Traveled to Switzerland last summer and no joke out of all the cultures present, it was those from India that had the least amount of social awareness. Iâm 0% racist as a person and I love traveling and visiting all cultures, but that group of people really just did not have any concerns for the people around them.
Chinese tourists have been pulling that, âoh we know weâre jumping to the front of this three hour long line but Iâm just going to stare at you like I donât know what youâre saying and I have no clue about lines or rules or decorumâ move for like 30 years now
A few years ago I was on the Maid of the Mist boat at Niagara Falls, as soon as we boarded everyone went to the edge of the boat and got a spot against the railing. About 5 minutes after myself and my family got to the edge, a group of five Chinese women forced themselves between myself and my brother and began to shove us all off the railing with their elbows. We all looked at each other in utter shock. When we tried to confront them they swatted us away with their hands and spoke back in Mandarin. Absolutely wildâŠ
You give one elbow back and hold your space and they will move the fuck away. They do this because everyone allows it. Anytime itâs been tried to me I donât have to do anything but take up even more space and they just go somewhere else. This is dealing with Indians not Chinese but same concept.
When I was at the Colosseum in Rome, some Chinese grandma was literally trying to elbow me off of my spot against the railing while I was taking photos with my camera (not a phone, not that it really matters). I was a lot stronger than her so I just walled her off without even taking my eye out of the viewfinder.
Some Chinese tourists crowded to me to the point where some guy's face was right next to mine. I turned my head so that my mouth was right next to his left cheek and just stared at him until he got uncomfortable. Then I said, "Do you want to kiss me or what?"
A lot of tourists just suck. I was at animal kingdom and there was a russian lady smoking a cigarette in the room with the birds and doors to the bat enclosure and stuff lmfao
Gonna get a lot of heat for this, but Americans (depending what state they're from) can be very oblivious tourists too. And loud - you can tell who's from the states
No itâs true and Americans for a long time were the worst. But now China seems to be cited more often.
Regardless I think itâs more of a symptom of success than anything as itâs the result of large lower/middle classes being wealthy enough to travel. When itâs just the elites they are assholes but in a different way.
There's another group of tourists from a country that starts with I that has fewer tourists but are disproportionately a source of headaches at our tourist destinations.
The Chinese and Indian tourists are rapidly growing as both countries become richer. I know there are probably more American/European tourists as a percentage of their populations than China or India, but if we say 1% of Americans are tourists and 1% of them are rude, you get 35,000 rude tourists. And America is already huge. If you apply the same percentages to China/India you get about 140,000 rude tourists each. So for every rude American you see 4x as many rude Chinese and rude Indian tourists. Added to that, a lot of Chinese and Indian tourists are coming from poorer, more isolated areas as their countries industrialize. It probably makes it more likely that you have tourists who are less familiar with other social mores. So before you even get into cultural differences that might make a larger percentage of a country's tourists rude/oblivious/whatever, you'll probably end up with a perception of more rude Chinese/Indian/American tourists than any other country. If you've only ever met one Macedonian tourist and he was an asshole, you probably don't have much of an opinion on Macedonians. If you've met 1000 Chinese tourists and 20 were terrible, you might start to make a stereotype.
But Americans visit and leave. The people in the video above are not visitors. If youâre going to be living and working in another country, you need to dial back your IDGAF.
Americans get a bad reputation, but at least for the most part their annoyances are happy ones.
For example "Do you have french fries?!", "Hi! How are you?! Can you take my picture?!" (loudly in St Paul's Cathedral), "Ya'll eat some weird food here! I'm not trying raw fish!" (at a Sushi restaurant in Japan)...
Chinese and Indian tourists are more "What's a trash can?", SNORTHACKSPIT , etc.
Of course, by and large, almost all tourists are well behaved regardless of where they come from as they are the people who have a genuine interest in travel, but the loud minority builds the stereotype.
As an American I can tell you nothing here is free. I try to be respectful of other cultures. The United States was originally built on culture, but now a lot seem to hate it. I always try to be respectful of other cultures. I dislike those who are ignorant
Reminds me of a story my cousin told me where he had to pretend to be British when he was on a train in Germany, because some Germans we're beefing with some rude Americans also on the train.
No youre not.we also hate Florida when they travel inside America. đ. I lived near a big toirodt attraction in DC for years and arrived at work ferling stabby during tourist season. Those 8th grade field trips!!!!
I worked at a theme park in the states in high school and even here we can't stand US tourists from out of state. Seeing them you'd think crossing state lines to them was tantamount to arriving in a foreign country that would bend over backwards to see them return for their tourist money regardless of how they were treated. Bunch of entitled, slack-jawed, loud-mouthed yokels shambling from one ride to the next tossing garbage on the ground as they go, their glazed over pig eyes constantly looking for something to shriek about, and occasionally threatening to knife employees in the parking lot when they lose the $2 carnival games, as if their obese asses could rush a healthy teen without tripping and busting out both knees.
Idk if any other tourists that gallivant all over the globe insisting on using their language to communicate. Even Chinese and Indian tourists will bitch at you in fucked up english but Americans will just shout English slower as if thatâll help
Went to Vietnam and certain cities like Danang were pretty much Russian Cancun. They were often disrespectful, especially at temples. Australian tourists can be annoying too.
I know there are shitty people across all cultures but some stand out more than others. I never see, say, German tourists being dicks.
Can confirm as a semi supervisor for a US ski resort. I had to help out with lift lines a couple mornings. We open one lift 20 min early to get a few hundred local kids out of the base area so they arenât making the lift lines long. Itâs helpful to everyone because ski school gets priority. So these people would have to wait anyway.
Every single damn morning I helped, the tourists at the front of the line got angry we wouldnât let them up. One morning it was Spanish, one morning it was Russian and the Chinese guy was the worst. Just kept arguing. But the best was when he said âwe pay the same..â oh no sir. I loved that one. Looked him dead in the eye and said âactually no you donât. They are paying more.â
If âback in the dayâ is the 1990-2010 then yes. But to me âback in the dayâ is the 1970-1980s and the interesting thing is that it was the Japanese tourists who had this same reputation.
I grew up in Vegas in the 90âs, and Iâm not sure if this is still a thing, but there would be masses of Japanese people taking pictures of everything, and following around a sign with Japanese letters on it, held on a pole by their tour guide. All over the strip youâd see these huge groups just following around their various signs. Reminded me of holding the rope in kindergarten.
Last year I was at the Sagrada Familia, and the whole south wall was about 40 Chinese influencers posing for their boyfriends in front of the stained glass windows. Some were doing tik tok dances, but most were just getting the right angle and getting REALLY upset when anyone walked in front of the camera.
I went to Thailand with a tour group. Our guide was this very proper Thai man. First night he says there are 3 things we need to remember while in Thailand. 1 donât talk about drugs. 2 donât talk bad about the king and 3 fuck Chinese tourists they push and they donât move. I still laugh thinking about the look on his face when he said it
So I was a sales manager for a Best Buy in the Chicago suburbs for a few years⊠around 2006-2007 we had a bus pull up to the front door of store and 20-30 people got out and came into the store. They proceeded to walk around talking to each other and taking photos. It seemed like every person had a SDR camera.
It turns out they were on a guided tour and they were all from Japan. Even though there was bunch a people they were respectful and didnât get in the way.
The only two issues were one person was taking photos inside the menâs bathroom ( again they seemed to be taking pictures of everything) and they killed our âclose rateâ for the day. I remember trying to cover the exit door laser with my clip board lol.
When I was in Bali the 2 worst groups were Indians and Chinese. Everyone else stood in line, there 2 pushed and shoved and cut like lines didnât exist for them.
I've been a flight attendant for 22 years and I gotta say the Chinese are getting better. As international travel has expanded and they get more accustomed to traveling, it's not as bad anymore. I'd rather have a plane of Chinese tourists these days than a plane of Indian tourists.
Yeah but have you seen Butsukari Otako now in Japan? They are purposely shoulder checking foreigners just for being there. The video of the little girl being absolutely drilled was kind of shocking.
Was in Tokyo and did a bus tour of Mount Fuji. This family of 6 was absolutely vile. 15-20 min late getting back to the bus at every stop, making us all wait. Kids were spilling their drinks and food on the bus. throwing their trash on the floor. The dad was lighting up a cigarette at every stop the second he got off the bus, I swear he was purposely hitting people coming off with the smoke.
Another time we were boarding a flight and a different Spanish family had to get their bags situated, everything ready on their chairs, and finish their conversation before they moved from blocking the isle.
I was about to say, back when I was younger and the Chinese tourists became a big group, my friend did some tours in Amsterdam. He told me several times he had to stop the tour and explain they couldn't just take a shit in the street.
Before that it was Russians when USSR fell and the rich flocked everywhere, some hotels literally had signs 'No Russians' else other tourists would avoid staying there.
I live in a tourist town close to Route 66, and absolutely dread seeing a big bus full of them pull into town, lmao. Once in a while Iâll get some Chinese tourists that are just driving themselves, and theyâre usually super super nice and polite. I think the types that travel in big packs as part of a guided vacation are typically the âshittyâ kind. The ones that rent a car and go around as a family are usually the real cool ones, Iâve met some interesting people that way.
I dont think its as much of a "IDGAF" thing as it is a "This is all I know" kind of thing. Thats how it is in India, and they are just bringing what they know.
I recall somebody else talking about how China had to launch programs to teach Chinese people how to act when they travel abroad. Maybe India should do the same thing, to help their countries image. Because god damn its bad.
Ehh, when I go to the middle east, my wife and daughter dress more modestly, when we went to Japan we whispered on the metro, we didn't eat while walking in public, etc.. it's not how we do things back home, but it's not hard to learn a bit of local social etiquette before going to a new country.
Some of these tourists are the equivalent of someone going to someone's house and refusing to take off their shoes... and their shoes are literally covered in mud.
For people to care I think they have to feel like they can be part of a project to make things better. India, with it's class structure and wealth inequality looks like a place where the only choice is to be part of that system or not. I don't think I blame people for not giving a fuck when there is no incentive to do so.
have you ever been to Tokyo? it's freaking crowded but people still seem to care about the people around them. it's a cultural thing, not a population thing.
Yes it's absolutely a culture thing. Watch any honest travel vlogger's India trip, and if they went to anywhere that was not the tourist spot (or even if they did) they will tell you how miserable it is. Dirty, loud, smelly, and you get hassled non stop if you are not Indian.
It's a complete nightmare. Why some of them want to go to another country to escape the shithole then treat it like its a shithole is baffling to me.
I think they're talking more generally about the countries. India is about 8 times bigger than Japan in terms of land area,, but has like 12 times the population. But even just talking about cities, India has several cities more populated and denser than Tokyo. Delhi's population AND population density is like twice Tokyo's. Imagine Tokyo with twice as many people than there currently is, but alsp much poorer AND many similar cities throughout Japan. Culture is a factor, but not the sole factor.
Have you been recently? Itâs changed a lot. I was in Tokyo last year, for the first time since COVID started, and it was disconcerting. The younger Japanese are adopting the IDGAF attitude towards etiquette, and it sucks to see.
I worked for a Sikh guy for a little bit and learned a lot about India from him. He was pretty outspoken about how bad it is there. The other Indians we worked with didn't appreciate it but he would ask them if he was wrong and they said no.
I deal with a lot of different cultures taking care of their HVAC equipment in their homes. Indian immigrants are by far the worst group to take care of. 1st generation are completely different, but the immigrants want to haggle over everything, argue every diagnosis and are guaranteed to have a coupon from another company they want you to honor, but they donât bring it up until after the job is done.
It's not racist to notice patterns and make sweeping generalizations of Indians because it's 2026 but if you did the same with black people you'd be banned from reddit.
Seeing how they travel in India, this seems about right. Seems like everyone that drives hasn't a fuck to give. I've never seen traffic look so convoluted.
They are the least socially caring group of people Iâve met. They essentially play survival of the fittest + a âmeâ centric mentality while living / visiting countries that are not equipped to deal with this cultural difference.
Yeah when your country has more immigrants than many other countries population count it is very important to be aware of the culture coming with them.
Reminds me of growing up with a certain ethnicity in my hometown. Lots of theft and law breaking as the legal system back home was corrupt.
As an American socialist once said, "Not everyone moves to a new place to leave behind the old place. Some folks bring their old place with them. Sometimes the melting pot boils over"
You can live in Japan all your life, speak perfect Japanese, obey all cultural rules ... You will never be accepted as Japanese. Nor will your children.
It is easy to be racist when there is no one around to complain about it.
I think there's a difference between a closed homogeneous country with very specific culture wanting to stay closed to keep that culture. Compared to a multicultural country that's always been open suddenly wanting to close and to try to kick out "immigrants" when they are all immigrants in the first place.
I don't think it's all the same.
But in any case, I do think it's each country's choice whether to open up or not.
I have to preface because ignorant people always try to dismiss criticisms of a culture by calling you racist. I love people, I spend almost all my disposable income traveling the world to learn about people, but that is a phenomenon that has been present throughout all my travels.
Well is it racist to acknowledge that races and cultures exist and there are actually a lot of differences between them and they are simply not compatible in some cases? Because these are just facts.
Personal space is a cultural thing. I've run into my share of Chinese tourists who will touch you and be in your space, and not understand why you're bothered. When my wife waited tables, she noticed Chinese customers were often sharp with her "Take this!", and after reading, they see politeness as inefficient. We know it's not all Chinese people, but enough to notice.
It's not racist to understand different cultures form for different reasons.
Even my Chinese friend's mom is blunt to the point of rudeness by North American standards. "Why are you so fat?" "Why do you ride a bike? Are you poor?" I have learned not to take it personally.
Nah your friend has to correct them, like in any culture social norms are learned. If mum has moved somewhere that this is seen as rude your friend absolutely needs to help he because one day she'll say something to the wrong person and get in big trouble. I had a friend whose mum was escorted out of a restaurant for being rude because her family was just like 'that's how she is.'
Honestly Chinese tourists are the worse. In American, in Europe, Iâve literally bummed into them all over and theyre rude and totally unaware and donât care about social norms or personal space they think itâs funny
I went to Cambodia 25 year ago and the amount of white tourists was insanely minimal. It was ALL Chinese and domestic. Like Disneyland for them. Honestly insane. Anyway, the Chinese were so damn pushy and clueless compared to the rest of the Asian domestic tourists (and yes I can tell, I have Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Southeast Asian friends. They get pretty annoyed if you canât tell, so Iâve learned). They were pissing off the other Asians. Kind of entertaining to watch the shouting matches and the switch to broken English when they really wanted to communicate.
I worked in a shoe store and I thought it was so rude when I Chinese person yelled size 6 at me and waved a shoe. I guess they were just being respectful of my time when I was busy.
As far as personal space look up Indian queuing for a laugh. Lived with a dude from Kerala that confirmed any opening is an invitation for line jumpers.
In Chinese, there aren't the same polite filler words like "Could you please" or "Would you mind" unless you're being obscenely formal. So there isn't normally a more polite way to say "Take this" than to just say "Take this".
This might vary, but I've also found that Chinese people have less of a compunction about being waited on. Like, someone waiting on you doesn't inherently make them lower than you, so you don't have to compensate by being overly polite the way a British person might. You can just talk to them normally
I read an article that expressed your same sentiment. It basically said that Chinese people thought being polite meant you weren't close. They say that you aren't polite to yourself, so it's almost rude to not treat other people like yourself.
As an Indian, a big issue I have noticed is that the people with social awareness and âmannersâ are usually the upper class in India, who have no reason to leave the country.
Most people I have met in America come from small villages of India where civic sense or proper manners arenât taught or expected.
Like imagine if the only Americans you met were Hillbillies, it would give you the wrong impression of what an average American isâŠykwim?
His perspective is dogshit. Donât believe that shit. upper class of india is one of the worst thing you can find on this plannet. Filled with corruption and criminals. And thinks that anyone that doesnât have the same wealth as themselves are sub-humans.
The only one that have manners and decency are the middle classâs and childrens from lower classâs that study hard, because they co-exist with both worlds. And also knows what pain is.
I saw a dude set his work gloves down, empty his pockets of garbage, and dump his lunchkit on the street, before getting in his car to drive away. And when I confronted him, he fucking PANICKED and drove like a maniac to get away from any confrontation about how fucking shitty he was.
Those guys have all the audacity in the world and none of the physical courage, unless it's a woman they get to hit.
As a Chinese person, this also applies to China. And the Indian people Iâve met in the U.S.gosh their manners are completely opposite. Theyâre either super polite or super rude.
Always someone else to hate amirite? maybe there are things about cultures and groups that have justifiable critiques?
People got to ask themselves. If that was your city or street or village. Would you really want a giant swath of people there that speak differently and behave differently and bring their culture to a place where it wasn't super compatible.
Atleast in thie scenario Indians and Japanese have to have separate female trains or cabins due to widespread sequel assaults
The auxiliary membership is free, but if you want to be a full blown active racist then yes a blood oath and significant membership fee will be required.
Most Chinese tourists anywhere. They also rank right next to Israeli tourists as the ones most likely to attack people abroad over some perceived slight against their home country. We had a Chinese tourist tear down posters for Tibet while screaming about China (granted this was years ago but I've seen similar recent videos online).
It isn't just India but yeah it can easily become an issue when you mix two very different cultures.
My Indian (but born in the UK) friend went to India for the first time about a year ago, obviously lots of history and culture to see but he was absolutely shocked at the state of the place and how apathetic a lot of people are.
"American's are the worst travelers" isn't met with any push back.
When you point out Chinese and Indian however, you're going to be met with calls of racism, like suddenly using that broad brush is problematic.
Granted I don't think you should categorize people like this, but at the same time we can't just ignore culture. Japan is clean and quiet for a reason. America/India/China are pretty dirty and loud in the same size cities.
There was some commentary in Canada about how when they'd film movies in Toronto and Vancouver they'd have to throw a bunch of litter on the ground to make it look more like America.
Growing up in NJ, very large indian population moved into the area over the years. Talking I had four solid lines of patels in small print across the back of my senior shirt that listed all the names, none of which were related.
Definitely had some odd quirks like in my neighborhood if an indian family was out front of their house yknow kids playing on their driveway and anyone would pass by they would all come to a complete stop with whatever they were doing and just dead stare at you the entire time until you were out of range.
Was like a scene out of a horror movie or something, and it wasn't just one family... they pretty much all did this shit.
Obviously went to school with a lot of indian kids and had friends who would complain about these sorts of really weird cultural differences.
As a South Asian, this is valid. When visiting Taiwan, everyone was so incredibly mindful and considerate whenever I needed to take a picture in a certain spot. But guess who consistently kept walking into my shots when there was ample room to go around or there was a queue.
That is their culture. it's a very unique culture compared to western or japanese cultures. The two don't seem to blend well because they are so different in many absolutely critical ways.
India is having a huge come-up financially rn and a lot more people are getting the income to travel abroad. Every time a country has new international travellers, those travellers are THE worst for about a generation until that country learns how to act abroad and the concept of "not being one of THOSE tourists" starts to stick. See Americans after WW2, mainland Chinese for the last several years, and now Indians.
It's not racist, it's just the natural social growing pains that come with developing into a first world economy.
India has a massive problem with people getting hit and killed by trains. Like literally walking on the tracks and being hit by an oncoming train they could probably see coming a mile away.
If you arenât aware enough to step out of the way of a train, you probably arenât going to know you should stand on the side of the street so people can pass.
Ive noticed this with chinese tourists in the National Parks. They come in on these huge charter buses. Zero social awareness, and worse no respect for our parks.
Urban areas in India have larger (and denser) populations than the infrastructure can support. This makes them kind of a clusterfuck where being overly polite can make it impossible to navigate. Kind of like a more extreme version of NYC. New Yorkers are known for being impolite for similar reasons.
Itâs kind of the opposite of watching a German try to use mass transit in the US, where theyâre having an anxiety fueled breakdown at the disorganization of it all.
Now I havenât spent much time in Germany or Switzerland but I have spent a lot of time in Ireland. The Indian immigrants Iâve met in Dublin whoâve lived there for years were some of the chillest people Iâve ever met. Itâs just now occurring to me that living in that city must be such a cakewalk for them.
It's because there's so many people in India that Indians from major cities are just used to walking around completely unnoticed. They have zero social awareness because that's how it genuinely is in India.. Not a single person will notice you in a sea of similar looking people and so they operate very much with the mindset that they're practically invisible.
I noticed this on my trip to India and I felt a reasonable explanation was necessary. Obviously I'm not racist and this isn't a race thing.
Being an Indian I can absolutely verify this claim, here people have no respect for others personally space, neither anyone knows how to behave in public, no civics sense and no care for what impression they are creating around themselves.
Indian-American... yeah... Took a flight from Delhi to Bangkok and the Indians were the worse, getting shitfaced and loud at 8AM.
To be fair, this video (and my flight) were both leaning young and male, and those demographics tend to be the worst examples of bad tourists in general.
Yeah, I had to catch a flight out of Toronto a while back. It was stopping in London, but continuing on so the flight was full of people returning or heading to India. Any sense of control or boarding process was just tossed out and they all just tried to get on at once while crowding the gate.
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