ZeppoX

Good:
A group of U.K. Members of Parliament (MPs) hailing from Scotland were visiting my employer in the U.S. My sec'y and I collected some of the used coffee cups and carried them to the kitchen area, clearing the table for business. We turned around, and there were two of the MPs, each with a load of dirty dishes. I blurted something to the effect that you'd never see a U.S. Member of Congress cleaning up (though since then I've learned that you indeed would), to which the right honorable gentleman replied: "Aye, and you'd never catch and English MP doing it, either."

Bad:
A 12-or-so child climbing all over the fragile Anasazi ruins at Mesa Verde. When I told his father than the ruins were fragile and off-limits, pointing to the sign to that effect, the man informed me in a serious and polite tone that as a taxpayer he owned the park and would do as he pleased.

Ugly:
Traveling with a ski-club group to Austria for skiing one winter, and staying in a 13th century schloss. And most of my companions loudly and rudely complaining about the Austrian-style breakfast buffet, which featured such delights as warm, frothy milk freshly extracted from the on-site cows. Food is my pet peeve about tourists and business travelers alike. If you want your (insert country here) breakfast, stay home and eat at (insert boring chain restaurant here).

Delta Hog

Thank you.

Back to the substance. I was assuming the Canadians could be overhead and understood. I'm just failing to understand what was rude about the quote. "These people" never strikes me as rude, it just means "not us" -- factually correct.

Fredd

"Let's see if we can get some bacon and eggs, Madge. These people eat sassidges for breakfast, ya know?"

^ ^ Or at least have the grace to complain silently to yourself.

Delta Hog

I've read the quote. Hate to belabor the point, but maybe I can explain my confusion a bit more thoroughly.

From the words you write, I cannot ascertain their attitude. But either way, it doesn't seem like such "bad" behavior. They wanted bacon & eggs. Were they HOPEFUL they could get bacon & eggs given that "these people" eat sausages (and bacon & eggs, on a culinary level, are very very similar to sausages), or were they COMPLAINING that there was no way they could get bacon & eggs because "these people" eat sausages (which doesn't even make sense, since bacon, egg & sausages are 3 of a kind at the breakfast table, at least as far as I'm concerned).



It's not like they said "these people eat snakes, rats and bugs," which would have been rude, although maybe not if it was factually accurate. Sausages = bacon (both are breakfast foods from a pig) as far as I'm concerned.

Fredd

Eggsactly, unless you're talking turkey (bacon that is).

The elderly tourist's tone was pejorative and judgmental, even for a harboiled tourist such as myself. I never sausage a fuss!

She was referring to "sausage," which I inferred from hearing her lo those many years ago was as much of a wurst case scenario to her (and as far removed as a species from her beloved bacon) as your snakes, rats, and bugs. However, she did share the Teutonic preference for eating the unborn embryos of domesticated birds, making the yolk on her.

Maybe you had to be there. I do agree with the previous poster that loud comments about the eating habits of others in their presence are in questionable taste.

Sorry I can't provide links.

Jailer

Some Japanese tourists in Yellowstone walking on the formations labeled, “fragile, stay off”. They certainly understood enough English to apologize when yelled at by my wife.

Oh yeah, some of Napoleon’s troop in Egypt knocked off the Sphinx’s nose with a cannon shot. But, I guess soldiers’ misbehavior kicks it up into a whole new class of atrocities.

violist

Fredd: thanks for the laugh of the day, you're quite the ham, aren't you.

Fredd

To quote Mrs. Fredd, "don't encourage him," but thanks anyway, violist, unless of course you're just stringing me along.

herzmeh

Well... it was VERY rude for them not to leave any tip but I think it was rude for the waitress (or, in a more politically correct terms - server) to chase after them for a tip. After all, a tip is NOT a requirement.

I recall going to a Russian establishment in Brooklyn, NY. The food was good but the service lacked a bit (read... I saw the waiter maybe twice during almost two hours) so I decided that the waiter did not rate more than a 10% tip. Lo and behold, the waiter comes back and says in a really snobbish, crappy attitude voice - "The minimum tip here is 18%!" ... Turned out to be a mistake on his part since by saying that he reduced his income even more.

Fredd

Now the Chinese (or their government) have nominated themselves as bad tourists:


http://tinyurl.com/n2r9d

China warns tourists against spitting overseas

May 5, 8:16 AM (ET)

BEIJING (Reuters) - Some Chinese tourists have been warned that while spitting, slurping food and cutting in line may merely disgust people at home, they are sometimes not tolerated abroad, Xinhua news agency said Friday.

The increasing number of Chinese tourists traveling abroad may be a huge new source of income to destination countries, but that won't prevent complaints against individuals from reflecting badly on all of China, Xinhua said.

I don't know if they mention the results when the females in Chinese tour groups utilize western-style toilets by first placing their feet on the toilet seat...

Rampo

It isn't just the women. I wouldn't really classify this as "bad behavior," though. It's simply that in a good part of the world squat toilets are the norm.

Fredd

Now that you mention it, Mrs. Fredd complains every time we fly about how careless the aim of males seems to be in those unisex lavs, and I have to say she's right.

Not exactly "bad behavior" but messy and thoughtless perhaps?

nako

As a side note, this never happened (the damage to the Sphinx was documented long before the reign of Napoleon), though the original source of the Napoleon story is unknown.

http://www.napoleon-series.org/faq/c_sphinx.html

Mike

viajero7889

Worst behavior? That would definitely be my mother-in-law whilst we traveled to the UK and France last week. She is about as culturally sensitive as a cactus. It was the first and subsequently the last invitation she gets. I can only imagine her behavior somewhere where she would definitely stand out as a minority. She actually snapped at a local for not speaking & understanding her American accent. I spent the whole time apologizing profusely.

jello2594

I dont know if this qualifies as bad or not...

I'm in Amsterdam for business, and my mother and sister fly out to visit from the U.S.. Well, last week here was a memorial day for war victims in WW2 and other conflicts, and in the big square here, Dam Square, the queen comes out and places a wreath on a monument, then other officials do the same, and at 8:00pm exactly, the entire city is silent for 2 minutes. All cars stop, trains, trams, etc. The crowd of about 100,000 people is totally silent in the square, and you can hear the flags flapping in the wind on top of tall buildings.

Then my sister coughs.. loudly... twice. It echoed throughout the square.