Published on : Wednesday, June 17, 2015
It’s just not the Chinese whose behaviour is being brought into question but recently the incident on the Malaysian mountain where a group of foreign tourists belonging to different nationalities, not Chinese were singled out for posing naked.
The group belonged to young men and women of very educated backgrounds who love travelling. Recently on May 30 the group went trekking on the 13,435-foot Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. On their way down the mountain the group members decided to strip and urinate despite several warning from their guide. The Mount is considered sacred and keeping local beliefs in mind it is important for tourist to respect traditions while visiting a particular place. Instead the group members spoke rudely and outrightly rebuffed the guide’s plea.
The members consisted of A British woman, who has been arrested in Malaysia for posing naked. Another 24-year-old Southampton University graduate from Derby was arrested while trying to fly out of island of Borneo to the capital, Kuala Lumpur, a 23-year-old Canadian Lindsey Peterson and his sister Danielle, 22, a 23-year-old Dutch man, Dylan Snel. A Canadian, 33-year-old Emil Kaminski and the remaining five were being sought by Malaysian police.
It is very important for tourist travelling anywhere in the world to recognise that local traditions make a part of the culture of any destination. Visiting a place and enjoying its beauty and culture demand a lot of tolerance, patience and unity with the traditions. Only then can one feel more completely fused with the local traditions of a place.
Again individual acts cannot be attributed to a nation. If you are a tourist you need to remember that you are carrying the respect and dignity of your country with you. So behaving with responsibility will put your country in a good light. Bad behaviour is projected globally.
The earthquake is definitely a geological factor and the incident had nothing to do with it. But again local customs and tradition have their own sanctity and respect should be a natural instinct that needs to come to all tourists.
In the last year tourism in Malaysia suffered a setback due to the missing plane incident of MH 370. Adventure tourists have started flocking in as Malaysia is a destination with a variety of interest for travellers. The recent Earthquakes in Sabah have again rocked the region with death toll and injuries rising.
Tourism minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah, Masidi Manjun’s reaction on the earthquakes as he went on to blame the tourists for a geological factor did seems rather ridiculous. What the tourist did was definitely an offensive act in all respects but what the minister said was extremely irresponsible and against all scientific standards. Mr. Manjun has also made more irresponsible statements in the past after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. A person in his position, a representative of the country’s poorly performing tourism sector should definitely speak with greater caution.
Earthquake are usually caused when rocks underground suddenly break along a fault. This sudden release of energy causes the seismic waves that make the ground shake. When two blocks of rock or two plates are rubbing against each other, they stick a little. The Himalayas have already seen too much of Earthquakes which happened completely due to natural causes and not traditions.
Tags: earthquake, malaysia, Masidi Manjun, Tourism minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah
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