Uncivil tourists and a call to post “act civilized” announcements in Chinese outside of China. The post has me thinking about 文明 both as a technology of regulating relationships between strangers and as Ann Anagnost’s early work on “civilization” as a means of regulating the bodies of peasants so that they might be mobilized more easily for post-Mao politics (see the prescient National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China, an anthology of essays published during the early and mid 1990s), begging the question: just who benefits from 文明?
These days, Chinese tourists have developed a bad reputation, not only abroad. Chinese people are also tired of Chinese tourists. “东方卫报” (dōngfāng wèibào – “The Eastern Guardian”), a Nanjing based daily newspaper, published the following article on their front page on Tuesday April 7, 2015:
The heading translates to “Take it Easy on Your Outings: Six Kinds of Uncivil Behavior to Take Note Of.” The six uncivil behaviors are listed below:
违规吸烟 (wéi guī xīyān) – smoking illegally
随地吐痰 (suídì tù tán) – spitting phlegm everywhere
争抢座位 (zhēngqiǎng zuòwèi) – to scramble for the seats
乱扔垃圾 (luànrēng lājī) – to litter garbage
大声喧哗 (dàshēng xuānhuá) – to be noisy and to make a racket
推挤插队 (tuī jǐ chāduì) – to push, shove and cut in line
Examples of the behavior:
Failed System
The incidents including Chinese tourists within China and abroad are too numerous to count, but one thing is…
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Shenzhen Noted 