A big group of Chinese tourists wanted to be first on a boat for some reason so they all just started shoving everyone out of the way, including little old ladies and children. It was really shocking behavior, like suddenly everyone around them was no longer a person. The boat was huge and had plenty of room for everyone so it wasn’t really obvious why they decided to attack people, they didn’t really gain anything by being the first aboard.
I’ve heard this is common
I went snorkeling in a group alongside a Chinese tourist family. The dad literally swam over top of me. To be clear, I was floating on the surface. Instead of going around me, he just swam over me, legs kicking and all. Fucking weirdest experience ever.
For some reason I find that hilarious I would’ve been so shocked I wouldn’t have reacted.
Was it Niagara Falls? Seen Asians do this before for the maid of the myst but not sure what nationality they were. Always assumed it was some Asian version of a college or school frat.
Nope, happened in Paris getting on one of the big tour boats that cruise the Seine. I think it was a large extended family or possibly a tour group composed of multiple families, the youngest were preteens and the oldest were maybe 50s or early 60s. I couldn’t figure out if there was a tour guide or anyone in charge of the group. We stayed as far from them as we could, they seemed like a bunch of rich assholes and were mostly loud and obnoxious the entire cruise. And just to make it clear, I’ve seen a lot of shit behavior from tourists in my life and no ethnicity or nationality has a monopoly on shitty tourists. People are monsters, and rich assholes are gonna rich asshole. This one just stands out as the worst because it was such a large group and the violence was so sudden and pointless, and then we were trapped on a boat ride with them.
Seen Chinese do (try) the same thing in plitwice national parks. There are only these small wooden paths leading down to the boats. Let’s put it this way: it’s rather unamused when someone two heads smaller than you and half your weight tries to force you into a lake/marshland. What is however amusing is simply stopping to move and watch them loose balance.
Shoving is pretty normal in mainland China. It’s just how you get through crowds. I’ve heard it’s getting better.
I was in the Navy and one of my shipmates got so drunk he passed out on a bench in front of the fountain at the Kings Cross intersection in Sydney. So a prostitute told him he was going to get arrested and when he spoke she realized he was American and somehow one thing leading to the other…
She gave him a bj at 7am during the beginning of rush hour traffic. She later took us to a couple private bars that were creepy and she stole his Levi’s later after they had sex and she left
Yep lived there! This was pre-2010
I stayed there in 2011 and the hotel didn’t have wifi. Jet lag led me to sitting on the sidewalk outside McDonald’s at 5am to get some internet.
This was probably 1994/95
Safe consumption sites save lives and improve communities, blatantly so when compared to the status quo. Fuck outta here with that tired, bloodsoaked, right-wing, reactionary NIMBYism.
You dont care and that dehumanization is why you’ll catch an ez block; I’m not rehashing this debate for the nth time.
To those reading on or willing to learn more:
Https://crackdownpod.com Actually hear the perspectives from survivors of the War on People [mostly of color] who use Drugs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dg8DA1LuZFk 5 minutes on why Harm Reduction/Safe Consumption Centers are a better way
Mate… dunno where to begin with you. I work in these places and I’m 100% for. You sound like you need to address an anxiety or anger problem.
American lady absolutely losing it and hysterically screaming at a McDonald’s cashier for not accepting US dollars. In Ireland.
hysterically
Hey…
Hersterically?
Tourists walking though a farmer’s tulip field, trampling the flowers, just to take a stupid picture. Not just one, but dozens of tourists per day.
We get that in Provence with lavender fields, people pick them like it’s not the farmers’ livelihood
I’m guessing, Chinese tourists in Holland…
Yes
I live in New Orleans and the police on Bourbon St. ride specially-trained, very large horses for crowd control. I’ve definitely seen some drunk tourists try to resist an officer’s command to calm down by trying to push back on the horse and the horse just being totally unphased.
I had to move a horse, to fill its water bucket while it was eating. I tap and talk, nothing. I push, can’t. I had to punch it literally as hard as I could so it would acknowledge me. They have really thick skin.
Disclaimer: Don’t punch a horse if you don’t know it and what you are doing. They get scared easily and you won’t be the first to get your jaw wired back together.
Spend money (waste fuel, and worse: waste precious time) to go to touristic places so they can take the exact same picture/video everyone else has taken, and share it on the exact same social networks everyone else has done. Why not just buy a postcard or repost a photo already shared. Why not, you know, look around and suddenly realize there are many other things worth looking at… things that may not even be that remote from where they live.
For me, that’s one of the most extreme demonstration of generalized craziness, if not worse. Or maybe it’s just me who’s crazy (or worse)?
Edit: added a missing word.
The point of a photo is to remember something you did. Not generally the photo itself.
Resharing someone else’s photo is not even similar to going somewhere and capturing the moment.
When you’re old those photos might be all you have left.
The point of a photo is to remember something you did. Not generally the photo itself.
Why then share it? I don’t share the (very few) photos I take.
Resharing someone else’s photo is not even similar to going somewhere and capturing the moment.
I should have added a ‘\s’ to my sentence ;)
When you’re old those photos might be all you have left.
Sure, memories are priceless and they may differ for everyone. I mean, I’m old(er) and I much prefer words to images myself (I’ve been journaling for almost 50 years). Also, I don’t care to remember seing the Eiffel Tower (even less so since I live in Paris, which is a privileged place to observe tourists), or NY, or Bangkok, or any other place in particular. I wish to remember people.
Note that I simply answered the OP question (what is the craziest thing you have seen a tourist do). I may be wrong, like I hinted to in my previous comment, but to this still is the most mind boggling stupid thing I can see people do over and over again every singled day… the moment I pass in one of those few Parisian streets full of tourists ;)
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then? You sound mad about other people being excited that they finally saved enough and took an opportunity to enjoy themselves. People go to places to see things because that’s what tourism is. Do you not try to do things yourself because others have done it before you? Did you know that tour groups are a business formed to do exactly what you think is crazy?
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun.
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then? You sound mad about other people being excited that they finally saved enough and took an opportunity to enjoy themselves. People go to places to see things because that’s what tourism is. Do you not try to do things yourself because others have done it before you? Did you know that tour groups are a business formed to do exactly what you think is crazy?
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun.
Let me recap your reply:
Do you not try
Did you know
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun
and
You sound mad about other people
Pardon me, but who exactly sounds mad, here?
It’s possible I’m over-interpreting the way you answered and maybe, like me, English is not you native language and you may not master it enough to express all the nuances of your deep and rich opinions and thoughts. It is such a pain, it happens to me all the time too.
So, to make it clear, I answered a question without worrying much about pleasing anyone, yourself included hope you won’t mind me saying so. And I answered what I thought was the craziest thing I see tourists do.
What I never tried to answer is this question you pulled out of the fleshy sitting part of your anatomy:
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then?
To put it politely, it’s quite unfair to change the question and then criticize my supposed answer to it. What was it you were saying? Oh, yeah: there is a remarkable detachment between you and the actual facts.
So, once again, I was only talking about tourists doing tourtisty things, and nothing else. I was not talking about people in general or crazy things in general. But since you asked, let me tell you you probably don’t want to know the craziest shit I’ve seen people do. And, no, they were not mere tourists behaving like mere tourists. Unless the tourist you know have a tendency to end up in jail, too?
That said, I’m grateful for the time you spend trying to help me realize the absolute dick I was by daring sharing my unflattering opinions on tourists behaving like tourists. Allow me to oblige in return. I insist.
- To recap, all I did is express my personal unflattering opinion on a question about tourists, right?
- To which you answered by expressing your own and rather unflattering opinion on the kind of person I must be, right?
But then, if 1. makes a dick out of me, what does 2. make out of you? Right.
So, to summarize, it seems we both have diverging personal and unflattering opinions. That’s great! I am always so happy to meet people willing to discuss without anger or being dismissive to one another, even more so when those two persons have slightly diverging opinions on very delicate topics.
Once again, from one dick to another, thank you very much for what I consider a very enriching discussion.
People share photos to seek validation that they are interesting and are doing interesting things. Is this very classy? Not really, but it’s true. It’ll always be true. I don’t really think there’s much point in judging people too heavily for it. We’re all just apes enslaved to whatever acts cause our body to release good chemicals.
I think there is a point at which it may be unhealthy if someone is only doing things for validation without taking any personal satisfaction at all, and tourism especially should be done respectfully and after a certain amount of tourists are in an area I do think it defeats the beauty, but I think deep down we all know why tourists are a thing, and why sharing pictures online is a thing.
Thx. Agreed. And yes, we all know why it is a thing.
When I answered to Chico Suave’s slightly less amiable comment I wanted to share a few links to what I consider interesting reads. Then I read your comment and thought maybe they would be read with a lot less hostility if I shared them here.
They’re in no order of importance and they’re a bit redundant too (there were many more, hopefully anyone will find one more exciting to read) and they may help better understand my opinion on tourism in general (and their photographic laziness in particular). It may also be worth saying that we do our best to put our money where our mouth is as, both my spouse and I, we decided some 25 years ago to quit traveling by plane to fancy places (at the time we realized the ecological crisis that was to come and because it suddenly seemed to us an inexcusable waste of energy just to satisfy our mere ‘leisure’ needs), and soon after that we also quit flying for work. No revolution mind you, and no ‘no fun allowed’ either, we made all our ‘touristic’ activities local and all our work travels/meetings virtual.
So if anyone is interested, about tourism (there are others, I simply grabbed the first few not obviously AI-written results I could find):
- https://fstoppers.com/landscapes/are-tourism-and-photographers-ruining-photography-195445
- https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/aug/17/wish-you-werent-here-how-tourists-are-ruining-the-worlds-greatest-destinations
- https://www.treehugger.com/travel-destinations-being-ruined-by-tourism-4868960
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/is-tourism-destroying-the-world
And if anyone is interested in trying to make…less touristic images (not that I’m a pro myself, far from it but isn’t it exciting to try to do better?) a few quick/easy suggestions:
- https://www.digitalphotomentor.com/tips-travel-photos-crowded-locations/
- https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tips-quickly-improve-photos/
- https://blog.depositphotos.com/back-to-basics-10-composition-rules-in-photography.html
- https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/10-top-photography-composition-rules
- https://www.capturelandscapes.com/7-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-images-look-better-today/ (#7 may be interesting, in the context of our discussion)
Try to touch a baby Canadian goose with the parent geese near by. WTF was that lady thinking!?!
That’s one way to get up close and personal with a cobra chicken
If you go to Yellowstone National Park it is very likely you will see someone almost die to wildlife. They think it’s Disney land or something and the park is filled with friendly show animals. On a week long trip I saw someone getting way too close to bison, caribou (in the town with video screens playing Caribou attacking cars and people on loop), and a bear with a cub. People are completely clueless.
And when people get or almost killed by an animal it is the animal’s fault instead of the idiot who created the situation.
Nobody goes their whole life without becoming intimately aware of the danger cobra chickens present. Once when I was a teenager, I decided to drive aggressively close to a couple geese while they were strolling around a busy parking lot. The goose took exception, and as I went by, he pecked at my car door, which left a dent and made a VERY loud noise. I was so flabbergasted by the violence contained within this downy devil, that I let my car slow, which was a mistake. The goose took it as a sign of weakness and was now charging at me.
I freak out, not wanting him to damage my car anymore, so I make haste out of the car park, pause for a moment at the stop sign, and turn right onto the road. I look back to the parking lot and what do I see? The goose, full flight, full speed, coming right at my passenger window. Before I can accelerate away, he collides with the passenger side door, leaving a HUGE dent, right next to the little dent he made earlier.
At that point I was doing like 60 in a 35 mph zone just to gtf away from that hellish demon spawn. Methinks perhaps reincarnation is real, and all truly evil people come back as canadian geese.
Not the craziest thing in this thread but inside a train, arguing loudly on the phone.
It sounded like the tourist was scammed or something.
Voluntarily go to Berlin
They created a department named after a meme coin.
What?
THEY CREATED A DEPARTMENT NAMED AFTER A MEME COIN
Obligatory “it’s not a real department”
Huh?
They’re calling Musk a tourist
Oh, tourist? I thought they said terrorist.
Dept of gov effeciency
Doge
Hate to tell ya, but corporations have been running the US government for most of its existence.
The scariest part about Trump is that the plutocracy no longer need to even hide the vacuous corruption. So many people are so mentally ill they’ll literally defend satan to your face, while feeding you an alternate version of reality, citing some dead shit crackpot with 1k YouTube views as “evidence”, while calling you crazy. Having dealt with these people, their OS is simply corrupted. They don’t know what logic or reality is anymore, and most of them never will… If they can ignore all evidence thus far, they’re more likely to murder you than they are to self reflect.
[off topic?]
I live in New York City. One of my friends used to teach an art history course at the4 College of Staten Island.
She once told me that she’d had students who’d never travelled the 12 miles to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. The Met is considered one of the top museums in the world, but going there was too much hassle
I mean, from SI to Manhattan, you either need to take a ferry or come into Bayonne, so that’s a whole thing. Then again, I’ll admit, I prefer the Cloisters to the main Met.
The Staten Island Ferry is such an awesome ride, though. It’s free and goes past beautiful views of the skylines and the Statue of Liberty.
I live in New York City, and when I’m hosting or hanging with visitors from out of town I always take them to ride the ferry to Staten Island and back if I can.
It’s fine as a tourist but doing it regularly must suck. I assume living on Staten Island sucks in general.
I always take them to ride the ferry to Staten Island and back if I can.
I know what you meant, but my brain read that and thought “what if he can’t, he just leaves them there?”
Vandalize government property and smear human feces on walls, while legislators are having a meeting doing official government duties
wait a minute, those didn’t seem like tourists…
Not tourists, terrorists.
They at least acknowledge it
Shit on the sidewalk.
Haggle and argue with a street vendor in a 3rd world country. He might’ve been mildly overcharged but the kind of amount that even I let go as a local.
Plus since there’s basically 0 tourism here many just like to give away stuff for free to em.
Many also treat the tourist as a tourist attraction lol. Staring and awkwardly asking for photos and what not.
Weeeell, tourists are often seen as easy money even in rich countries. There are tourist traps all over and when you don’t speak the language or don’t know the place, it’s very easy to get ripped off. Plus, if you grew up in a place with markets, it’s quite normal to haggle - some people go to the market just to haggle because it’s fun.
some people go to the market just to haggle because it’s fun
This sounds like an actual nightmare
Many also treat the tourist as a tourist attraction lol
Ha ha yes, a friend visiting China was handed a baby by its mother, who proceeded to take a photo. Then took the baby back and walked away, without a please or thank you.
A lot of articles aimed at tourists stress that you should never accept the initial price and always haggle, so I can see how that would happen.
In fact, many of them say that haggling is a sign of respect and an important social norm in some cultures.
A British tourist riding on the worst metro line left her (expensive) phone on the seat and went behind the seat to look at the metro map. Even stayed there while the doors were open and at least me and three more people could have easily snatched it and left. I don’t think the subway in the UK is much better so not sure what she was thinking.
I was on a train in sweden, and at a stop this guy just went and forgot his phone (no backpack or any kind of things left, just his phone), I tried to hail him but that didn’t work, so I took the phone and raced after him, giving it to him outside the train.
He was talking to someone and was clearly not happy about it all.
Well well, I boarded the train and thought I had at least done a good deed.
Guy comes aboard and rides the train to the next station…
Hey maybe he learned not to leave his things like that and it was a good deed in the end
The only place where I’d do this would be in one of those Islamic countries where they cut your hand off for stealing
Cursed but probably rational.
Nah, draconian punishments are usually a sign of high-crime, low-enforcemwnt, so you’re overdoing punishment to drive the point home for the few thieves you manage to catch.
This one is just Sharia law, lol. The UK used to have similar draconian punishments for stealing, namely, deportation to Australia
You could probably get away with it in Japan or Korea, too. In Japan, they’d be glaring at you for saving your seat, and in Korea, an old person might sit on your phone or yell at you…but the phone would still be there
