I found this video on Youtube recently by a native Laotian tour guide:
I’ve seen bad behavior in Japan too, not toward Buddhist monks, but toward local Geisha. I remember at Asakusa Temple, a trio of geisha were walking, and a horde of male photographers (Japanese and foreign) ran after them. It was… weird.
I also remember one time at Zojo-ji Temple seeing a foreign couple (European maybe), who were doing yoga poses in front of the mausoleum of the Tokugawa shoguns. I don’t think they understood what they were standing in front of, but it looked really stupid, and Buddhist temples have nothing to do with Yoga anyway.
I doubt readers here are the kind of people to get in monks’ faces for a camera shot, or harass geisha, or make stupid photos at temples, but hopefully readers can help raise awareness about such awful behavior. Tourists might act normal at home because they are bound by social conventions, but some people forget that they are guests in other people’s countries and flaunt common courtesy. Tour companies will gloss over this in the name of profit. In the end, it’s the locals who suffer.
If you are traveling, think of yourself as a guest in someone else’s house. In other words, don’t be a dick.
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I visited Luang Prabang in 2015, and the tourist behavior during tak bat was pretty obscene. A large Korean tour group arrived to watch it, and people were literally passing cameras back and forth between individual monks to get the “right shot.” There were also some white people very clearly standing back and scowling at the Korean tourists as if to say, “we are modeling the correct behavior.” LOL. Being from a tourist-heavy community myself, it seems to me tourism absolutely must come with robust regulation of tourist behavior. Things can become toxic very quickly.
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I remember when I lived in Dublin, Ireland some years ago, the city was nice and quiet until suddenly around late February when American tourists show up and act obnoxious as Saint Patrick’s Day approaches.
On the other hand, when I visit Japan, sometimes I see hoards of Chinese tourists in Kyoto who aren’t much better.
Tourism brings out weird behavior in people, that’s for sure.
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There’s definitely a sense of: I paid for this, so I’m entitled to behave how I want. The tourist who carved his name into the wood of a temple somewhere in Japan was the one that drove me bonkers.
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