A controversy has arisen in Japan after it was discovered that Chinese tourists who stayed at a private home left the room in a state of disarray. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on the incident on the 4th.
According to the report, this incident was revealed on the 23rd of last month when a Japanese blogger published a post on his X (social networking site) page about the state of a Japanese-style inn where five Chinese tourists had stayed, saying that it was “too bad”. This post has been accessed over 3.5 million times to date.
Looking at this, you can see that the room is covered in rubbish everywhere, including on the tables and washbasins. In particular, the tables are covered in a variety of disposable containers, uneaten food, PET bottles and other rubbish. It also looks like the plates, chopsticks and other tableware provided as equipment have been left lying around. The washbasins are covered in cotton buds, tissues, towels and other used hygiene products. There is also rubbish scattered everywhere else, including on the side tables, chairs, sofa and floor.
The post also included a breakdown of the booking made by the tourists using the Airbnb accommodation booking app. According to this, the guests were Chinese nationals who stayed there from the 18th to the 21st of last month, with a total of five adults. The blogger wrote, “Chinese tourists have made a mess of a Japanese guesthouse” and “they left a huge amount of rubbish behind when they checked out”.
It was later discovered that the accommodation had to temporarily stop accepting bookings in order to clean up.
When this post went viral, there was a flurry of responses on Japanese online forums, such as “Why don’t they follow Japanese culture? It would be better to make it unusable from the start,” and “Chinese people in particular often do this kind of thing. I think it would be better to charge 10 times the normal rate, including the cost of cleaning, from the start.” Criticism also arose on Chinese online forums, with comments such as “People like this shouldn’t be abroad” and “This kind of barbaric behavior is not welcome in China either.”
There have also been cases in South Korea where the inappropriate behavior of foreign tourists at accommodation facilities has caused controversy. In April last year, a Chinese couple used 120 tons of water and 640,000 won (about 67,800 yen) worth of gas at a guesthouse in Mapo-gu, Seoul, which they had booked through Airbnb. When the owner complained, the couple became angry and insisted that if the owner continued to say such things, they would make a problem of it through the Chinese embassy.
Reporter Park Seong-min
