Warning signs targeting Chinese only: a thoughtprovoking phenomenon
When Korean currency was devaluated, bargain hunters from all over the world jammed up major shopping centers in South Korea. Many stores surprisingly put up various warning signs that were exclusively written in Chinese, such as “This store is securely monitored” and “No stealing”. Those signs certainly hurt the feeling of many Chinese tourists stirred up a wave of anti-Korean sentiments in China.
Similar warning signs targeting Chinese are not only seen in South Korea. When traveling in Japan, I saw them quite often. The common ones include “Please don’t stand in the middle of street”, “Don’t take drinks out of store”, “Don’t take bath in the pool”, “No smoking”, etc. Ten years ago, I even saw a Chinese sign saying “Don’t use electric cooking devices” in a hotel room in California.
As a native Chinese, I always feel embarrassed when seeing these extremely disrespectful signs. However, It is a hardly disputed fact that some Chinese tourists often show improper behaviors while traveling abroad, like eating meat but dumping rice of Sushi, not flushing the toilet after use, speaking loud in public. I think these do ruin the overall image of Chinese people in the world to certain extent.
In 1922, Einstein visited both China and Japan. During the trip, he highly praised beauty, affability and courtesy of people in Japan and expressed a strong sympathy for how badly China was uncivilized as a nation.
Nevertheless, at every popular attractions around the world today, you can always see many tourists from Asia’s new power, China. Apparently, the living conditions of Chinese people have been improved drastically. As a result, their spirits have also changed significantly. If Einstein could revisit China today, he would be stunned by the enormous changes.
Certainly, there are still plenty rooms for further improvements.
Several years ago, Time magazine published an article on national images. Based on a survey of 30,000 people from 27 countries, among twelve nations being surveyed, China ranked number five in term of the national image. Japan was on top, exceeding China by twelve percent.
On June 23, 2005, The Pew Global Project released the “16-Country Global Attitudes Report”. Among 16 countries participated in the project, Only Pakistan and China believes China has a better image than Japan.