Chinese tourists from Nanjing, Jiangsu province in the People’s Republic of China caused a firestorm of controversy when their son, the purported Ding Jinhao, carved his name onto a cameo at Egypt’s famous Luxor Temple, showing wanton disregard for historical, cultural relics as well as embarrassing a nation.
This is not the first incident of poor behavior on the part of Chinese tourists. A cauldron in the Forbidden City was defaced and the culprit never found, as well as a separate incident when a tourist carved on a rock at Yehliu Geopark in Taiwan. Ye Qianrong, a professor of Chinese studies at Tokai University in Japan speculates that the practice may derive from the Cultural Revolution during which many of Mao’s Red Guards would routinely deface and destroy cultural relics from the past.
While that may be a little far-fetched, it is nonetheless heartbreaking to see something so beautiful treated so callously. Hopefully the aforementioned Ding has learned his lesson and that experts can remove the mark he left behind at Luxor.