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Ancient Egypt Temple Vandalized by Chinese Tourist Graffiti

Chinese characters "Ding Jinhao was here" written on a wall in Egypt's Luxor Temple.

Chinese characters "Ding Jinhao was here" written on a wall in Egypt's Luxor Temple.

From QQ:

Chinese Characters “XXX Was Here” Scratched onto 3000 Year Old Egyptian Historical Relic

The “Ding Jinhao Was Here” on the Egyptian Temple, Shameful! After netizen @空游无依 saw words like this on a relief carving at Egypt’s Luxor Temple, he said this was his saddest moment in Egypt. Ashamed and unable to show his own face. “We tried to use tissues to wipe off this shame, but it was very difficult to wipe off, nor could water be used, as this is a 3500-year-old historical relic.” Don’t forget, when you go abroad, you represent China!

“XXX was here” appears on thousand-year-old Egyptian temple, Chinese tourist claims he was “so ashamed and unable to show my face”

Evening Paper report. “The saddest moment in Egypt, so ashamed I couldn’t bear to show my face.” This microblog post from netizen “空游无依” quickly stirred up heated discussion. He saw someone carve “Ding Jinhao was here” in Chinese characters on the relief carving of the Luxor Temple in Egypt, and felt shocked and ashamed for how carelessly a fellow countryman vandalized a historical relic thousands of years old. Many netizens uniformly expressed indignation at this, crying out “Ding Jinhao, you’re about to become famous!” Experienced tour guide Mr. Zhang, who has led tours in Egypt multiple times, said damaging and smuggling relics across the border already violates local laws, and one could go to jail if it is caught considered serious.

According to the description by “空游无依”, he found the characters inscribed in the most inner hall of the Egypt’s Luxor Temple, on the left wall of the right hallway. “We tried to use tissues to wipe off this shame, but it was very difficult to wipe off, nor could water be used, as this is a 3500-year-old historical relic.” This morning, this reporter contacted “空游无依”, and he further explained that he traveled to Egypt on May 3rd and took this picture when he toured Luxor on May 6th. “When we saw this, nobody said a thing. At the time, the whole tour group felt especially ashamed. The tour guide too did not want to poke the wound, so he led us away. I saved this picture and posted it on my microblog because I wanted to remind everyone not to take damaging historical relics so lightly. I didn’t know it would spread so quickly.”

Netizen “VicHo”, who has traveled to Egypt before, sighed and said, “Was that freshly carved/scratched on? Last year when I went to the Luxor Temple, I didn’t see it, or perhaps it’s because it wasn’t on the main paths… The temple reliefs in Egypt are nearly all this exposed, and after seeing so many, one almost can’t help wanting to reach out and touch… Sometimes, I feel bad for these ancient relics, but at the same time what can you do…” Today, famous microblogger “蜡笔小球” made information about the identity of “Ding Jinhao” that he had searched for through his microblog, claiming that he [Ding] was a middle school student from Nanjing. Many netizens said bluntly that if this is true, they hope the kid and the parents will apologize for this.

“In the past, there were fewer Chinese tourists to Egypt, and their characters were relatively higher, and I’ve never seen a tourist behave this way. There are very rarely tourist police near the Luxor Temple, probably because they never thought something like this would happen,” experienced tour guide Mr. Zhang said. The “was here” behavior is a bad habit of some of our country’s tourists, and they probably didn’t consider that doing something like this is seriously damaging historical relics.

“There are a lot of uncivil behaviors like this out there. For example, there is a Chinese-language sign outside the Louvre Museum indicating that urinating and defecating wherever one pleases is prohibited, and I keep seeing Chinese people picking/damaging flowers at Dutch flower shows. I’m really embarrassed sometimes,” Zhang says. In the past, at most what happened were Chinese people getting fined for smuggling historical relics across the border, and travel agencies would remind tourists before departing to be careful of buying historical relics, but they didn’t think to remind customers to not carve words [leave graffiti]. “Actually foreign laws are very strict. If you’re caught, it’s very likely that you’ll be fined, and if it is serious, your may even go to jail. I’m not kidding you.”

Comments from QQ:

21g

In the future, write in Japanese.

腾讯北京市网友 Shannon (in response to above)

Doesn’t matter what language is used, you’re a shame to all humanity either way.

284512657

Don’t just blindly feel ashamed. What was carved was Chinese characters, but it may not necessarily have been carved by a Chinese person! There’s a box of Chunghwa cigarettes on the ground, but it may not necessarily have been littered there by a person of China!

腾讯网友 270418380 (in response to above)

You really know how to find excuses, don’t you!

腾讯网友 □Joуfμl (also in response to 284512657)

No wonder China is like this. precisely because there are too many unbelievable people like you, who always blame the problems on others/think it is other people’s problems.

腾讯网友天边的彩虹

People who don’t admit their wrongs are even more shameful.

成都市 畫、冭羙

My god, talk about having no character/decency. He must have finally got the chance to travel somewhere and thus wrote this, definitely a diaosi.

腾讯网友漂流瞬间 (in response to above)

There is no definite correlation between character and wealth. Diaosi do not necessarily all lack good behaviors and upbringing. Gao fu shuai too are not necessarily all people of elegant and noble behavior.

新欢

I’m speechless. Just because a fellow national carved a word on other people’s stones, you guys want to drive this fellow compatriot out of the country? Is face more important, or is our unity more important?

腾讯网友 阿吱大猫 (in response to above)

You are an 2B. Evaluation complete.

腾讯网友ぃ糯米潴

Our Chinese nationals love doing things like this. Look at the pavilions in parks, the larger bamboo stalks, trees, rocks. As long as it is somewhere that can be written on, what place isn’t a mess of graffiti, even the toilets? That’s why now it has to begin from ourselves, stop doing these kind of unethical, uncivilized, harmful things!

腾讯网友 活生

What an international embarrassment. As a Chinese, I feel extremely mortified at this moment.

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Written by Cecilia Miao

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