Netizens React to Badly Behaved Chinese Travelers During Spring Festival Rush

Netizens React to Badly Behaved Chinese Travelers During Spring Festival Rush
Feb 24, 2013 By eChinacities.com

Editor’s note: this article was translated and edited from a story on Ifeng News, and exposes several incidents of bad behavior by Chinese travelers during the Spring Festival rush. Many Chinese netizens have expressed their anger and have called for the enforcement of stricter rules regarding uncivilized and potentially dangerous behavior on planes and trains.

With the Spring Festival holiday well and truly over, the floodgates of travelers returning home opened once again, which inevitably caused countless chaotic scenes at airports and train stations across the country. Here, we take a look at several examples of harrowing behavior by travelers (and even transport authorities) that have left hordes of Chinese netizens in shock at the behavior of some people during the Spring Festival rush.

1) Train Transfer Due to “Equipment Failure” or Overcrowding?
At 16:44 on February 17, train D3214, which was bound from Xiamen to Hangzhou, stopped at Ningbo’s East Station. The driver then unexpectedly asked passengers to get off the train and transfer to another express train heading in the same direction.

According to two netizens, the request to transfer trains was due to the fact that it was overcrowded, with the netizens later posting a picture of a station notice board which read: “Train D3214 is overcrowded and its arrival time is unknown. Please refund or exchange your tickets at the ticket office.” Many netizens expressed their anger at the incident, and stated that although there are many travelers during the Spring Festival period, the transport authorities shouldn’t compromise safety.

strong>Later in the day however, the response given by the official Weibo account of the Ningbo-Shanghai Ministry of Railways read that the D3214 was halted due to equipment failure, though set off again at 17:37. A representative for the ministry also stated that all “D” bullet trains have strict restrictions on the amount of standing tickets sold, and incidents such as the overloading of passengers would never occur. In light of the photos posted on Weibo that proved otherwise however, many netizens have refused to accept these statements, and have demanded that the authorities begin an investigation into the incident.

2) Phone Used During Plane Landing
Although this isn’t necessarily a rare sight in China, concerns over airline safety have risen to new levels following a recent incident that went viral on Weibo. On the afternoon of the February 17, posts from travelers and the Civil Aviation Administration emerged on Weibo depicting various travelers using their mobile phones on planes during takeoff and landing procedures.

One post stated: “When flight 3U8878 from Harbin to Chengdu was in the final stages of descent, a phone began ringing loudly, which was then answered by a middle-aged man, causing the heads of many nearby travelers to turn around in anger. I can understand some people are excited about heading home, but safety should come first!”

Phone usage wasn’t the only cause for concern regarding airplane security. Another post mentioned a situation on a flight to Shenzhen during takeoff preparations, whereby “a man opened an emergency exit on the plane without authorization, claiming that he needed some air. He was later taken away by the police and caused a lengthy delay for the flight.”

3) Parents Allow Child to Defecate in Plane Aisle
Perhaps the pick of the bunch has to be a particularly putrid incident where similar defecations by children on the street and on the subway were taken to a higher level (literally). On February 16, a Weibo user posted photos of a child defecating in the aisle of a plane. The user mentioned that despite the airplane having three toilets, the parents were still perfectly happy to let their child release his bowels in the passageway and in clear view of all the other passengers

strong>From the photos it is clear that the child isn’t even that young, and even more incredibly, the mother even wiped his backside for him. Many netizens expressed their shock, and called for the Civil Aviation Administration to tighten their restrictions and to introduce severe punishments for such behavior.

Source: Ifeng News
 

Related Links
Shanghai to Lanzhou for Free: Student Hitchhikes Home for Spring Festival
8 Strange & Sad Stories of Spring Festival Travel
The Pains of Travelling: Why Are Chinese Vacations So Awful?

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Keywords: Spring Festival Rush

1 Comments

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Guest246506

Amazing - the guy opened an emergency exit 'because he needed some air.' I'll bet the air outside was more polluted than the air inside.... Or maybe there was a kid taking a crap in the aisle on that flight too. Nothing in this country surprises me now.

Feb 28, 2013 09:35 Report Abuse