"It is not the first time Japanese authorities have had to take measures to address photo-keen tourists. In 2024, officials blocked one of Japan's most iconic photo spots in Fujikawaguchiko with a big black barrier in a bid to deter badly behaved tourists."
MEANWHILE: In Venice:
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But I thought no one was illegal on stolen land?
The article doesn't give the nationality or ethnicity of the tourists. I kind of doubt Japanese domestic travelers would be doing such horrid stuff. My bet is Eastern Europeans or ChiComs. CC, JSM
"defecating in private yards and raising a fuss when residents pointed this out."
Those Canadians can't keep getting away this. We must unite to defeat the Canadian menace.
If they simply cut down the Cherry Trees, this would never have happened. George Washington approves.
@john mosby: My guess is Indians and Chinese.
Pubic pooping is an Indian norm. The Chinese had a famous disease control case where fishermen pooped from their boats, infecting snails that feed underwater, and then the humans ate the fish that ate the snails. Repeat.
This is not the bowl of cherries they had in mind.
Tangentially related, saw this elsewhere just a week ago:
Imagine for a second if all of the sudden large numbers of politicians in Japan started screaming about “Japanese Supremacy”. It’s ridiculous for the same reason it’s ridiculous for US dems.
Kill shot.
No mention of the nationalities of those criminally-inclined tourists. Given the BBC's political sensitivities that could be significant. Long memories are a cultural aspects of East Asia, so the disrespect, the defications, and littering could well be revenge for 1937-1945.
Well Japan is probably still 90+% ethnic Japanese. No one for them to be supreme to. CC, JSM
I agree with @johnmosby re improbability of guilty parties being Japanese. They are far too polite to even think of such a thing.
’They are far too polite to even think of such a thing.’
Agreed. A society that scrubs clean their public trash receptacles doesn’t take unauthorized dumps, especially when they have all those fancy Japanese toilets to enjoy. :)
How many "badly behaved tourist" incidents could be avoided with proper access to pubic restrooms?
Regarding the Venice crowd photo: That looks like the hour after the cruise ships dump 1,000s of people in the city all at once. The city is relatively calm before 8:00 am, then a zoo by 9:00. Every major attraction (including the Rialto Bridge staircase shown here) draws the selfie crowd like electromagnets. Off. On. Off when the ships leave port.
Venice became an overstuffed theme park long ago, and the locals made a deal with the money devil to harvest way too many inflated port landing fees.
I've never been to Japan, but I have shat (properly, in private) in Venice, which was less crowded when I was there.
The Japanese reverence for the cherry blossom is not simply a matter of horticultural aesthetics. The flowers have been seen as a metaphor for beautiful youth ending in glorious death before age and decay can overwhelm beauty. The cherry blossom's fall is, in the words of Yukio Mishima, like "a line of poetry written with a splash of blood."
In New Zealand I've seen signs posted above toilets on how to use them. In particular, you do not stand on the toilet seat and squat.
First day in Kyoto, in a park, I spent an excruciating, interminable time outside a public restroom waiting for someone to go in so I knew which side was the men's.
In Europe on the other hand, you have lefties accusing the populist parties of Italian, French, Magyar, etc, supremacy. CC, JSM
Miserable. People. They are.
Islamic males should only be allowed to roam inside safe spaces. Away from civilized man.
In New Zealand I've seen signs posted above toilets on how to use them. In particular, you do not stand on the toilet seat and squat.
This is necessary where Chinese visit - squatting above a hole in the floor is a very common method in Chinese bathrooms.
"How many 'badly behaved tourist' incidents could be avoided with proper access to pubic restrooms?"
Porta-johns along the procession route would be seen as anthema by the Shintō priests and acolytes who run many hanami celebrations.
I wonder if this has less to do with uncouth tourists and more to do with a failure of the city to provide adequate facilities for the crowds they induced to come. If you are going to run a world-class tourist site, you should make sue some of that income is reinvested in the infrastructure needed to manage the teeming masses. More public restrooms where they are, more food vendors, more trash receptacles, staff to help direct and guide. Maybe dress them in cartoon character outfits to make them stand out.
"This is necessary where Chinese visit - squatting above a hole in the floor is a very common method in Chinese bathrooms."
A lot of Chinese tourists in NZ.
Terrible drivers.
Many Chinese international travellers define nouveau riche. They have no clue about travel norms or international expectations. Many, many planes and trains and hotels now have "no standing on the toilet" signs.
On one flight a couple dozen Chinese passengers (didn't understand or didn't comply) with the landing instructions to stay in their seats with their belts buckled. Lots of people were standing on their seats getting their carry on baggage early. Lots of upset flight attendants too.
On one flight a couple dozen Chinese passengers (didn't understand or didn't comply) with the landing instructions to stay in their seats with their belts buckled. Lots of people were standing on their seats getting their carry on baggage early. Lots of upset flight attendants too.
I remember in-country flights in China, they do that all the time. If you wanted off someplace other than dead last, you started early to get your things ready. China is not a "wait your turn, polite" society. Works that way in traffic, too.
You could probably have that Rialto Bridge to yourself if you dropped trou and pooped. CC, JSM
In Venice, I suspect the concern is not so much trying to protect the locals as protecting the experience of the tourists paying big money to stay in Venice’s hotels - defending the brand from over saturation.
This might be the worst part of people having more money than they know what to do with.
@Enigma, point of information. Venice has not allowed large cruise ships to dock for a few years now. Very small shops, e.g., Windstar, can still dock, but even Viking Ocean ships, which take only about 900 passengers, have to dock elsewhere. Cruise ship passengers are bussed in from as far away as Trieste.
The wife and I toured Venice after the cruise ship ban. St. Mark’s square was nevertheless wall-to-wall people, but touring the Doge’s palace was still okay and there are plenty of interesting places to go to outside of St. Mark’s square. You don’t have to get very far away from St. Mark’s before the crowds disappear.
Best Venice tourist advice, from Bryan Ferry: We’re incognito, down the Lido, and we like the Strand. CC. JSM
We call hanami observances festivals or celebrations, but those are our words in English that suggest things we associate with festivals and celebrations, which may not cohere to traditional Japanese interpretation of those events. Most Japanese are not religious like religious Americans, yet they visit shrines and observe the rules and decorum demanded by the priests whether there's any genuine belief. Even faithful Christians visit shrines and attend processions out of respect for their non-Christian neighbors. Not making a nuisance of yourself at the local cherry bloom festival is just being neighborly.
@Big Mike: Venice has not allowed large cruise ships to dock for a few years now.
Is that clip dated? I was aware of the large ship ban. Still, 900 people could easily cause a surge in a tiny place like the Riato walkway. Not to mention the walk-in surge from morning train arrivals. The "Top 5" attractions get packed quickly, while the residential zones remain empty.
I'm heading to Italy this year. We will not be going to Venice, Rome, Florence, or the Amalfi Coast. No Tuscan villa. No hop skipping across the country to check off boxes. I'd love to see all of those places and unfortunately, waited too late in the time of our civilization to get to those places comfortably. I've been reading for years on how Venice and the others are ridiculously overrun with tourists. I had a man who travels regularly to Rome tell me just the other night that they will be starting to charge Euros to get up close to the Fontana di Trevi there. After all these centuries, we're at the point where Venice and Rome are having to filter out tourists.
On our trip to Italy we'll be going to a region most don't even think about.
As for Japan. So much is happening there, from badly behaved tourists to other cultures moving in. Guess Who?.
There are roughly 3800 Japanese cherry trees surrounding the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC. Peak blossoms vary from year to year, depending on the weather in March, but generally it’s around April 1st.
Regarding D.C. "Cherry blossoms" -- they put in a variety of other trees with pink flowers to extend the season a couple months and make the tourists happy. This applies to the Tidal Basin/mall and Arlington National Cemetary.
Back... black holes... whores h/t NAACP
Use a pellet gun same as for a dog that poops in your yard. Sting that ass.
@Temujin, the wife and I did okay plunking ourselves down in a hotel in Naples for a week. Our only big mistake was scheduling our day in Pompeii on Thursday. It turns out Thursday and Friday tend to be when thes most cruise ships are in port and Pompeii is packed. As for Rome, forget about the Colosseum and the Forum. But there could not have been more than 30 people tops when we went through the Borghese.
Althouse knows exactly when you people need an injection of smug superiority to pump up the flagging dopamine.
Hell is other people.
It was a ten year old festival that the city started to increase tourism. Looks like they got exactly what they wanted…and then some. And having spent nearly four of the last six weeks in Japan, my money is on Chinese tourists, too.
We hit Salzburg at the same time as a boatload of Japanese tourists, each with a selfie stick. But we hardly knew they were there.
@Howard: smug superiority
Huh? Many of us are talking about direct travel experience. The USA was known for "Ugly American" travellers back after WW2. Many fresh-off-the-farm soldiers were sent to Europe and Asia in the 1940s and 1950s. Stereotypes are usually rooted in reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American
you people need an injection of smug superiority to pump up the flagging dopamine
Now that's funny. You couldn't ask for a more classic example of textbook projection.
As Conan O'Brien's dog would say, "Fujikawaguchiko, beautiful place -- for me to poop on!"
Fujikawaguchiko is the location of the Fuji-Q Amusement Park.
Oh, Fuji Q, oh, Fuji Q Oh, Fuji Q, baby, I love you, Fuji Q.
The article said, "This increase is "due to factors such as the weak yen"', so I think the guess that it's foreign tourists is correct.
Looks like fun. So glad for the natalist movement—the world definitely needs more people.
The Ugly American item in Wikipedia is about the novel describing the failure of American diplomats.
A better article is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American_(pejorative)
describing the stereotypical behavior of boorish, loud Americans overseas.
The picture there is frankly hilarious.
Thanks Wilbur. My bad...multasking slop...
My wife and I were the only tourists at a Catholic cathedral in a small town/city in Hungary that had a martyred saint, etc.. Suddenly a bus pulled up full of Japanese tourists. I became annoyed. And then realized they were Catholic Japanese and they were actually praying.
ooops. I guess I was the interloper.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform.
OccupyJapan.
Antife
The back hole has excremental value.
This guy built a full replica of Noah's Ark near Williamstown, KY. He draws 1M+ visitors per year. The Guggenheims in NYC and Bilbao each also draw 1M+ visitors/year.
The Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Seviersville area of Tennessee draws 10-12 million visitors/year. That's twice as many as Venice. I bet the Tennesseans make more money/visitor as well, even with Venice charging their "tourism fee".
This is not to prefer Biblical replicas to Picasso, or Paula Deen's Lumberjack Challenge to the Basilica di San Marco.
Just saying that given the insatiable demand for tourist attractions, cities and countries around the globe should build more attractive monuments, tombs, churches, mosques, towers, etc.
No prob.
I did read the article about the novel and was surprised to read it was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post. The book sold 4 million copies, and directly led to the establishment of the Peace Corps.
Howard said...
Althouse knows exactly when you people need an injection of smug superiority to pump up the flagging dopamine.
Off the mark as usual, Howard. What Althouse is doing is one of the more irritating aspects of liberals and liberalism. She does not like travel herself, therefore travel is bad, and she must do everything in her power to educate us proles about the evils of travel so that we, the great unwashed, might know better than to engage in some activity she would not engage in. The enforcement of conformity, you see.
But I’m cantankerous and I’ll travel because it’s one thing to read about far-off places and quite another to see them.
The Rialto Bridge crowd...
We were there in 2015, and the Rialto / St. Marks were like in the picture. But 1-2 blocks away there was nobody. We had a streetside cafe and a Murano glass shop pretty much to ourselves for an hour.
Yosemite and Yellowstone are like that too. We spent July 4 weekend on the Tuolumne river just outside Yosemite, and saw exactly one other person over almost two days.
I know from direct experience that the stereotype of the 'easily spotted American' while traveling is absolutely true, but I wonder if foreigners can tell whose poo is whose?
’…you do not stand on the toilet seat and squat.’
Oh. Dang…
Regarding the global appetite for tourist attractions, the state of Illinois has no National Parks but it does have "Starved Rock State Park." It's a nice enough place for a day trip, but the locals treat it as a world class attraction. Huge, massive parking lots with long waits for space, a visitor center that outclasses the attractions, and much more.
If located in Utah or the Sierra Nevada mountains, Starved Rock would be...just the ordinary stuff along the side of a hundred different highways...
The local maximum gets all the attention from visitors.
Just limit the number of people allowed in so that they have to get in line and maybe wait years. Think "The Masters" golf tournament at Augusta, Georgia. If you make it harder to go, people will want to go even more.
Lance: "The Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Seviersville area of Tennessee draws 10-12 million visitors/year.... cities and countries around the globe should build more attractive monuments"
In emulation of Conway, the Florentines could build an amusement park out in their suburbs and call it Pitti City. CC, JSM
And the Catalans could erect Dali-wood. CC, JSM
Assisi. Not a lot of accommodations inside the town so it is relatively quiet in morning and evening. But in the middle of the day the tourist busses roll in, they stop 3 or 4 hours at the most. That's the time to go back to your room and catch a nap to rest up for an evening out.
A few months ago we were within an hour of Venice but decided not to go. We went up to Bolzano instead and enjoyed it immensely.
RideSpaceMountain said...
“I know from direct experience that the stereotype of the 'easily spotted American' while traveling is absolutely true, but I wonder if foreigners can tell whose poo is whose?”
That made me think of Spinal Tap where one of their previous drummers died by choking on vomit - but they were never able to determine whose vomit it was.
The crowds in the Venice pic made me think of the crowded urban Catholic Church festivals from when I was a kid.
Lance said...
“This guy built a full replica of Noah's Ark near Williamstown, KY. He draws 1M+ visitors per year.”
I visited the Creation Museum before they had completed the Ark Encounter. The visitor experience at the museum was very well done. And I say that as someone with 0% agreement with creationists.
Photo is 65pt Oy.
In the early 1970s during the lunch hour, LA businessmen dressed in grey flannel suits would flock to Venice Beach just west of the breakwater to eat and look at the naked women frolicking about. Good Times
I ran into the 3rd World unfamiliarity with 1st World hygiene from the other end (as it were). I've seen the don't stand on the toilet sign of course, but in the Prague or Frankfort airport in 2019 I was behind two Muslim guys at the exit, who were stumped by the cloth-belt dispenser for hand drying.
I stepped up and demonstrated the two-handed pull, and they seemed appreciative.
Doing my part for cross-cultural understanding.
I think a lot of Americans below a certain age would be stumped by the cloth belt thing. CC, JSM
I recall an article from several months ago. The Chinese tourists in Japan are doing things to deliberately antagonize their hosts. Outdoor defecation seems a bit over the top. I have also heard that a more recent problem is with Muslim visitors.
The Venice picture reminds me of our visit to the cherry blossom festival here in DC. The venues were similarly crowded. Never again.
Mass tourism was not promoted by Japan until very recently. The Japanese are enthusiastic ‘tourists’ in their home country. Tourist venues have always been packed (do NOT ever book a visit during one of the country’s ‘Golden Weeks’ - the entire population will be on the move!).
This works well-enough when the hordes are ALL Japanese. Everyone plays by the same rules. Gaigins of any origin don’t know the rules and don’t much give a shit,anyway. Not too big a problem until tour group size exceeds about 4 or 5 people. Most conspicuous, in my experience are big groups of Islamics, Orthodox Jews and Mainland Chinese. The Chinese have actually improved a lot in the last decade.
I suspect the welcome mat for foreign tourists to be rolled-up a bit by the new government in Japan.
A special place in Tourist Hell probably belongs to bands of young men from just about anywhere - with a special hat-tip to Italians, Aussies and Americans.
Footnote - about 40 years ago, I was the spokesman for US Military Forces in Japan. One day, while having a get-to-know-you lunch with the new AP Bureau Chief, there he asked me why so many fewer GIs got in trouble with the locals v. our servicemen in Europe.
I’d never thought about it but an answer flew right off the top of my head. In Germany or Italy or England, I said, “the locals look a lot like Uncle Joe, Cousin Fred and Susie, the girl next door but social ‘rules’ are not always the same and misunderstandings can cause problems.”
In Japan, even the Ding Dong Dullard from Dumas, realizes he’s a long way from home, vastly outnumbered and needs to figure a few things out before diving-in, head first.
In Japan, a cherry blossom is a lot more than a pink flower - Sakura…
Venice off season is two months. Mid Nov to Mid Dec and Mid Jan to Mid Feb. That's it.
there are over 1 billion chinese. When the 1.5 billion Indians start to to travel more, you'll really see some crowding.
The Ugly American - a lot those "Americans" weren't really.
"the locals look a lot like Uncle Joe, Cousin Fred and Susie . . . .
image search Mauldin This Is The Town My Pappy Told Me About.
The smartest thing the Japanese ever did was "NO" to christianity. Now, they need to say "No" to Western and Chinese Tourists.
tommyesque
exactly
So, assuming our youngest finds gainful employment after his graduation and does not have to travel a lot for that employment, he has said he'll take the family dog, and my husband and I will be more free to travel. We've already traveled pretty extensively in Europe and central America, but we're eager to go to Asia. However, I'm apprehensive because of the wide cultural gulf.
Those who have traveled in Asia - what do you think? Will it be enough for us to do Internet research and be acutely sensitive to the behavior of apparently native people around us? Or are we still going to embarrass ourselves and reflect badly on our country?
Sound like Chicagoans in Door County.
We spent a week in Venice in Sept. 2025 and walked back and forth across that bridge several times. Not once did we have any crowd. This is crazy.
Good point, JSM. As strange to the young as rotary phones.
(The two guys were grown, maybe father and son, but wore Muslim garb.)
I was a bit surprised that they were still using them. I haven't seen one here since I don't know when. Never seemed that sanitary to me.
I am predisposed to believe that the cost/benefit of foreign travel skews heavily to cost. That said, Japan exemplifies a society based on trust, discipline, productivity, and a certain sort of social equality. Japan is worth seeing. The tragedy of its impending demographic collapse is another story.
Lance: we visited The Ark a few years ago.
It was truly amazing.
The Amish built it using no metal nails. They started on either end and met in the middle. And the doors they built were truly large enough for an elephant to fit through.
I would highly recommend a visit.
@Ampersand: Japan is worth seeing. The tragedy of its impending demographic collapse is another story.
Japan isn't in the worst shape these days, and all of East Asia faces substantial population declines (after extreme growth). The worst is South Korea -- they are facing a wipeout. Look at the population-by-age charts here:
Japan:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2024/
South Korea aka "Republic of Korea":
https://www.populationpyramid.net/republic-of-korea/2024/
China is not doing as well as Japan either:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2024/
I've seen a lot of the world's biggest sites, but never as a tourist, per se, or as part of a tour. My four decades of international travel were always business related. I mostly saw things the people I visited wanted me to see, it was great to hear their investment in the place. I ate in restaurants they liked, often with them having a personal relation with the staff. I drove around England a lot, it's a critical spot for my business. I tried to spread my business across a weekend because that ensures the cheapest flights. With a car and time available, I'd seek out places and events related to my model aviation interests, visiting fireman style.
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