’s official written language.
The characters indicate that the water bottle was from the Xinfu branch of the Bank of Jinzhou in Liaoning province in northeastern China and was likely given away for free as a marketing tool, a common strategy worldwide.
That being said, there is no definitive proof the person is from the mainland, and they could be from other parts of the world where simplified characters are relatively common.
The Xiaohongshu user said: “Many people only visit the British Museum once in their life. Imagine buying a souvenir and opening the package only to discover a used, dirty bottle. What would they think?
“What’s more, this flask is not expensive. Please do not do this again. It’s really disgusting behaviour!”
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, tourists from China were developing a bad reputation abroad for behaviour that reflected poorly on the country.
Over the past two decades, China’s Foreign Ministry frequently issued notices to remind its citizens to pay attention to their manners.
The number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad has dropped dramatically since the pandemic.
According to Statistica, a German online platform that specialises in data gathering, 87 million Chinese residents left the country in 2023, a significant drop from the 155 million who went abroad for leisure in 2019.
One government notice sent out in September 2013, ahead of the annual October National Day holiday period, a peak time for travelling abroad, said: “When in Rome, please do as the Romans do. Act appropriately, mind your image, get along with local people in a friendly way, and demonstrate the good image of Chinese tourists.”
The flask-swapping incident has captivated mainland social media.
Reacting to the incident, one person on Weibo said it was “a shame for us.”
“The blue water bottle is obviously owned by an older person in his or her 60s or 70s. Maybe they thought stealing the property from Britain was patriotic,” quipped another referencing the British pillaging of China during the Opium Wars.
