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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3909
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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Aug 14, 2005 - 09:34 AM |
 
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| Post subject: Disquieting News for Laos: The Chinese Are Coming |
The shop owner nervously eyed shelves packed with bright silk scarves and carved wooden elephants, wondering how her business would weather an impending influx of Chinese tourists to the sleepy Laotian capital.
"I don't think they'll want to buy any of this," the owner, Sythat, said, folding the handmade silk cushion covers she now sells mainly to well-heeled European tourists for about $5 a piece. "The Chinese will not spend as much and will make too much noise."
That sentiment is despite evidence to the contrary in many other places, where Chinese tourists have proved a potent economic force. In 2004, 290 million Chinese tourists went abroad, almost 50 percent more than the year before.
China's relaxation of travel rules has been a big factor in Hong Kong's economic recovery.
"It's going to be difficult here when they come," Sythat added, carefully rearranging blue and maroon silk ties in a wicker display basket.
Almost anywhere else in the world, the arrival of newly rich Chinese tourists eager to leave China for possibly the first time in their lives is greeted with keen anticipation. In Laos, a poor and mountainous place where a quarter of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, it is being awaited with a sense of foreboding.
Last month, China and Laos signed an agreement expected to more than double the number of Chinese visitors to Laos to about 200,000 a year, or a quarter of all tourists who visited in 2004.
"We are planning for an influx of Chinese tourists," The Vientiane Times quoted Somphong Mongkhonvilay, head of the Lao National Tourism Administration, as saying. Tourism is this country's most important foreign exchange earner, pulling in $124 million in 2004, according to the newspaper, although that is dwarfed by the $9.6 billion earned by Thailand, Laos's neighbor to the south.
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The arrival of Chinese tourists has not always gone smoothly in the region. Articles about badly behaved Chinese tourists often appear in Southeast Asian and even in mainland newspapers, complaining of passengers refusing to get off aircraft in prοtest of delays, and littering in public parks.
In 2002, Chinese newspapers buzzed with talk of the "Seven Deadly Sins of Chinese Tourists," saying they were dirty, noisy, coarse and rude. The papers pointed out that in Thailand some signs asking people not to spit were written only in Chinese.
"We've heard about these Chinese in Thailand, and I don't think such behavior will go down well here," said Nelamith Daongam, 34, a barber, sipping Thai whiskey under a papaya tree in a back alley off Vientiane's Chinatown. |
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Just 200,000 people live in Vientiane, a city of Buddhist temples and decaying French colonial villas perched on the banks of the Mekong River.
Its relative size has caused some Laotians to fear the country could be swamped by its giant neighbor. A new road will eventually link China with Thailand via Laos.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/international/asia/14laos.html
In Cambodia, they hate the Chinese, I mean really hate them, despite the amount of money China is pouring into the country in it's bid to oust Western influences.
Seems manners and culture are more important than kuai in some places - a lesson for Chinese, perhaps? |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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Andreas
Board Royalty
Joined: Feb 27, 2004
Posts: 6762
Location: 31 N 121 E
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| Posted:
Aug 14, 2005 - 11:15 AM |
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MaomingMaster
Board Legend
Joined: Feb 03, 2004
Posts: 11059
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Aug 14, 2005 - 11:30 AM |
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I should imagine in Cambodia that they also hate the Western sex tourists travelling there to have sex with children. |
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Edgewood
FooSlinger
Joined: Jan 28, 2004
Posts: 3909
Location: Colonial Shanghai
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| Posted:
Aug 14, 2005 - 11:39 AM |
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In fact, the whole sex-with-children thing is massively overblown. It happens of course, just as it does in China, but it's incredibly uncommon. And when it does take place, it's almost exclusively with locals, not Westerners.
Actually, Westerners are generally well-received by the Khmer: they know it is the West that stabilised the country after the KR (with UNTAC), and it's the West (along with Japan) that is spending most of the money in restoring the nations monuments, cleaning up landmines, etc. |
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Conlige suspectos semper habitos |
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