From a previous incident that occurred in 2013.

When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go.

That was the case for one toddler on board a Beijing to Detroit Delta Airlines flight. The kid urgently had to go to the bathroom — so urgently, in fact, there was no time to go to the lavatory on board. So the kid’s father laid a newspaper down in the isle and the child squat and pinched.

Other passengers requested the child’s parents to take the child to the bathroom. However, the child’s grandfather, who was also on the flight, persisted in having the child make full use of the newspaper. Airline staff were unable to stop the airborne bodily evacuation from happening.

Fellow passenger Mr Wang from Oregon said the family made all Chinese people lose face, reports the World Journal.

[h/t @niubi]

Photo: 163

China’s ambassador to Tanzania Lu Youqing has unleashed a torrent of criticism at his own people in a rant during an interview. Lu said his job is much harder than other ambassadors because Chinese people give him a “headache”, they lack respect of the law, and promote disunity among Tanzanians.

Lu is presiding over a great expansion in trade between the two countries, which has seen an influx of Chinese people in the country. China is now Tanzania’s second largest trading partner with US$3.69 billion in trade last year. Still, Lu can’t stop complaining about Chinese people. In an interview with Southern Metropolis, he said:

There are about 70 embassies in Tanzania. No embassy of another country is like ours. All day (we’re) worried about consul problems involving Chinese nationals. No other country’s citizens are like our citizens who incessantly complain about unfair treatment, like during luggage searches at airport customs, being stopped by police in traffic… these incidences give me a headache.

Our personal bad habits have followed us! After coming to Africa, number one, there will definitely be internal strife and disunification in which a lot of people will have problems. A person on their own, or a company–that won’t be a problem. But if there are several (Chinese) people, or several (Chinese) companies, then they will steal from each other. A contractor will often fight with his own people, traders will try to poach from each other, and slander each other. It’s gotten to the point where Chinese companies here in Tanzania will search out a government representative to bribe and get them to stand for their interests. In 2012, two Chinese companies ruined a Tanzania transport department head and deputy department head. They provoked infighting between the two government officials, and in the end the president of Tanzania dismissed them both.

Secondly, they lack awareness of the law. We can’t reasonably insist that everybody be so, and also this is just a small minority of people, naturally. For example, ivory smuggling, rhinoceros horn smuggling, illegal mines; the local laws forbid the transporting of prohibited items out of the country. Each time Tanzania announces they are going to capture ivory smugglers, we (at the embassy) get nervous. However, it always turns out the same way. The governor of the province of Dar es Salaam told me he once saw a police officer bar the path of a Chinese motorist. The governor did not consider this to be a friendly way to treat Chinese nationals, and so he had a complaint made against the police officer. The police officer reported to his superior that there was a car that contained ivory; however, the Chinese motorist denied this. During an extensive search, the hood of the car was opened, and placed upon the engine was an amount of ivory. After this, the governor had less to say in support of Chinese people.

At the airport, Chinese nationals often have their luggage searched. In regards to this, I sought out the director for the Tanzania customs. He agreed that he didn’t want to have to do this, especially as it resulted in more work for his department. Our embassy staff was very nervous. Then he let me see a series of photographs: they were all of ivory smugglers. One woman even tried to smuggle ivory in her bra. Tanzania custom agents are no fools; if they find one person who doesn’t have any, or two, or ten, they will still search a Chinese person. As well, all of the people who get investigated have a speech to tell me: “Ambassador, we have helped them so much; how can they treat us like this in return?” They don’t have even a single bit of awareness of the law.

Remember, everybody: Lu is only complaining about a minority of Chinese nationals misbehaving in Tanzania. He isn’t an expat living in China complaining about a Bad China Day.

[h/t Quartz]

Photos: Sina

It was 9pm on June 20, and the departure of Hong Kong Airlines Flight HX234 from Hong Kong Airport to Shanghai was in jeopardy. The air traffic control at Pudong reported bad weather and ordered the plane to delay take-off.

So the plane waited for permission to depart while still idling at its original position next to the passenger terminal. For hours. At 2am, passengers began to request to leave the plane, but it wasn’t until 3am when the captain announced the flight would be cancelled, a full six hours after the original departure time of 9pm.

At this time, Hong Kong Airlines offered its 276 passengers HK$200 in compensation, dinner and breakfast vouchers, along with a flight to Shanghai later. Around 130 of the already boarded passengers accepted this offer, and disembarked the plane. However, about 70 passengers rejected the terms, and refused to leave.

Here’s where this story takes wildly different turns depending on which side of the Hong Kong-Mainland boundary you’re on.

The People’s Daily reported that the passengers had nothing to eat or drink for the entire 16 hours, during which the air conditioning was reported to have been turned off. The paper said the airline staff also left the plane during the passengers’ protest.

This report refers to the passengers as being “detained; while the passengers were not allowed to leave the flight before it was cancelled at 3am, the passengers refused to leave the plane after 3am once the flight was cancelled.

On the other hand, the airline states that water was provided to passengers throughout the incident, during which time the air conditioning was on, reports the Hong Kong Standard.

But it gets uglier. Passenger Mr Hua said the protesters were not seeking compensation, but rather wanted to complain about how they were being treated. But airline staff have a different story.

Stewardess Candy Tong made a post on Instagram in which she affirmed that airline staff gave food and drink to the passengers. Furthermore, Tong stated that during the delay, airline staff had lent passengers their own personal cell phone chargers. Passengers used their recharged batteries to take pictures of the flight attendants.

The following photograph was posted to Facebook with the text, “#1320 Thanks for telling me there is no food and drinks in HX 234.”

The whole standoff finally came to an end at 3pm on the 21st — after passengers had stayed on the flight for a full 18 hours — when Hong Kong Airlines decided to increase compensation to HK$800 per passenger.

Hong Kong Airlines has experienced similar protests by mainland passengers before. Two months ago, 31 passengers refused to leave a flight leaving Bali. Back in 2011, 21 passengers refused to leave a Hong Kong Airlines flight after a nine-hour delay in Singapore. Seventeen passengers refused to leave a flight departing from Shanghai in 2012 after an 18-hour weather delay.

A “language strike” by Hong Kong Airlines flight attendants is now planned for July 1 in which staff will refrain from speaking Putonghua. July 1 is also the annual day of protest in Hong Kong, which also coincides with its handover of sovereignty back to Mainland China.

Photos: People’s Daily, Facebook

Let’s not mince words: as a Pearl River Delta resident, you can appreciate the very best thing about the PRD: lychee fruit—the proverbial cherry on top of the sundae with Chinese characteristics. However, the lifestyle you take for granted is what makes tourists to Shenzhen lose all semblance of civility.

Apparently, some people can’t go to the park except as a means to exploit its natural resources. On June 10, tourists to Shenzhen’s Lychee Park lost their shiznit over the fact that lychee are being grown on a tree and are free—FREE!—for the taking.

As People’s Daily reports, tourists employ a variety of creative (read: violent) methods to harvest the lychee fruit: throwing plastic bottles, throwing slippers, and shaking the tree. And then there’s climbing the lychee tree itself, thus rendering hobbies that require buying stuff like frisbees and kites redundant from their lack of harvested fruit.

At this rate, thongs are never coming to China.

Photos: People’s Daily

Tensions with Mainland visitors has finally drawn the attention of Hong Kong’s lawmakers. Years of “locust” references, pee controversies, subway fights, and retail favoritism have recently culminated in Hong Kong street demonstrations that have called on the government to close the border to the north.

Protestors want the government to restrict entry to mainland visitors to Hong Kong under the independent traveler plan. There were 40 million mainland visitors to Hong Kong last year, which now accounts for a full two-thirds of all inbound tourists.

RELATED: Macau Buckles Under the Weight of Mainland Tourists,
Considering Limiting Visitors

And what do you know: it seems like demonstrations do work. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said the government is interested in listening to “the views of the public, businesses and the tourism sector”, an overall sentiment that has coalesced into this proposal to deny entry to eight million mainland visitors.

And to ensure that the process of governing is working properly, lawmakers disagreed. One unidentified member of the council said, “Everyone [is] opposed [to] such a drastic cut,” while Ben Chan Han-pan voiced his doubt that individual mainland visitors under the plan in question are the source of the problem.

RELATED: New App Gives Waiting Times at All Shenzhen-
Hong Kong Border Crossings

Local tourism may suffer if the proposal goes through. First to be affected will be luxury stores that employ guys with white gloves who follow you around the store until you leave.

Since Hong Kong lawmakers are debating the will of the people, we can’t wait until this contentious issue is boiled down to this: Are crude manners tolerable in order to accept mainlander money, or will an adherence to introverted regionalism in fact stagnate Hong Kong’s progress?

Photo: Welcome to China

The couple were fulfilling a lifelong dream by travelling to the United states for a holiday. Although charges were not pressed against them, the experience of having to spend a night locked up with drug dealers and prostitutes turned their dream very much into a nightmare.

After the couple couldn’t agree over where to stand while posing for a photograph, the wife hit her husband over the head with her handbag. He retaliated with his bag and they got into a loud argument in a language the locals couldn’t understand. Around 10 policemen were called over to subdue them.

According to their tour guide, surnamed Du, the couple were kept in separate cells and wept after being released the next day.

This is the latest in a long line of incidents that has given tourists from the Chinese mainland a bad name. In May this year, former Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang said:

“They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and [carry out] some other uncivilised behaviour. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact.”

A proposal was issued by the China International Travel Service on behalf of the industry on Aug 1, calling for good manners for tourists and tour guides, according to China Daily.