Tourists on SIA plane fight to keep 30 sets of inflight cutlery
A group of tourists from a small town in China’s Zhejiang province surprised Singapore Airlines staff when they refused to hand over 30 sets of stainless steel tableware, reported a Chinese daily on Tuesday.
After a meal provided on board, the Chinese passengers, who were on a tour of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, decided to keep the stainless steel knives and forks, said Qianjiang Evening News.
Even though flight attendants told the tourists the stainless steel tableware were to be re-used, the tourists stubbornly refused to hand them over, saying that relatives who had flown with the airline in the past told them that they could keep the tableware.
It was only after repeated warnings from a tour guide on the plane that they agreed to hand them over.
The tour guide reportedly told the tourists that they were hurting China’s image abroad and to “stop hurting the reputation of Chinese people.”
In the same report, the newspaper said Chinese tourists who were waiting to board at Singapore's Changi airport also fought over their airplane seats.
As the plane did not give out seat numbers, the passengers arrived two hours early to queue for their seats. It was reported that those who queued up had specific preferences for seats, such as a window seat or a seat close to the front of the aircraft.
Airport staff told the passengers that since it was still early, they were told to take a seat at the boarding lounge but the tourists refused, saying those who came early would lose their "advantage".
However, a quick-thinking lady said if she could not physically queue for a seat, her luggage bag could.
Following her lead, other passengers, too, began using their bags to queue at the boarding gate, and a line formed again.
When it was time for boarding, and staff announced that the elderly, disabled, pregnant women and parents with infants were entitled to priority boarding, impatient tourists rushed towards their luggage, causing chaos.
Other passengers who witnessed the incident could not help but laugh.
These incidents follows other reports of bad behaviour from Chinese travellers.
A Chinese boy carved his name on a 3,000 year old relic during a trip to Egypt recently. Earlier this year, a mainland Chinese mother asked her son to relieve himself in a bottle in the middle of a crowded Hong Kong restaurant.
China’s deputy premier Wang Yang publicly admonished Chinese tourists in May and told them to improve their behaviour overseas, listing examples of “uncivilised behaviour” such as speaking loudly in public, carving characters on ancient relics and disobeying pedestrian traffic signs.
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