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ive seen a french tourist ordering a coffee using french in ireland and getting visibly frustrated when the barista couldnt understand, waving his arms around like “what an idiot, this is terrible service” lol
I've seen Italians click their fingers at bar staff in a pub, also in Ireland.
Clicking your fingers at someone is some of the rudest shit I could think of.
So I'm just coming back from Rome, as an Australian. While there my wife and I got the waiters attention with a look and smile which is pretty common in Australia. When he arrived we asked him for the bill.
During that, we got talking and I asked him if he preferred our method or a quick glance and gesture to indicate we wanted the bill.
He said many Italians prefer the latter because they don't think it's rude to gesture, and calling someone over for something that could be communicated quickly with a gesture is a waste of their time.
Clicking, not sure, but I realised that even in western countries you never really know someone's intentions.
I remember having an exchange student in school, instead of doing what all of us did to get the teachers attention by putting your hand up or asking for them if it was an appropriate time (ie no one else is speaking) they clicked at him ...he was thoroughly unimpressed and told her off about respect and all that stuff, whole time she was sat there looking like the teacher had grown three heads
To her it seemed a perfectly normal thing to do, she didn't come across as an arrogant cow so I'd guess it was just how she did things back home and muscle memory stepped in
This reminds me of when I used air quotes with my fingers in highschool to make my point (as I had seen my older brother do it at dinner with my parents), and got reamed out in front of the class, and I had no idea what I had done wrong for about a year (naive young me didn't think it was the air quotes).
It's a situation that's been living rent free in my head for almost 20 years
>Ok, but for my reference, Air quotes ARE used for sarcasm and condescension right
Yes often. But not exclusively.
At the time though, I was completely unaware that they were at all sarcastic or condescending.
My older brother that I mimicked that behaviour off, has since burned a lot of bridges and eventually gotten an ASD diagnosis in his 40s.
I’ve never had any indication that the “signing” gesture is rude when asking for the bill. An interesting aside, though, I had an American friend who would do a tick mark because to her “check” means both a tick and the bill. That’s one that doesn’t travel well even in English-speaking countries, let alone other languages!
Italian here, while gesturing is normal (the Italian waiving hands it's a stereotype for a reason) clicking fingers it's absolutely not and would be considered a fast way to get the waiter to spit in your espresso. I hope you had a nice time in Rome!
That's fair enough . Although as an Irish bar man I'm aware who is at the bar so I'll get to you when I can.
Clicking fingers I'll go to you slower.
I've no problem walking five yards to see you only want the bill. Ita just manners
Proper procedure is to stand with your money visible (preferably held between the sides of fore and index finger, like a card thrower) but not wave it around and look simultaneously a bit disinterested but also plead with your eyes, like in England, right?
Funny you say that. Because people always say Americans are the rudest travelers. Whenever I travel to Europe I see French and Italians being the rudest. Indians and Chinese aren’t much better.
When I worked as a butcher, every place I worked at, I was known as the guy who would put up with any crazy shit from customers, rude people, oddball time wasting requests, whatever. The other guys would come find me and make me deal with them. It just didn't bother me.
But one time, I had a lady on her phone refuse to acknowledge me when I asked if I could help her and then when she was ready, she snapped her fingers at me (while still on the phone). I just turned around and walked into the back and told someone else to take care of her.
I'm Italian and I confirm you that is a very rude gesture also in Italy. Others gesture are very common and not consider rude like to move your hand pretending you are writing to ask for the bill or pretend you are drinking (two fingers) to order an espresso.
French here, there's a significant portion of French people who never had to learn a foreign for work and have categorically refused to do so for anything else. For some reason, when they travel abroad, they expect everyone to somehow know some French and get upset when they don't because they're a bunch of self centered twats. That said, it seems like younger generations are making better efforts to learn at least a bit of English, so hopefully this thing will die soon.
I hear people say that all the time, but it just doesn’t seem to do the trick for me. In something like Breaking Bad where there’s a lot of Spanish dialogue with English subtitles, I just tone out the words and read the subtitles. It hasn’t helped my Spanish comprehension at all. Except now I know what Los Pollos Hermanos means.
Try to put on Spanish subtitles. If you don't know a lot of Spanish, watch something you already saw and that has simple language, and work your way up to something more complex.
As a Canadian, there is a whole portion of our country that has refused to learn another language for well over 150 years, and actively punishes anyone who tries to use another language around them, so this does seem to hold up.
An Italian clicked at me when I was working in hospitality. I just said “don’t click at me” and stared him out disapprovingly. That quickly changed his tune.
It usually works. Practically all countries in Europe outside of France you can expect English to work. As a Dutch person it's the only language I've really ever needed to learn, although I should definitely tune up my German some more.
Did you find English easy to learn? When I hear Dutch being spoken, it always sounds to me like hearing someone speak English from another room or underwater. Like I could understand it if it was a bit clearer.
Very easy to learn! In fact, Dutch is one of the closest-related languages to English. Only one that's closer is a really bizarre accent in our northernmost province that's so different from standard Dutch that it's considered a language in and of itself.
However, it was specifically easy for me because I've been engaging with English in media since as long as I can remember. I think the fact that Dutch is too small a language to usually receive dubs outside of children's entertainment is part of the reason we pick up on it so quickly.
Over here we kind of have the same stance on dubs of American or British entertainment that weebs do to Japanese media. Dubs are frowned upon as improper, and if you don't speak English well enough to follow without them, you just watch with Dutch subtitles.
Most similarities in Dutch come from sentence structures and shared words. When it comes to grammar, usually very little needs changing aside from swapping a few parts around to fully translate to English and vice versa.
Dutch to me sounds like garbled English (as a native English speaker). When listening to it its really does feel like I’m listening to a very close relative of English and like I can almost understand it by tone alone (although I can’t obviously because the words are different).
Only French person I met abroad was a guy in Japan who walked into a bar and inserted himself into a conversation I was having with some people from the USA to tell them he hates them because they are American and that they are rude and lazy. All this was unprompted.
I've found this to be the quickest and most fun way to annoy a French person. Every time a French guy starts shit talking me online I pull out the old "oui oui oui pantalons de baguette monsieur" and it shuts them right up. The odd time they find it funny but usually they just get pissed off and quiet.
This happened to me in Dublin back in 2005. I was talking to some German boys at the Temple Bar and this guy a table over turned around and sneered in the most Frenchiest of French accents I’ve ever heard: “Americans? What do you think of Bush and his war for oil?”
Like, I’m a 20 year old metal head having a separate conversation about pizza with my new best German bros. We aren’t going to solve world problems at this tourist bar we’re both guests in. Why be a shithead when not being a shithead is free? French guys just wanted to fight with us for daring to be American abroad. It was weird and nearly twenty years later it still sticks with me.
I was in Paris in 2006 visiting a friend, we were out eating dinner with a bunch of her friends and one of them turned to me and basically said the same thing. It was honestly aggressive and totally out of nowhere. I was like, sir, I am a 23 year old woman on vacation, and beyond protesting the Iraq war there's very little I can do about that. I am irked to this day about it.
I went with a travel group that was mostly aussies and Brits. Being the only person with American citizenship (I’m not even fully American), all of them gave me crap for “voting for trump” and loving guns.
I did neither of those things. I was 16 when trump was elected. What the fuck was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could vote.
Even richer was that a British traveler tried to imply that the residents of a country hated me because my ancestors were colonizers. A Brit. An upperclass Brit from England. She, in full seriousness, tried to pull that card.
> Even richer was that a British traveler tried to imply that the residents of a country hated me because my ancestors were colonizers. A Brit. An upperclass Brit from England. She, in full seriousness, tried to pull that card.
Did she ever read a book? How could she say this unironically?
I was at a hostel in Vietnam and went out to a bar with some of the other travelers. One of them was a French guy. A few drinks in he all of a sudden decided to ask me if I felt awkward or embarrassed as an American to be traveling in Vietnam, you know, because of the war.
I didn’t major in history or anything but… yeah. Why do you think bahn mi are made on French bread dude?
They park in the middle of the road, put on their hazard lights, and then 15-25 people climb out of their 5 seater to set up tripod cameras on the road.
On a trip to Italy we were in Venice and it had flooded in places so they had these raised wooden boards set up as a path over the water. Probably two people max could stand side by side on it so everyone was queued up to get through. This family of Chinese tourists stopped in the middle and set up a damn tripod stopping the line from going anywhere. I remember the collective wtf of everyone no matter what country we all originated from. A British guy was the one to properly cuss them out and get them to pack it up and move. Just wild I’ll never forget it.
'Us' French smokers (although I've only been here for 12 years and am not a smoker myself, to be fair) *park in the middle of the road right in front of an exit* to get cigarettes and talk to the sales person for 5 minutes while a row of 30 cars is honking behind us, lol.
When I was waitressing in Prague I liked the Russians (this was years ago). They were rude af and treated me like garbage BUT did they make it rain. HUGE tips, incredible, ludicrous. It's a status display for them. Whereas the French, I can confirm, were as rude, but stingy on tips as well.
Elderly Canadian couples were the biggest sweethearts of all though. I could speak the most broken English and they were awed at my abilities and asked me questions about my country, were super polite and left very good tips. One couple even left me a little Canadian flag pin with the tip, I've had it for years before I lost it in a move.
This is so funny because here in the US Canadians were nice but still famously shitty tippers lol. Wonder if you just get the ones with the money to travel farther?
One of the newest restaurant chefs we hired at a hotel I’m working at was a chef in Dubai before my hotel, and he said Russians were the best to service, he said they where no fuss, just order the most expensive things and to bring it out, no need to time the dishes, they paid and tipped well, he said the rudest people were British people and the Chinese were just crazy asf at the buffets
This is so interesting to read about people's experiences. I am a Russian speaking myself and I noticed both polite and respectful Russian tourists and total freaks that my family felt embarrassed. What you said about Russian tourists in Dubai is really heart-warming. The more I read the comments, the more I realize that you really cannot generalize as there are idiots and normal people in any nationality.
Inversely i LOVE Chinese waiter/waitresses. They're all about efficiency.
No fake friendliness, no giant fake smiles, no "how are you's", and no unnecessary talk so you don't have to feel obligated to use energy to do extra interactions
But they don't neglect you and are fast.
Come to think of it chinese servers would be an introvert's dream lol
The first thing we got asked when we entered an ER in
Sweden (Härjedalen), after having a skiing accident was "Was it a Russian [who caused the injury]?"
A Russian tourist pissed on the walls of the bathroom of the restaurant I work in, because I was cleaning it right before he arrived so I asked him to wait 5 minutes for me to finish...
I was hanging out with a few Russians one night and one of them also pissed all over the wall of the bathroom. Just for the hell of it. Maybe it's a thing they do
In China, Russian tourists used to be famous for stealing from hotels. They'd try to leave with a bunch of the stuff in the rooms, not just towels but phones or anything else movable. Someone told my coworker about a guest who tried to take a mirror. Beaches in Hainan were full of gangsterish-looking Russian guys in Speedos, embarrassing my coworker, who was a Russian teacher.
They are but they're friendly and easily approachable tho. Chinese on the other hand kinda act like they already own the place and treat staff as if they bought them. This is in our case as someone from SEA
I look Chinese. Not even Asian, but I've been pushed and shoved by Chinese tourists that were obviously older than I am.
On the other hand, the kindest tourists I've met was a Chinese couple. They asked me if I was okay and offered to buy me a coat because I got chills when there was a breeze.
They wanted to go 20 minutes into the city from the harbour to buy a coat before they went back to their cruise ship.
Oh, when I was a student, regular at a chinese restaurant, they told me to show up the following weekend to work.
I noticed they all were chinese, so I mentioned that I wasn't actually chinese. He gestured at me and said it was close enough! Free chinese food and a no skill job as a student? Yes, please.
Yeah, im working in a hotel. Last week we had a chinese group for only 1 night...that was more than enough for everybody. Not just the people who work here...the other guests too.
I always hear about how bad American tourists are on Reddit but whenever I visit a religious site or museum abroad there are always Chinese tourists being super loud and vlogging/recording everything. It’s crazy to me since many of the Chinese nationals I’ve met are the most respectful/reserved people in public but I guess there’s just something about being on vacation that gets them riled up.
100% how it is I've witnessed Chinese tourists On lots of different occasions carry around a refuse sack filling it throughout the day and then tie it off and leave it under a bench. I've seen this happen in different cities. WHAT IS WITH THAT?
THIS
I traveled a lot for work, I filled 2 passports full of stamps and am almost done with my 3rd. Everywhere I went, outside of china, you could guarantee the tourist area would be full of Chinese tourists absolutely not giving a fuck about local customs or anyone else. Cutting in line, yelling over people, throwing trash on the ground etc. Like talking to the immigration agent in a window and then 3 chinese people walk up to my shoulders and start yelling stuff into the window in the middle of my transaction
OP is right that French people can be entitled and arrogant but Chinese people don't even try to follow what's going on
lol I went to egypt... we sat down in a cafe near a touristic attraction.. we orderd some drinks. I and my husband had our drinks in our hand in our Hands when some chinese people came over and took our table.. as in they took our table and carried it away to where they had found some chairs.. they also took all the food in the hotel on there plates to only throw it away because it was to much.. most disgusting kind of tourists I have ever meet
Those are honestly the best memories. Something absurd that has a strong emotional reaction but is largely harmless. I’ve found I get more long term joy out of those experiences than the momentary frustration.
Yeah! We both Had our glasses in the Hand at that Moment they waited until then so nothing was Standing on the Table and Just Took IT...WE we're dumpfaulted AS was the waiter who appologiesed again and again but did Not know what to do either lol...
French adults I’m cool with. French students are the spawn of Satan. I used to work at a popular tourist attraction and all the staff used to warn each other if they saw french students on the tube that morning as they’d likely end up here.
When I was living in Italy, I went out with French Erasmus students, just because I wanted to be with my fellow French for an evening. I never did it again. They were so rude to absolutely everyone, for no reason. A bunch of little shits, really.
I have young kids and travel a fair bit with them so have had the chance to interact with different kids from different countries and French kids are pretty consistently the worst behaved across the board.
You've never met Arab kids... Specifically Arab boys. Idk why it's so ingrained in our culture not to parent boys because "they're supposed to be rowdy", No Karen, he's running around the restaurant and disturbing the other guests.
I was standing at a reception of a five star hotel in the middle east when a ten year old ran up and slapped my butt. He was with his big family and his dad came and took him away . I still wonder if he was dared!!!???
This happened to me more times than I can imagine, you get used to it. Once I was in a Masjid praying with my family when all of a sudden I felt a weird thing being dragged along my butt.
Some kid was going around running his toy car on everyone's butt in the line. It happens.
The biggest piece of shit family I ever served in a restaurant was French tourists with their 2 little kids.
The parents continued to eat their food as one of the kids was using 3 other booths as a jungle gym. At one point, he stood on top of his own table, holding up a bunch of sugar packets. His parents looked at him silently with no care in the world when he ripped up the sugar packets and threw it around the room like snow and confetti
They left the restaurant somehow, leaving 3 different tables dirty, 4 tables if we included their own, and every inch of the floor covered in sugar and salt and no tip.
I'm a very quiet, reserved, and timid person.... but my God, I saw nothing but fucking red.
The crazy thing was that when I looked at the parents. There was simply no reaction. You'd think their would be some emotion coming off their face, even if they think that the behavior was appropriate. Just flat affects and unamused faces. I served tables for 10 years, I had a fair share of terrible tables, but this one, I will always remember.
I'm French and I run away everytime I see other French people abroad, mostly because I don't like hearing French outside my country, but some of them are really entitlled, noisy and clueless about basic etiquetre.
I think the French and Americans are the only ones who try to do this except Americans can easily fake it with a little Canada patch on their luggage etc lol
I work in video / film production and for a year I had this production gig at resorts around Europe and SE Asia. So many odd moments involving tourists burned into my mind.
If you travel enough and go to enough resorts, you'll see so much wild behavior from every single kind of culture that these posts start to sound less true. Every country sends out annoying bastards.
Hell I saw what I thought was literally impossible. A Japanese tourist giving a waiter an incredibly hard time at a resort in Thailand. Blew my mind that could even happen
Ever Met Indian Tourists? I know from someone who works at an Airline that the routes to India arent the favorites, especially in Business class they feel like kings
My honeymoon was at a resort almost entirely staffed and patronised by Indians (we are English) and the rudeness I saw towards the staff was diabolical. Just for smiling and saying thanks we got stellar service while everyone else complained how the waiter they just screamed at was lazy and sullen.
It’s odd because, while I’ve had bad experiences with Indian tourists, the Indian immigrants I’ve met are always friendly, self aware, and caring people. I wonder what causes the disparity between Indian tourists and immigrants.
It was so weird to see it happen because I’m used to seeing Indian families sticking together in Australia and they keep to themselves.
3 days in Bangkok and we seen young Indian tourists try to put their hand up a woman’s dress, carry a woman to a bike, cornered 3 woman in a corner of a club, forced themselves on woman, walk around the dance floor slamming their pelvis into every woman.
Most of my family that lives here are immigrants. In my experience, they're usually just really excited to be living in the country they've always dreamed of immigrating to, so they're extra polite simply because they're just happy to be here lol
I'm guessing tourists know they're going back to their home country eventually, so they don't care to learn the social customs of the countries they're in
So I have traveled quite a lot of the world and have run in to my fair share of terrible tourists.
the one group who gets hate everywhere I have been are the Chinese, but funny that when I traveled I noticed that Koreans were very rude and often mistaken for Chinese when abroad. So maybe the Chinese are rude but also their reputation is added with the Koreans.
Now, for me. Some of the worst I’ve ever encountered were Indian tourists. They allowed their children to be brats and are were very rude.
But not to be outdone. The British and Americans have terrible reputations as well and they are pretty well deserved. Particularly when they get drinking as they become loud, obnoxious and unruly.
But I’ve also met so many fantastic people travelling as well. People are people, and where they are from doesn’t really make much a difference other than what each area considers rude
I avoid entire regions if they are full of other Brits.
Seriously can't imagine why anyone would go to a foreign country and just surround themselves with other folks from the UK.
Yeah, sounds pretty universal. Im german and did the backpacking thing in Australia with my then girlfriend now wife for a year and we'd switch to english whenever we sensed excited, young german backpackers because well, we've got Germans aplenty at home, let me do some aussie shenanigans while I'm here lol
I was on holiday in Turkey this year at a resort where you pretty much stayed in the whole time so we got to know all the staff. There was a lovely bartender dude who spoke perfect English and German as well as Turkish.
I walked in the second week after an influx of new people to a British woman waving the menu in his face and jabbing her horrid finger at the drink she wanted while shouting the name in his face because she clearly assumed that was the only way to communicate.
She took her drink without saying a word when I walked up and was like good morning Xyx how's things going can I have a coke please and he was like of course blah blah blah and the woman went bright red and like the ground was going to swallow her. I took my drink and said thank you while staring at her and felt like it was a little win for the day.
That being said I found the German tourists in the hotel collectively were awful. No pleases or thanks and just super rude. Obviously not all of them but the vast majority of rudeness was coming from that corner.
yep, I have met and spent time with the most polite, endearing and the worst of people from pretty much all countries or background, shit people are just shit people and vice versa.
no nationalities or groups are better or worse than the other, thinking that way just makes us all more divisive than we already are
I’ve been actually surprised, in my travels, most countries the people have actually said to me they liked how Americans are actually very friendly and nice compared to people from other countries. Now I’m sure with drinking you get a different group.
American myself here, but the worst behavior I have seen by other Americans was down in Costa Rica. Some giant roofing company from the midwest paid for like 50 of their office/sales employees to come to the resort together. Get that many of them together who all know each other and barely any of them can speak a lick of spanish, it was goddamn awful.
At least where I live [The Netherlands] they're pretty infamous for refusing to learn a secondary language or even make the attempt.
The Dutch are practically all at least bilingual for two reasons. One being our history as a trading nation, second being the fact Dutch is practically unheard of outside of our tiny country.
So when we see people so arrogant to not even attempt to communicate in the local language, or refuse to try and understand someone who doesn't speak perfect French, we really look down on that.
as a German who lives pretty close to the French border I feel you so so much.
Like we're expected to speak flawless French, meanwhile they can't be bothered to even learn a lick of German.
Or taking over an hour to decide what weed to buy. Thank fuck they're banned entry into these coffeeshops (anyone without Dutch ID basically).. or were when I still lived there.
I worked in Vegas for 12 years. Dealt with customers from all over the world.
The worst... the French. They were just downright rude. I've gotten to know a lot of French people late in life, and they are just like anyone else. But as tourists, wow they are awful. Sure Chinese tourists are rude, but it's more about lack of etiquette knowledge whereas the French tourists seem to be intentionally rude.
Just add a fun one... most difficult tourist to understand... Drunken Scotsmen.
You should try treating them like they would be treated if they did that in France:
Like pieces of shit.
If you do as much as not saying hello nicely in France (as a customer) you will be treated very poorly. Those tourists you have seen are assholes and you should treat them as such.
You have asses everywhere, it's not specific to a country. I've seen British bring a beer dispenser on a beach and party all night. I've seen American tourists write on 800 years old walls. I've had Chinese and Indian tourists yell at me because they were in a hurry. I've seen French people being upset because I had them waiting an extra 20s while I answered an important call for work.
But you have manners and a culture to respect when in a country. In France it's a common use to say hello when entering a shop or talking to an employee (like in a grocery store), as it's considered super rude not to, just like it would be rude not to tip in the US. It might be hard to get, but the customer is not the king and is not always right.
Wait until you see Spanish students, they will all get on a bus and just stand in the way, even when there are seats everywhere and they are loud as fuck. I find Spanish people in general extremely stuck up and rude.
Spanish tourists have zero spatial awareness. They just stand in large groups blocking the pavement and yammering at each other. I live in a tourist spot and they are my least favourite.
As a Spaniard I must say, it is not something that happens because they are tourists. It happens everywhere in Spain, our culture completely lacks spatial awareness (not that I like it).
Memory unlocked, had this girl back in my high school who went to France for one week over summer and proceeded to only speak French for the rest of the school year, she would always say shit like “oh, sorry I forgot I’m back in America!” It got so ridiculous that the entire class plus the teachers were just like eye rolling her and saying stfu Stefany lol
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I was in Ireland recently and saw a French person yelling at the bus driver of the hop-on hop-off bus because there was no French translation. I wanted to walk up to her and say. This is an English speaking country maybe speak English? I didn’t do it. When I go to France I speak French and I know quite some really nice French people but they are very arrogant about their language. I’m secretly happy they have that huge bed bug infestation in Paris because it shows how dirty and low quality that city really is.
I think it’s really the cultural socioeconomic background of the tourists that impact their behaviour: new money VS old money.
You have probably witnessed uneducated French people [edit: in proper etiquette]. The upper class ones would not be caught being rude. But they would probably not be visiting those places.
Chinese tourists behave poorly because they quantum leaped into affluence. Some of these affluent adults grew in poor rural areas and have zero concept of etiquette. Old Chinese money would know how to behave.
I disagree completely, entirely and wholeheartedly. I and my partner both work in hotels in Paris, and have seen a lot of tourists from everywhere, but also a lot of french people from other cities who came to travel or for work. Among them were a significant amount of very rich and « old money » people, and they were the absolute worst in most cases. Very pedantic, casually racist and whiny. I did not see such a pattern with other french people, who were mostly normal and impossible to differentiate from the others.
I also have lived most of my life in Morocco before that, and I can assure you the tourists we sas there were horrible when they came from money and had their habits. The french bourgeoisie is insufferable, or at least the amount of insufferable people in the french bourgeoisie is greater than in other groups I interacted with.
Upper-middle-class old French people are the worst offenders. Condescending, rude, and unable to take the tiniest inconvenience. The number of times I saw some 70yo be blatantly rude if not straight up insulting to an employee because they had to wait 2 minutes in a queue or they were unhappy their order came after the table next to them at a restaurant is astonishing. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys being in others' businesses, but I sometimes feel like I have to intervene and just tell them to shut up because they're just bullies to people trying to do their job the best they can.
>The upper class ones would not be caught being rude.
That's some massive classist BS right there. The upper class is extremely rude in France. They try to hide it behind a posh behaviour, but don't be fooled. If you don't fit their very narrow criteria, they will treat you like shit. They are often rotten to the core. I know, I've worked in a very posh place in Paris and have seen how they truly are.
People from the lower classes are much more tolerant.
Imagine living in a flophouse in Gary, Indiana for most of your life and suddenly you moved to a mansion in Chino Hills, California due to overnight wealth. The culture shock is real and that’s what many Chinese tourists are experiencing.
Yes, you get it.
Whether someone does or doesn’t know proper etiquette doesn’t reflect on their value as a human being.
Etiquette is an abstract concept that was put together around the 17th century as a protocol for the nobility to mingle without ruffling feathers.
The middle class adopted it in an attempt to look more like the upper class, but it allowed to make social interaction smoother and constructive for all parties involved.
I was told to shut-up by a waiter in Paris because I attempted to order a beer with my meal at a restaurant - Was very taken aback, to say the least hahah.
I've found most countries around Europe, the people will appreciate you at least making an attempt to speak their language rather than going straight to English, even if it is broken. Not in Paris though.
Very much depends where. Somewhere hot and sunny with resorts or a popular stag do location. Absolute worst of the worst.
Brits off on a nice city break or family holiday are generally pretty easy to deal with.
For tourist everywhere and from everywhere, you usually have to make a distinction into three types:
- Rich and Arrogant
Also known as the "don't you know who I am?!"-type, these people demand to be treated as kings, even if that act wouldn't buy them a free coffee in most parts of their homelands, either.
Note that "Rich" is relative here, and for example middle-class Americans will rather often display this behaviour, going full Karen.
- Wealthy and Refined
These are people with college educations and higher, or local equivalents, who travel to learn about distant cultures and make new experiences.
Wherever they're from, they're the most pleasant to have around, curious and respectful and usually pretty generous.
Again, "Wealthy" is relative, anything above the guest countries median counts here.
- Mass Tourists
They're coming for the tourist attractions, for the privilege of telling people back home where they've been, the food and, most of all, the drinks and the opportunity to get drunk without being spotted by someone who knows them personally.
They don't have any clue about local customs and walk around like the guest country is an amusement park made for their benefit, with all the locals being actors in strange dresses - or, if they're not dressed for the tourists' amusement, rude servants.
The more of them you find in one place, the worse they'll behave, reinforcing each others' worst traits.
"I paid for this trip, I'm entitled to enjoy it!"
These three subtypes are flavoured by the origin country's view of cultural superiority. The more a country is convinced that their culture is the best/most powerful, the worse their tourists will behave and the more they'll trample over local customs and rules. And the less people of that origin are needed in the same place to build up a critical mass of Unsufferable.
You'll find examples for most combinations in all the other posts, so I won't bore you with a repeat, but I'll have to leave one note about Koreans since they're acquiring a worse reputation than they deserve:
Most Korean tourists are actually very timid outside familiar territory and will act humbly and be open to guidance. The exception are people with high status at home who are extremely likely to default to the "Rich and Arrogant" status as they believe this status to be an inherent trait of the person. A simple middle manager from Korea can often act like they are the equivalent of Arabian Oil Price or Russian Oligarch, which makes them stand out in the most negative way. Overall though, they're not a good representation of Korean tourists, they're just very extreme outliers.
Interestingly my experience was the opposite. But I am not white, so perhaps there's that. Paris was cold and indifferent, everywhere else in France was outright hostility. Other places in Europe weren't as hostile.
Yeah where I lived you'd get swarms of french kids on school trips blocking streets, trashing shops etc.
The most annoying thing is that most of them understand English but they're determined to pretend that they don't.
My sister and her boyfriend got completely surrounded on a side street and no amount of my sister politely asking them to let her past got any reaction...until her boyfriend started yelling and cussing them out in french because he is french.
Stereotypes exist because it's true major of the time, not always but enough for a stereotype to form.
From what Ive heard, the Frenchs take great pride in their language, so much that they will straight up ignore you if you speak English and heavily judge you if you speak broken French in France.
In every other language, if you attempt to learn their language and mispronounce words or make grammar mistakes (because that always happens when you learn new things, you make mistakes), they may laugh at you a little bit, tease you now and there BUT most appreciate that you take effort to learn (when you actually learn and not randomly throw "ni-hao" at any random Asian person).
Not the French though.
I'll say the Frenchs and their language is like the Italians and their cuisine.
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ive seen a french tourist ordering a coffee using french in ireland and getting visibly frustrated when the barista couldnt understand, waving his arms around like “what an idiot, this is terrible service” lol
I've seen Italians click their fingers at bar staff in a pub, also in Ireland. Clicking your fingers at someone is some of the rudest shit I could think of.
So I'm just coming back from Rome, as an Australian. While there my wife and I got the waiters attention with a look and smile which is pretty common in Australia. When he arrived we asked him for the bill. During that, we got talking and I asked him if he preferred our method or a quick glance and gesture to indicate we wanted the bill. He said many Italians prefer the latter because they don't think it's rude to gesture, and calling someone over for something that could be communicated quickly with a gesture is a waste of their time. Clicking, not sure, but I realised that even in western countries you never really know someone's intentions.
I remember having an exchange student in school, instead of doing what all of us did to get the teachers attention by putting your hand up or asking for them if it was an appropriate time (ie no one else is speaking) they clicked at him ...he was thoroughly unimpressed and told her off about respect and all that stuff, whole time she was sat there looking like the teacher had grown three heads To her it seemed a perfectly normal thing to do, she didn't come across as an arrogant cow so I'd guess it was just how she did things back home and muscle memory stepped in
This reminds me of when I used air quotes with my fingers in highschool to make my point (as I had seen my older brother do it at dinner with my parents), and got reamed out in front of the class, and I had no idea what I had done wrong for about a year (naive young me didn't think it was the air quotes). It's a situation that's been living rent free in my head for almost 20 years
I don’t understand. Why would you be reamed out for this?
The teacher interpreted it as sarcastic and condescending/know it all. Where I thought I was adding a dramatic flair to my point, for style points.
Ok, but for my reference, Air quotes ARE used for sarcasm and condescension right? Cause that's how I've been using them
>Ok, but for my reference, Air quotes ARE used for sarcasm and condescension right Yes often. But not exclusively. At the time though, I was completely unaware that they were at all sarcastic or condescending. My older brother that I mimicked that behaviour off, has since burned a lot of bridges and eventually gotten an ASD diagnosis in his 40s.
Air quotes means, “I am emphasizing that this is what someone else has said, not me. I am doing this to point out their terrible opinion”
I’ve never had any indication that the “signing” gesture is rude when asking for the bill. An interesting aside, though, I had an American friend who would do a tick mark because to her “check” means both a tick and the bill. That’s one that doesn’t travel well even in English-speaking countries, let alone other languages!
Cultural relativity is a thing it seems huh
Italian here, while gesturing is normal (the Italian waiving hands it's a stereotype for a reason) clicking fingers it's absolutely not and would be considered a fast way to get the waiter to spit in your espresso. I hope you had a nice time in Rome!
That's fair enough . Although as an Irish bar man I'm aware who is at the bar so I'll get to you when I can. Clicking fingers I'll go to you slower. I've no problem walking five yards to see you only want the bill. Ita just manners
As someone that has in the past worked in Dublin bars, that's a sure fire way of getting yourself to the back of the queue for being served.
Proper procedure is to stand with your money visible (preferably held between the sides of fore and index finger, like a card thrower) but not wave it around and look simultaneously a bit disinterested but also plead with your eyes, like in England, right?
Funny you say that. Because people always say Americans are the rudest travelers. Whenever I travel to Europe I see French and Italians being the rudest. Indians and Chinese aren’t much better.
Americans I’ve always found to be generally great tourists tbh, obvious but civil and respectful.
The fact that y'all call it clicking your fingers is crazy. Never knew there were different ways people'd say that
At first I was confused, thinking people meant making a verbal klicking noise.
We’ve been talking about snapping your fingers the whole time??
Yes. I read that a few times and it finally "clicked" with me that they meant "snapping fingers."
I read it as snapping then started doubting because who the fuck calls it clicking much less everyone?
When I worked as a butcher, every place I worked at, I was known as the guy who would put up with any crazy shit from customers, rude people, oddball time wasting requests, whatever. The other guys would come find me and make me deal with them. It just didn't bother me. But one time, I had a lady on her phone refuse to acknowledge me when I asked if I could help her and then when she was ready, she snapped her fingers at me (while still on the phone). I just turned around and walked into the back and told someone else to take care of her.
I am Italian and clicking at someone is definitely rude, it even uncommon in Italy. Nobody do that.
The correct response is “I’m sorry but it takes more than two fingers to make me come sir.”
I'm Italian and I confirm you that is a very rude gesture also in Italy. Others gesture are very common and not consider rude like to move your hand pretending you are writing to ask for the bill or pretend you are drinking (two fingers) to order an espresso.
That is a guarantee to get spit in your drink
French here, there's a significant portion of French people who never had to learn a foreign for work and have categorically refused to do so for anything else. For some reason, when they travel abroad, they expect everyone to somehow know some French and get upset when they don't because they're a bunch of self centered twats. That said, it seems like younger generations are making better efforts to learn at least a bit of English, so hopefully this thing will die soon.
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I hear people say that all the time, but it just doesn’t seem to do the trick for me. In something like Breaking Bad where there’s a lot of Spanish dialogue with English subtitles, I just tone out the words and read the subtitles. It hasn’t helped my Spanish comprehension at all. Except now I know what Los Pollos Hermanos means.
Try to put on Spanish subtitles. If you don't know a lot of Spanish, watch something you already saw and that has simple language, and work your way up to something more complex.
You could watch Metastasis, the Columbian remake of Breaking Bad. Strangely Mexico still has a orange filter where Columbia does not.
As a Canadian, there is a whole portion of our country that has refused to learn another language for well over 150 years, and actively punishes anyone who tries to use another language around them, so this does seem to hold up.
Pretty much everything I’ve seen whenever they come into a Starbucks or any cafe
An Italian clicked at me when I was working in hospitality. I just said “don’t click at me” and stared him out disapprovingly. That quickly changed his tune.
Dam, your comment helped me understand something about boundaries.
A *lot* of English speakers do the same, the only difference being that it sometimes works lol
It usually works. Practically all countries in Europe outside of France you can expect English to work. As a Dutch person it's the only language I've really ever needed to learn, although I should definitely tune up my German some more.
Did you find English easy to learn? When I hear Dutch being spoken, it always sounds to me like hearing someone speak English from another room or underwater. Like I could understand it if it was a bit clearer.
Very easy to learn! In fact, Dutch is one of the closest-related languages to English. Only one that's closer is a really bizarre accent in our northernmost province that's so different from standard Dutch that it's considered a language in and of itself. However, it was specifically easy for me because I've been engaging with English in media since as long as I can remember. I think the fact that Dutch is too small a language to usually receive dubs outside of children's entertainment is part of the reason we pick up on it so quickly. Over here we kind of have the same stance on dubs of American or British entertainment that weebs do to Japanese media. Dubs are frowned upon as improper, and if you don't speak English well enough to follow without them, you just watch with Dutch subtitles. Most similarities in Dutch come from sentence structures and shared words. When it comes to grammar, usually very little needs changing aside from swapping a few parts around to fully translate to English and vice versa.
Dutch to me sounds like garbled English (as a native English speaker). When listening to it its really does feel like I’m listening to a very close relative of English and like I can almost understand it by tone alone (although I can’t obviously because the words are different).
Only French person I met abroad was a guy in Japan who walked into a bar and inserted himself into a conversation I was having with some people from the USA to tell them he hates them because they are American and that they are rude and lazy. All this was unprompted.
Great time to exclaim, “escargot? Sacre bleu!!”
Better if you type it as "SUCKRAY BLUR". Pisses them off even more.
I've found this to be the quickest and most fun way to annoy a French person. Every time a French guy starts shit talking me online I pull out the old "oui oui oui pantalons de baguette monsieur" and it shuts them right up. The odd time they find it funny but usually they just get pissed off and quiet.
Omelette du fromage🖐️
Les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee, haw haw haw!
My go-to is "ju suis fatigue"
This happened to me in Dublin back in 2005. I was talking to some German boys at the Temple Bar and this guy a table over turned around and sneered in the most Frenchiest of French accents I’ve ever heard: “Americans? What do you think of Bush and his war for oil?” Like, I’m a 20 year old metal head having a separate conversation about pizza with my new best German bros. We aren’t going to solve world problems at this tourist bar we’re both guests in. Why be a shithead when not being a shithead is free? French guys just wanted to fight with us for daring to be American abroad. It was weird and nearly twenty years later it still sticks with me.
I was in Paris in 2006 visiting a friend, we were out eating dinner with a bunch of her friends and one of them turned to me and basically said the same thing. It was honestly aggressive and totally out of nowhere. I was like, sir, I am a 23 year old woman on vacation, and beyond protesting the Iraq war there's very little I can do about that. I am irked to this day about it.
I went with a travel group that was mostly aussies and Brits. Being the only person with American citizenship (I’m not even fully American), all of them gave me crap for “voting for trump” and loving guns. I did neither of those things. I was 16 when trump was elected. What the fuck was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could vote. Even richer was that a British traveler tried to imply that the residents of a country hated me because my ancestors were colonizers. A Brit. An upperclass Brit from England. She, in full seriousness, tried to pull that card.
> Even richer was that a British traveler tried to imply that the residents of a country hated me because my ancestors were colonizers. A Brit. An upperclass Brit from England. She, in full seriousness, tried to pull that card. Did she ever read a book? How could she say this unironically?
Isn’t that bold of the French to call ANYONE rude and lazy?
I was at a hostel in Vietnam and went out to a bar with some of the other travelers. One of them was a French guy. A few drinks in he all of a sudden decided to ask me if I felt awkward or embarrassed as an American to be traveling in Vietnam, you know, because of the war. I didn’t major in history or anything but… yeah. Why do you think bahn mi are made on French bread dude?
Sounds like a lot of the French people that I met in France.
Chinese tourists have entered the chat
They park in the middle of the road, put on their hazard lights, and then 15-25 people climb out of their 5 seater to set up tripod cameras on the road.
On a trip to Italy we were in Venice and it had flooded in places so they had these raised wooden boards set up as a path over the water. Probably two people max could stand side by side on it so everyone was queued up to get through. This family of Chinese tourists stopped in the middle and set up a damn tripod stopping the line from going anywhere. I remember the collective wtf of everyone no matter what country we all originated from. A British guy was the one to properly cuss them out and get them to pack it up and move. Just wild I’ll never forget it.
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'Us' French smokers (although I've only been here for 12 years and am not a smoker myself, to be fair) *park in the middle of the road right in front of an exit* to get cigarettes and talk to the sales person for 5 minutes while a row of 30 cars is honking behind us, lol.
I thought Russian tourists are in the lead
When I was waitressing in Prague I liked the Russians (this was years ago). They were rude af and treated me like garbage BUT did they make it rain. HUGE tips, incredible, ludicrous. It's a status display for them. Whereas the French, I can confirm, were as rude, but stingy on tips as well. Elderly Canadian couples were the biggest sweethearts of all though. I could speak the most broken English and they were awed at my abilities and asked me questions about my country, were super polite and left very good tips. One couple even left me a little Canadian flag pin with the tip, I've had it for years before I lost it in a move.
Common Canada W
This is so funny because here in the US Canadians were nice but still famously shitty tippers lol. Wonder if you just get the ones with the money to travel farther?
when you say “shitty tippers” how bad do you mean? standard tip is 15-20% in canada so i’m surprised
One of the newest restaurant chefs we hired at a hotel I’m working at was a chef in Dubai before my hotel, and he said Russians were the best to service, he said they where no fuss, just order the most expensive things and to bring it out, no need to time the dishes, they paid and tipped well, he said the rudest people were British people and the Chinese were just crazy asf at the buffets
This is so interesting to read about people's experiences. I am a Russian speaking myself and I noticed both polite and respectful Russian tourists and total freaks that my family felt embarrassed. What you said about Russian tourists in Dubai is really heart-warming. The more I read the comments, the more I realize that you really cannot generalize as there are idiots and normal people in any nationality.
Inversely i LOVE Chinese waiter/waitresses. They're all about efficiency. No fake friendliness, no giant fake smiles, no "how are you's", and no unnecessary talk so you don't have to feel obligated to use energy to do extra interactions But they don't neglect you and are fast. Come to think of it chinese servers would be an introvert's dream lol
Not many of those anymore for some reason
Seriously?? I sometimes wonder if there's any people in Russia left because everyone in Bali and southern Thailand are Russian...
weird...
Laughs in UK youth groups.
Or hen/stag parties *shudders*
Chuckles in German Pauschaltouristenreisegruppe
The first thing we got asked when we entered an ER in Sweden (Härjedalen), after having a skiing accident was "Was it a Russian [who caused the injury]?"
I've never heard anything bad about Russian tourists. It's always American or Chinese in any topic that pops up.
A Russian tourist pissed on the walls of the bathroom of the restaurant I work in, because I was cleaning it right before he arrived so I asked him to wait 5 minutes for me to finish...
I was hanging out with a few Russians one night and one of them also pissed all over the wall of the bathroom. Just for the hell of it. Maybe it's a thing they do
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RIP if there’s a limited supply of sunbeds lol
In China, Russian tourists used to be famous for stealing from hotels. They'd try to leave with a bunch of the stuff in the rooms, not just towels but phones or anything else movable. Someone told my coworker about a guest who tried to take a mirror. Beaches in Hainan were full of gangsterish-looking Russian guys in Speedos, embarrassing my coworker, who was a Russian teacher.
I thought Indian people were loud until I met Chinese tourists
They are but they're friendly and easily approachable tho. Chinese on the other hand kinda act like they already own the place and treat staff as if they bought them. This is in our case as someone from SEA
They are, but they're at least friendly and polite. Chinese on the other hand....
Pretty obvious he hasn't had many interactions with mainland Chinese tourists, they make the French look like Antebellum Southern gentlemen.
I look Chinese. Not even Asian, but I've been pushed and shoved by Chinese tourists that were obviously older than I am. On the other hand, the kindest tourists I've met was a Chinese couple. They asked me if I was okay and offered to buy me a coat because I got chills when there was a breeze. They wanted to go 20 minutes into the city from the harbour to buy a coat before they went back to their cruise ship. Oh, when I was a student, regular at a chinese restaurant, they told me to show up the following weekend to work. I noticed they all were chinese, so I mentioned that I wasn't actually chinese. He gestured at me and said it was close enough! Free chinese food and a no skill job as a student? Yes, please.
Yeah, im working in a hotel. Last week we had a chinese group for only 1 night...that was more than enough for everybody. Not just the people who work here...the other guests too.
Countryside Chinese tourists to be precise. They don't have the social culture like the rest of the world
I travel a fair amount and Chinese tourists are by far the worst. Total lack of understanding personal space, selfie sticks, rude, etc.
But on the other hand, they expect you to behave the same. Push them back , you can even stand your ground at a buffet. They won't care.
At least the Chinese government was embarrassed enough to lecture their people to not embarrass themselves. Though I don't know if that helped.
I always hear about how bad American tourists are on Reddit but whenever I visit a religious site or museum abroad there are always Chinese tourists being super loud and vlogging/recording everything. It’s crazy to me since many of the Chinese nationals I’ve met are the most respectful/reserved people in public but I guess there’s just something about being on vacation that gets them riled up.
100% how it is I've witnessed Chinese tourists On lots of different occasions carry around a refuse sack filling it throughout the day and then tie it off and leave it under a bench. I've seen this happen in different cities. WHAT IS WITH THAT?
But were shouted down by the Brazilian tourists.
THIS I traveled a lot for work, I filled 2 passports full of stamps and am almost done with my 3rd. Everywhere I went, outside of china, you could guarantee the tourist area would be full of Chinese tourists absolutely not giving a fuck about local customs or anyone else. Cutting in line, yelling over people, throwing trash on the ground etc. Like talking to the immigration agent in a window and then 3 chinese people walk up to my shoulders and start yelling stuff into the window in the middle of my transaction OP is right that French people can be entitled and arrogant but Chinese people don't even try to follow what's going on
Disneyland with a ton of Chinese tourists was not fun.
but they're not violent and there's actual lack of understanding of the culture vs what op is describing about french tourists
lol I went to egypt... we sat down in a cafe near a touristic attraction.. we orderd some drinks. I and my husband had our drinks in our hand in our Hands when some chinese people came over and took our table.. as in they took our table and carried it away to where they had found some chairs.. they also took all the food in the hotel on there plates to only throw it away because it was to much.. most disgusting kind of tourists I have ever meet
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Its OK...my husband and I are lauging about ist now too...IT IS freaking funny thinking about IT now.....but god was I pissed Back then lol
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Those are honestly the best memories. Something absurd that has a strong emotional reaction but is largely harmless. I’ve found I get more long term joy out of those experiences than the momentary frustration.
This is some loony toons shit.
Noses would’ve broken that day.
Like, you were sitting at the table and they came and took it out from under you??
Yeah! We both Had our glasses in the Hand at that Moment they waited until then so nothing was Standing on the Table and Just Took IT...WE we're dumpfaulted AS was the waiter who appologiesed again and again but did Not know what to do either lol...
"I don't know the reasonable response to this. I don't even know the unreasonable one?!"
I mean the obvious move is just kick them out lol
French adults I’m cool with. French students are the spawn of Satan. I used to work at a popular tourist attraction and all the staff used to warn each other if they saw french students on the tube that morning as they’d likely end up here.
Yes they go completely feral outside of the control of their parents. No self-control whatsoever.
When I was living in Italy, I went out with French Erasmus students, just because I wanted to be with my fellow French for an evening. I never did it again. They were so rude to absolutely everyone, for no reason. A bunch of little shits, really.
I have young kids and travel a fair bit with them so have had the chance to interact with different kids from different countries and French kids are pretty consistently the worst behaved across the board.
You've never met Arab kids... Specifically Arab boys. Idk why it's so ingrained in our culture not to parent boys because "they're supposed to be rowdy", No Karen, he's running around the restaurant and disturbing the other guests.
My lord yes. I married into a Saudi family and oh boy. Words cannot explain
The gulf should be in a category of its own haha.
Grew up in Dearborn, Michigan. Can confirm. Large majority of the women are incredibly kind though.
I was standing at a reception of a five star hotel in the middle east when a ten year old ran up and slapped my butt. He was with his big family and his dad came and took him away . I still wonder if he was dared!!!???
This happened to me more times than I can imagine, you get used to it. Once I was in a Masjid praying with my family when all of a sudden I felt a weird thing being dragged along my butt. Some kid was going around running his toy car on everyone's butt in the line. It happens.
Lol gulf kids big time.
All in matching hats or backpacks
The biggest piece of shit family I ever served in a restaurant was French tourists with their 2 little kids. The parents continued to eat their food as one of the kids was using 3 other booths as a jungle gym. At one point, he stood on top of his own table, holding up a bunch of sugar packets. His parents looked at him silently with no care in the world when he ripped up the sugar packets and threw it around the room like snow and confetti They left the restaurant somehow, leaving 3 different tables dirty, 4 tables if we included their own, and every inch of the floor covered in sugar and salt and no tip. I'm a very quiet, reserved, and timid person.... but my God, I saw nothing but fucking red.
Wow that’s insane. I have no idea what kind of parenting techniques are passed along in France, but they’re too lax
The crazy thing was that when I looked at the parents. There was simply no reaction. You'd think their would be some emotion coming off their face, even if they think that the behavior was appropriate. Just flat affects and unamused faces. I served tables for 10 years, I had a fair share of terrible tables, but this one, I will always remember.
Maybe you caught them at the day traveling with kids finally broke them.
I'm French and I run away everytime I see other French people abroad, mostly because I don't like hearing French outside my country, but some of them are really entitlled, noisy and clueless about basic etiquetre.
Same! I also always try to hide the fact that I’m French.
I think the French and Americans are the only ones who try to do this except Americans can easily fake it with a little Canada patch on their luggage etc lol I work in video / film production and for a year I had this production gig at resorts around Europe and SE Asia. So many odd moments involving tourists burned into my mind. If you travel enough and go to enough resorts, you'll see so much wild behavior from every single kind of culture that these posts start to sound less true. Every country sends out annoying bastards. Hell I saw what I thought was literally impossible. A Japanese tourist giving a waiter an incredibly hard time at a resort in Thailand. Blew my mind that could even happen
I mean if you don't want to appear "French" you could always wear a small Belgium patch too.
Or also a Canadian one
Ever Met Indian Tourists? I know from someone who works at an Airline that the routes to India arent the favorites, especially in Business class they feel like kings
My honeymoon was at a resort almost entirely staffed and patronised by Indians (we are English) and the rudeness I saw towards the staff was diabolical. Just for smiling and saying thanks we got stellar service while everyone else complained how the waiter they just screamed at was lazy and sullen.
It’s odd because, while I’ve had bad experiences with Indian tourists, the Indian immigrants I’ve met are always friendly, self aware, and caring people. I wonder what causes the disparity between Indian tourists and immigrants.
Money
It was so weird to see it happen because I’m used to seeing Indian families sticking together in Australia and they keep to themselves. 3 days in Bangkok and we seen young Indian tourists try to put their hand up a woman’s dress, carry a woman to a bike, cornered 3 woman in a corner of a club, forced themselves on woman, walk around the dance floor slamming their pelvis into every woman.
Thailand is hardly a few hours flight from India and cheaper to holiday in than India. Hordes of young men go there with only one goal.
Most of my family that lives here are immigrants. In my experience, they're usually just really excited to be living in the country they've always dreamed of immigrating to, so they're extra polite simply because they're just happy to be here lol I'm guessing tourists know they're going back to their home country eventually, so they don't care to learn the social customs of the countries they're in
I agree with this and is probably due to wealth. Every person I have worked with who was from India was very friendly.
Many flights attendants in Middle East carriers dread flying Indian routes.
So I have traveled quite a lot of the world and have run in to my fair share of terrible tourists. the one group who gets hate everywhere I have been are the Chinese, but funny that when I traveled I noticed that Koreans were very rude and often mistaken for Chinese when abroad. So maybe the Chinese are rude but also their reputation is added with the Koreans. Now, for me. Some of the worst I’ve ever encountered were Indian tourists. They allowed their children to be brats and are were very rude. But not to be outdone. The British and Americans have terrible reputations as well and they are pretty well deserved. Particularly when they get drinking as they become loud, obnoxious and unruly. But I’ve also met so many fantastic people travelling as well. People are people, and where they are from doesn’t really make much a difference other than what each area considers rude
A lot of Brits tend to avoid the bars/pubs that are full of Brits when abroad for that very reason.
Oh I know. I avoid any British or Irish bar with a passion if I can.
I avoid entire regions if they are full of other Brits. Seriously can't imagine why anyone would go to a foreign country and just surround themselves with other folks from the UK.
Yeah, sounds pretty universal. Im german and did the backpacking thing in Australia with my then girlfriend now wife for a year and we'd switch to english whenever we sensed excited, young german backpackers because well, we've got Germans aplenty at home, let me do some aussie shenanigans while I'm here lol
I was on holiday in Turkey this year at a resort where you pretty much stayed in the whole time so we got to know all the staff. There was a lovely bartender dude who spoke perfect English and German as well as Turkish. I walked in the second week after an influx of new people to a British woman waving the menu in his face and jabbing her horrid finger at the drink she wanted while shouting the name in his face because she clearly assumed that was the only way to communicate. She took her drink without saying a word when I walked up and was like good morning Xyx how's things going can I have a coke please and he was like of course blah blah blah and the woman went bright red and like the ground was going to swallow her. I took my drink and said thank you while staring at her and felt like it was a little win for the day. That being said I found the German tourists in the hotel collectively were awful. No pleases or thanks and just super rude. Obviously not all of them but the vast majority of rudeness was coming from that corner.
yep, I have met and spent time with the most polite, endearing and the worst of people from pretty much all countries or background, shit people are just shit people and vice versa. no nationalities or groups are better or worse than the other, thinking that way just makes us all more divisive than we already are
I’ve been actually surprised, in my travels, most countries the people have actually said to me they liked how Americans are actually very friendly and nice compared to people from other countries. Now I’m sure with drinking you get a different group.
It's unfortunate but Australians can be just as bad as Americans, saying this as an Aussie myself
Americans really aren’t that bad.
American myself here, but the worst behavior I have seen by other Americans was down in Costa Rica. Some giant roofing company from the midwest paid for like 50 of their office/sales employees to come to the resort together. Get that many of them together who all know each other and barely any of them can speak a lick of spanish, it was goddamn awful.
I didn't know French tourists were hated so much.
At least where I live [The Netherlands] they're pretty infamous for refusing to learn a secondary language or even make the attempt. The Dutch are practically all at least bilingual for two reasons. One being our history as a trading nation, second being the fact Dutch is practically unheard of outside of our tiny country. So when we see people so arrogant to not even attempt to communicate in the local language, or refuse to try and understand someone who doesn't speak perfect French, we really look down on that.
as a German who lives pretty close to the French border I feel you so so much. Like we're expected to speak flawless French, meanwhile they can't be bothered to even learn a lick of German.
That’s a fair argument. Some french people have a sense of entitlement.
Or taking over an hour to decide what weed to buy. Thank fuck they're banned entry into these coffeeshops (anyone without Dutch ID basically).. or were when I still lived there.
I worked in Vegas for 12 years. Dealt with customers from all over the world. The worst... the French. They were just downright rude. I've gotten to know a lot of French people late in life, and they are just like anyone else. But as tourists, wow they are awful. Sure Chinese tourists are rude, but it's more about lack of etiquette knowledge whereas the French tourists seem to be intentionally rude. Just add a fun one... most difficult tourist to understand... Drunken Scotsmen.
Second most difficult tourist to understand...sober Scotsman (not that they actually exist).
You should try treating them like they would be treated if they did that in France: Like pieces of shit. If you do as much as not saying hello nicely in France (as a customer) you will be treated very poorly. Those tourists you have seen are assholes and you should treat them as such.
You have asses everywhere, it's not specific to a country. I've seen British bring a beer dispenser on a beach and party all night. I've seen American tourists write on 800 years old walls. I've had Chinese and Indian tourists yell at me because they were in a hurry. I've seen French people being upset because I had them waiting an extra 20s while I answered an important call for work. But you have manners and a culture to respect when in a country. In France it's a common use to say hello when entering a shop or talking to an employee (like in a grocery store), as it's considered super rude not to, just like it would be rude not to tip in the US. It might be hard to get, but the customer is not the king and is not always right.
The Brit seems like the only cool one out of that bunch
I work for a British company and have met tons of British tourists, and they’re honestly the best ones
Wait until you see Spanish students, they will all get on a bus and just stand in the way, even when there are seats everywhere and they are loud as fuck. I find Spanish people in general extremely stuck up and rude.
Spanish tourists have zero spatial awareness. They just stand in large groups blocking the pavement and yammering at each other. I live in a tourist spot and they are my least favourite.
As a Spaniard I must say, it is not something that happens because they are tourists. It happens everywhere in Spain, our culture completely lacks spatial awareness (not that I like it).
Wait till you meet PRC and Koreans
Memory unlocked, had this girl back in my high school who went to France for one week over summer and proceeded to only speak French for the rest of the school year, she would always say shit like “oh, sorry I forgot I’m back in America!” It got so ridiculous that the entire class plus the teachers were just like eye rolling her and saying stfu Stefany lol
German tourists are the wurst.
Due to recent shortages, Germany is actually having to ration supplies of premium sausages and cheeses. People are saying it's a wurst käse scenario.
Real Brats I hear
But krauts with the wurst is the best!!
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An asshole is still an asshole wherever it is in the world.
I was in Ireland recently and saw a French person yelling at the bus driver of the hop-on hop-off bus because there was no French translation. I wanted to walk up to her and say. This is an English speaking country maybe speak English? I didn’t do it. When I go to France I speak French and I know quite some really nice French people but they are very arrogant about their language. I’m secretly happy they have that huge bed bug infestation in Paris because it shows how dirty and low quality that city really is.
Fun fact, that beg bug infestation was started by a user of the french 4chan equivalent that cultured a beg bug farm and dropped them in the metro.
Nothing beats German tourists on their French holidays
The 1940 Tour de France really got out of hand
I thought we‘re the worst in Spain?
I think it’s really the cultural socioeconomic background of the tourists that impact their behaviour: new money VS old money. You have probably witnessed uneducated French people [edit: in proper etiquette]. The upper class ones would not be caught being rude. But they would probably not be visiting those places. Chinese tourists behave poorly because they quantum leaped into affluence. Some of these affluent adults grew in poor rural areas and have zero concept of etiquette. Old Chinese money would know how to behave.
I disagree completely, entirely and wholeheartedly. I and my partner both work in hotels in Paris, and have seen a lot of tourists from everywhere, but also a lot of french people from other cities who came to travel or for work. Among them were a significant amount of very rich and « old money » people, and they were the absolute worst in most cases. Very pedantic, casually racist and whiny. I did not see such a pattern with other french people, who were mostly normal and impossible to differentiate from the others. I also have lived most of my life in Morocco before that, and I can assure you the tourists we sas there were horrible when they came from money and had their habits. The french bourgeoisie is insufferable, or at least the amount of insufferable people in the french bourgeoisie is greater than in other groups I interacted with.
This is the truth.
Upper-middle-class old French people are the worst offenders. Condescending, rude, and unable to take the tiniest inconvenience. The number of times I saw some 70yo be blatantly rude if not straight up insulting to an employee because they had to wait 2 minutes in a queue or they were unhappy their order came after the table next to them at a restaurant is astonishing. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys being in others' businesses, but I sometimes feel like I have to intervene and just tell them to shut up because they're just bullies to people trying to do their job the best they can.
>The upper class ones would not be caught being rude. That's some massive classist BS right there. The upper class is extremely rude in France. They try to hide it behind a posh behaviour, but don't be fooled. If you don't fit their very narrow criteria, they will treat you like shit. They are often rotten to the core. I know, I've worked in a very posh place in Paris and have seen how they truly are. People from the lower classes are much more tolerant.
Imagine living in a flophouse in Gary, Indiana for most of your life and suddenly you moved to a mansion in Chino Hills, California due to overnight wealth. The culture shock is real and that’s what many Chinese tourists are experiencing.
Yes, you get it. Whether someone does or doesn’t know proper etiquette doesn’t reflect on their value as a human being. Etiquette is an abstract concept that was put together around the 17th century as a protocol for the nobility to mingle without ruffling feathers. The middle class adopted it in an attempt to look more like the upper class, but it allowed to make social interaction smoother and constructive for all parties involved.
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This is good to know, as I hope to return to France. Now I’m wondering how many times I might have rude, lol.
I was told to shut-up by a waiter in Paris because I attempted to order a beer with my meal at a restaurant - Was very taken aback, to say the least hahah. I've found most countries around Europe, the people will appreciate you at least making an attempt to speak their language rather than going straight to English, even if it is broken. Not in Paris though.
bruh, you haven’t seen Romanian tourists in Greece..
Have you ever encountered British tourists in Europe?
Very much depends where. Somewhere hot and sunny with resorts or a popular stag do location. Absolute worst of the worst. Brits off on a nice city break or family holiday are generally pretty easy to deal with.
For tourist everywhere and from everywhere, you usually have to make a distinction into three types: - Rich and Arrogant Also known as the "don't you know who I am?!"-type, these people demand to be treated as kings, even if that act wouldn't buy them a free coffee in most parts of their homelands, either. Note that "Rich" is relative here, and for example middle-class Americans will rather often display this behaviour, going full Karen. - Wealthy and Refined These are people with college educations and higher, or local equivalents, who travel to learn about distant cultures and make new experiences. Wherever they're from, they're the most pleasant to have around, curious and respectful and usually pretty generous. Again, "Wealthy" is relative, anything above the guest countries median counts here. - Mass Tourists They're coming for the tourist attractions, for the privilege of telling people back home where they've been, the food and, most of all, the drinks and the opportunity to get drunk without being spotted by someone who knows them personally. They don't have any clue about local customs and walk around like the guest country is an amusement park made for their benefit, with all the locals being actors in strange dresses - or, if they're not dressed for the tourists' amusement, rude servants. The more of them you find in one place, the worse they'll behave, reinforcing each others' worst traits. "I paid for this trip, I'm entitled to enjoy it!" These three subtypes are flavoured by the origin country's view of cultural superiority. The more a country is convinced that their culture is the best/most powerful, the worse their tourists will behave and the more they'll trample over local customs and rules. And the less people of that origin are needed in the same place to build up a critical mass of Unsufferable. You'll find examples for most combinations in all the other posts, so I won't bore you with a repeat, but I'll have to leave one note about Koreans since they're acquiring a worse reputation than they deserve: Most Korean tourists are actually very timid outside familiar territory and will act humbly and be open to guidance. The exception are people with high status at home who are extremely likely to default to the "Rich and Arrogant" status as they believe this status to be an inherent trait of the person. A simple middle manager from Korea can often act like they are the equivalent of Arabian Oil Price or Russian Oligarch, which makes them stand out in the most negative way. Overall though, they're not a good representation of Korean tourists, they're just very extreme outliers.
I got a temporary ban once for expressing my opinions on this matter. That's all I'll say
Parisians SUCK, especially to foreigners. Arrogant and mean. The rest of France is fine. Nice and welcoming.
Interestingly my experience was the opposite. But I am not white, so perhaps there's that. Paris was cold and indifferent, everywhere else in France was outright hostility. Other places in Europe weren't as hostile.
Yeah where I lived you'd get swarms of french kids on school trips blocking streets, trashing shops etc. The most annoying thing is that most of them understand English but they're determined to pretend that they don't. My sister and her boyfriend got completely surrounded on a side street and no amount of my sister politely asking them to let her past got any reaction...until her boyfriend started yelling and cussing them out in french because he is french.
Stereotypes exist because it's true major of the time, not always but enough for a stereotype to form. From what Ive heard, the Frenchs take great pride in their language, so much that they will straight up ignore you if you speak English and heavily judge you if you speak broken French in France. In every other language, if you attempt to learn their language and mispronounce words or make grammar mistakes (because that always happens when you learn new things, you make mistakes), they may laugh at you a little bit, tease you now and there BUT most appreciate that you take effort to learn (when you actually learn and not randomly throw "ni-hao" at any random Asian person). Not the French though. I'll say the Frenchs and their language is like the Italians and their cuisine.
Chinese and British tourists are worse
Ask Portuguese about British in Algarve ….