"China, especially the mainland" - teeheehee

Ill-mannered mainlanders taking the Mickey out of Hong Kong Disneyland

Though Japan's already prickly relations with China didn't need to be enflamed any further, Shukan Post (12/16) -- one of the country's top-selling weeklies -- has come out with a goofy rant about the foul manners Chinese are displaying at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Running under the headline "Outcry at Hong Kong Disneyland over Chinese pissing and spitting everywhere," Post takes the Mickey out of mainlanders, who have made up 26 percent of the theme park's 1 million-plus visitors since it opened in September."Actually visiting Hong Kong Disneyland provides you with examples in all sorts of places of some pretty eye-popping behavior," the magazine writes.

Unlike Disney theme parks across the world, including Tokyo Disneyland, lines appear to mean little in the latest Magical Kingdom, where queue jumping is a given, the rag says.

Trash in the form of cigarette butts and discarded soda bottles is strewn throughout the park's sidewalks in such quantities that sanitation staff under strict orders to clean messes as soon as they appear can't keep up.

Hong Kong locals are just as flustered with their mainland brethren.

"Hong Kong was under British control for a long time, so the Chinese
living in Hong Kong have at least a basic understanding of acceptable manners," a resident of the Fragrant Harbor city tells Shukan Post.
"But Chinese from the mainland don't even know the existence of the
word 'manners.' They have no custom of lining up. It's a waste of breath to tell them off."

Mickey's Philharmajic, a 3-D theater touted as one of the major attractions of Hong Kong Disneyland, has turned out to be a main source of souvenirs for mainlanders visiting the park, the weekly says, saying that they pocket the special glasses used to watch the movie instead of returning them at the end of the film as park operators ask all guests to do.

"These glasses are great souvenirs," a Chinese mainlander tells the
weekly. "We're paying big money to get into this park, so I don't see why we should have to give them back."

Rest at the park is also an impossibility, apparently, with park benches frequently occupied by middle-aged men lying down to take a nap, "Chinese-style," according to the magazine.

Shukan Post quotes a Guangzhou daily telling stories of a Chinese mother who let her young son piddle in the pond below Sleeping Beauty's Castle, then sat by idly while he ran around the park without any pants on. When challenged, the mother apparently said she was hamstrung because her little boy couldn't hold on any longer.

Hong Kong Disneyland operators acknowledge there has been a bit of cultural friction."It's a fact that we have received complaints about bad-mannered guests since we opened in September," a park spokesman tells Shukan Post. "However, we have people from a variety of cultural backgrounds coming to the park, so it's understandable that there are all different types of behavior. We train out staff in dealing with this situation."

Birei Kin, a social commentator who claims to be well versed in Chinese culture, says China needs to change.

"China, especially the mainland, has a tendency to regard all actions
in terms of whether they will bring a profit or loss. People live with the belief that obeying rules causes them to lose," the commentator tells Shukan Post. "Go to a toilet if you really want to see an example of ill manners. They don't flush and you've got urine and feces overflowing everywhere, but nobody is at all ashamed by it. Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympics and I find it hard to see morals improving by then." (By Ryann Connell)

December 6, 2005 Received on Tue Dec 06 2005 - 16:36:58 PST