The public bathrooms at Shiyan Lake near Changsha are made entirely of glass, allowing very clear views into a bathroom cubical. And if you’re wondering how the restrooms are divided for each gender, the answer is again a pane of glass. That means men and women can peep at each other easily.

A public bathroom at a university in Hunan attracted attention earlier this month with its own window, giving everyone outside a clear view. However, where that may have been a design flaw, Shiyan Lake has purposely designed this voyeur’s delight as a way to attract visitors.

Previous promotions to drum up attention at Shiyan Lake includes last year’s yoga and dance performance held on the water’s surface (shown below).

With glass so popular among Chinese tourist sites right now, it’s likely that the Shiyan Lake glass restroom will draw curious crowds of onlookers.

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On the day of the tragedy, Taiwanese driver Su Mingcheng received a call from his ex-wife informing him she was returning to mainland China and taking their three children with her. Taiwanese media reports say Su threatened to buy gas and kill everyone on the bus in retaliation.

After the incident, Su’s father said his daughter-in-law had returned to mainland China and would “never come back”.

Su was recently sentenced to five years in prison for the rape of a tour guide that happened three years ago, an incident said to be a main factor instigating Su and his wife’s divorce.

Police forensic reports say Su was heavily intoxicated at the time of the July 19 crash, having a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit in Taiwan. Police also found traces of gasoline spread around the interior of the bus, and discovered the emergency exits had been blocked to prevent anyone from escaping.

Police previously hadn’t been able to explain why the bus was on fire before it crashed into a guardrail.

The incident is the largest loss of life involving mainland Chinese visitors since Taiwan began accepting them in 2008.

This past Monday, 32 mainland Chinese tourists were injured when their bus crashed in Maco near local attraction the Ruins of St. Paul. The bus had rolled down a hill and collided into a building after the driver stopped the bus and disembarked after it was rear-ended.

Last April, one person was killed and 20 injured when a bus carrying mainland Chinese tourists collided with a gravel truck in Taiwan. A month earlier, a head-on collision killed the driver and injured 13 people on a coach full of mainland Chinese tourists.

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Lee Changqing stabbed Luo Jinli, 45, and her husband Dong, 47, over an argument about the seating arrangements at the game reserve’s Keekorok Lodge. Luo died from her chest wounds and Dong is being treated at the Nairobi Hospital.

“The tour guide who had brought three clients from his country for two nights differed with the couple … over the seating arrangement at dinner time,” said John Kiruti, manager of Keekorok Lodge. “After a brief exchange of words, he drew a knife and stabbed the two, fatally injuring the woman and injuring her husband.”

Kiruti said the couple’s two children, aged 9 and 12, witnessed the stabbing.

“The hotel staff rushed to restrain the guide. The kids are still in shock,” he said.

Abdi Galgalo, of the Narok County Police, reported that Lee had been arrested and was currently being held at the Narok Police Station. “It was a sad incident that is deeply regretted,” said Galgalo.

The victim and her family had come to see the migration of wildebeest at the Masaai Mara, an event that has become very popular among Chinese tourists.

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The rule was imposed after Thailand saw a spike in road accidents and waste management problems involving Chinese drivers, who all appeared to be using camper vehicles for their road trips.

According to the Thai Director of the Chiang Rai Tourism Authority, Lertchai Wangtrakuldee, since the rule was introduced at the end of June, Chinese tourists entering Thailand through Chiang Rai in their own vehicles have all but disappeared. “After the Transport Ministry regulations came into effect, they felt that it was too costly and complicated to travel more than 1,000 kilometers.”

The decline in Chinese tourism is expected to cost northern Thailand an estimated 1 million baht a day in tourism income, but experts have pointed out that self-driving Chinese tourists don’t stay at hotels, which lessens their contribution to the local economy. Furthermore, most Chinese tourists travel to Bangkok and island resorts instead of the northern regions of the country, said Jiang Yiyi, Director of International Tourism Development at the Beijing-based China Tourism Academy.

Approximately 4.9 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand in the first six months of 2016, a 22 percent increase compared to the same time last year. Chinese tourists now account for almost a third of all tourists arriving in Thailand.

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Wu Po-Min of Kenting, Hengchun blamed travel agencies that cater to mainland Chinese tour groups for his decision, explaining that their falling into debt is pulling down Taiwan businesses as a result.

“Bringing annual losses of nearly NT$1 million ($31,260), Chinese tourists are poison wrapped in honey,” Wu told the Taipei Times. “When Taiwan was first opened up to Chinese tourists, business appeared to be great. Every day there would be bus after bus of tourists parked outside. It was an endless stream of traffic and, for a time, lots of money was made.”

In 2012, Taiwan doubled its quota of independent mainland visitors to the island, amounting to 1,000 a day. To cater to them, Wu and other Taiwan businesses need to pay commissions to travel agencies. This pits restaurants against other each other in price wars.

“However, in recent years travel agencies have been settling bills on a monthly basis, so the nightmare has begun for many restaurants that depend on tourism,” Wu added.

Large travel agencies that send busloads of tourists to restaurants like Wu’s have begun going bankrupt, leaving behind unpaid bills of as much as NT$1 million. According to Wu, Taiwan businesses are now responsible for the debt.

“As recent rumors indicate that the number of Chinese visitors is shrinking, we might as well take advantage of the busy summer season to cut off this ill-fated relationship,” Wu said.

Wu hopes to target a new customer base of Taiwanese and foreign customers. He hopes to raise business standards instead of undercutting offerings to cater to mainland customers.

Since the ban, Wu says his restaurant has suffered a 30 percent decline in business. However, Wu explained the trade-off is “short-term pain for long-term gain”.

What’s more, Wu said his customers have already noticed an improvement. Wu said he was told by a customer,  “Awesome. I do not have to work my way around crowds of loud Chinese tourists to eat — that alone makes it worth it to come here.”

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At a meeting last week of  Japan’s “Ministerial Council on the Promotion of Japan as a Tourism-Oriented Country”, a plan was adopted to extend multi-entry visas to Japan from five years to ten years. According to the Council, special consideration will given to business people, artists and academics.

The application process for single-entry visas for Chinese students will also be simplified, making it easier for the 75 universities under the direct control of China’s Ministry of Education to enter Japan.

Initially announced last month on Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, the reforms are part of a larger Japanese plan to raise the annual number of tourists to 40 million by the year 2020.

Japan has become a top destination for Chinese tourists. Tourism to the country doubled last year to five million, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Forty percent of all tourist dollars are spent by Chinese visitors.

Not everyone in Japan is excited at the prospect of more Chinese tourists. A Japanese television program called for “Chinese-only zones” after Chinese tourists were seen rampaging through the country’s famous cherry blossom trees. Other incidents involving Chinese tourists in Japan include fighting at airports, sneaking into a women’s only area at a spa, and a honeymooning couple who assaulted a Japanese store clerk after they opened a food package in a store.

Japan now stands alongside the US, Canada, and Israel, all of whom have signed deals providing Chinese tourists with ten year multiple-entry visas, and vice versa.

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Due to a depreciated Yen and favorable visa policies, Japan has become a favorite destination for Chinese tourists over the past couple of years. And yet, it appears there can be too much of a good thing as Japan’s recent cherry blossom season has been overwhelmed by Chinese tourists who are displaying poor behavior and are damaging the trees.

With three times the number of visitors over last year, the problem has gotten so bad that recent antics by Chinese tourists broadcast on Japanese television have prompted calls for the creation of a “Chinese-only” zone in order to limit their damaging effect on the cherry blossoms.

What’s more, Japanese media have coined a new term to describe this phenomenon that loosely translates to “Chinese-style flower appreciation”.

Chinese tourists were seen climbing trees, bending branches, and plucking flowers from trees to put in their hair on Japanese television. The result is a number of damaged trees with snapped branches.

The humilation of seeing their countrymen lose face abroad has been too much for Chinese netizens, who outright condemn this behavior as acts of insults towards China.

A Weibo post of this news urged, “Please spread this news! Don’t make ‘Chinese-style blossom appreciation’ a thing in Japan.”

Meanwhile, these misbehaving Chinese tourists have been derided on the Internet. “After insulting their own country here, they go abroad and make us lose face,” wrote one person, while another said, “(They) need to be human-flesh searched (doxxed).”

Here are more pictures from the Japanese broadcast:

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The incident occurred just outside the ring road of the city’s commercial district at the intersection at Ping’an Boulevard. There were 57 people on board the bus when it collided with the sign that clearly stated a height clearance of three meters.

In a media interview, the driver explained he was looking at travel directions, and wasn’t paying attention to the road in front of him.

Last year, Chinese media remarked that of the 42 height restriction signs on Zhengzhou’s third ring road, 42 have been crashed into, while one particular height restriction sign had been crashed into 11 times within an eight day period. Chinese reports noted that Zhengzhou’s height clearance for vehicles traveling on its roads is three meters, and not the four meters that is the national standard.

Double decker tour buses have had a particularly bad run of accidents in Zhengzhou. Last April, eight passengers were hurt in a similar collision. The driver of the incident blamed rainy conditions that caused the vehicle’s windshield to fog up (shown below).

Another person was killed in October, 2014 after a double decker tour bus tore through a three-meter height restriction road sign (seen below). The accident took place on the interior of the ring road of the commercial district. At the time of the collision, the driver was said to be looking at a navigation device.

There have also been an number if accidents outside of Zhengzhou.

In January 2015, two passengers were killed when a tour bus collided with a height restriction sign in Tianjin (see below). Photos from the incident show a height restriction sign made out of welded steel girders shredding the upper level of the bus. A month later, two people were killed when a double decker tour bus slammed into an overhead sign in Zhongshan, Guangdong

In February 2014, 14 passengers were injured when a bus departing Kunming slammed into a height restriction sign. And then in February 2013, three people were injured when an overnight sleeper bus from Hubei to Zhejiang collided with a height restriction sign.

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Due in large part to the influx of Chinese tourists, the economy of the nearby town of Sea Lake has experienced a reversal of fortune. According to a Xinhua report, the motel rooms of the town of 600 people are routinely booked solid, helping the local economy at a time when farmers have been hit hard by a two-year drought.

The lack of rain is part of the reason Chinese tourists are drawn to the shallow salt lake. With no clouds or light pollution, visitors to Lake Tyrrell have the opportunity to glimpse the spectacular night sky.

Alice Lee from Hong Kong said the scenery of Sea Lake is unlike anywhere else in the world. “I see the beauty of the scenes and the different changes in the skies, the clouds and over the sun,” said Lee. “That’s why we want to go.”

For a time elapsed video that shows just how spectacular the night sky is over Lake Tyrrell, click here.

The post Remote Australian Town Saved by Chinese Tourism appeared first on The Nanfang.

The 32-second video shows a crowd of Chinese tourists at a buffet table of fried shrimp. The tourists can be seen grabbing as much shrimp as they can with no concern for their fellow diners. Rather than using serving utensils, the tourists used plates to shovel up the food. One woman can be seen hauling away three plates of shrimp, stacked one upon the other.

The video attracted 6,000 comments and 1,600 forwards on Weibo, eventually becoming the sixth-most searched item over the weekend. Many Chinese netizens expressed disgust, while others argued Chinese should be more conscious of how they behave while traveling abroad. A number of netizens simply criticized the tourists for wasting so much food.

One Chinese netizen wrote, “After watching this, my heart is full of anguish… I feel this is funny and yet sad at the same time.”

The video quickly went viral outside of China as well. The story was all over Facebook and was the number one-rated post on reddit over the weekend. Among the 10,000 comments, some reddit users attributed the crassness of the tourists to the Cultural Revolution, the rise of new money (tuhao), and the inability to be shamed.

The Beijing Youth Report confirmed the video was taken at a Ramayana Restaurant, a buffet and tax-free store-located in Thailand. Three unnamed employees also confirmed the video was taken at the restaurant, but claim the footage was shot one to two years ago.

Other pictures found online that purportedly show Chinese tourists hoarding plates of fried shrimp at the restaurant weren’t able to be verified by the paper (seen above and below).

One Chinese tourist, Yang Mingna, (a pseudonym) described her trip to the Ramayana with a Chinese tour group as “the best place to eat on the (Thai) trip”. However, that didn’t mean it didn’t have its drawbacks:

Upon arriving, we saw that the buffet was crammed full of people. The food tables were especially busy with people, but were lacking in utensils for serving food. As many (Chinese) tourists were there, the restaurant was beyond its capacity (to serve customers). To put it simply, the provided food wasn’t enough for the requirements of so many tourists.

Another tourist named Mr Li told a similar story. When Li visited the Ramayana in December 2014 he complained of the lack of food, saying “There was just a bit of soup and vegetables left, and some fried rice left in the corners of the pan. Everything was cold.” Li also claimed there was a shortage of serving utensils, compelling the tourists to use their plates to shovel up the food.

Tour guide Zhang Tongchen however argues the video has been blown way out of proportion. Zhang is adamant that such behavior is “exaggerated” and not the way Chinese tourists normally act:

Normally it’s really not that serious. The tourists in this video are displaying uncivil behavior. But for all the tour groups I’ve led, this type of behavior is uncommon.

Having taken many tour groups to the restaurant in the video, Zhang emphasized the importance of the fried shrimp at the Ramayana, explaining that diners go into a frenzy over them. Zhang also claims that beyond shrimp, the restaurant’s menu doesn’t have much to offer.

Li confirmed Zhang’s account of the shrimp frenzy: “When the shrimp appeared, everyone went after them, and after a short while there was nothing left.”

Zhang also argued that Chinese tourists may be eating in a rush to leave enough time to shop at the duty-free store located adjacent to the restaurant.

Although restaurant employees were unwilling to say which particular Ramayana restaurant the video was taken at, they did say that buffet prices aren’t set because they are determined by Chinese tour companies.

Watch the video below:

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