I remembered a Korean news few years ago. The park administrative staff thought Chinese visitors throw trash carelessly in the park, so thus Korean park set up “Please do not litter” sign in Chinese, which I consider it was systemic injustices, because it treated Chinese tourists as “Other”.
The signs claims “if you throw trash on the ground, you will be fined a million Korean dollars (about 1000 US dollars)” in Chinese. Using Chinese in a Korean park alluded that Korean people believed that all trash were threw by Chinese visitors, and it labelled Chinese visitors as uncivilized people, and it also humiliated China as an uncivilized country.
In addition, Korean newspaper media published an article named “Chinese Tourists are still treating Korea’s airport like a garbage dump.” Korean people were provoked by this news and blamed Chinese tourists to stop coming Korea, which negatively impact the relationship between China and Korea. In contrast, Jeju Airport duty-free department claimed these trash were not littered by Chinese tourists. Korean social media still haven’t deleted this article until nowadays.
At the beginning, I didn’t believe only Chinese visitors throw trash carelessly in the park or airport. I am from Wenzhou, a small city in China, and I have never see people throw trash carelessly to the ground, even on the street. Thus, I was anger with action of park administration and news media. After, some Chinese people, living in Korean, did a survey in that park and collected data. They found out most trash were threw by Korean locals not Chinese visitors. After several weeks debate on park website, The park administration finally agreed to remove “Please do not litter” sign in Chinese. China is an developing country, and more and more people start to travel abroad. I consider some Chinese visitors have uncivilized behaviors overseas, but not all or only Chinese visitors do that. Park administration can set up a sign to tell people “not littering” but not setting up sign in Chinese, which is systemic injustices for Chinese visitors. In addition, Korean people should treat tourists equally, and Korean social media should stop publishing fake news and they should do more research on the event before they publish.
Reference:
luqing Lin (1998, Nov. 15). No littering in Korean parks. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.sohu.com/a/275604001_100168271
Ryan General (2017). Treating Korea’s Airport Like a Garbage Dump. Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://nextshark.com/chinese-tourists-jeju-airport-korea-garbage/