To think this is ridiculous and a bit racist?

[JessieMcJessie]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-36733450

Have read and seen this story in several places now, including a filmed segment on Sky News. Chinese tourists have been coming in large numbers to Kidlington and taking selfies etc in residential streets. Some reports of them ringing doorbells to ask to use toilets. Locals apparently "baffled" and have not been able to find out why they are coming because "they don't speak enough English". Theories being bandied about such as "it's mentioned in an episode of Inspector Morse" and "maybe something to do with Harry Potter?".

So the great and good of the national press are filing reports left right and centre and not one single one has been able to find a bilingual English/Mandarin speaker in the Oxfordshire area to just bloody ask the next coach load who turn up? Much more fun to stay deliberately in the dark and treat them like a freak show eh?

What a load of nonsense.

[bloodyteenagers]

So erm if the locals don't speak Mandarin and the tourists don't speak English. How can anyone know that it's the use of the toilet that is required?
Maybe across the UK there are coach loads of Chinese people knocking on doors because of a mn thread last year involving a gazebo

[louisagradgrind]

These PARTICULAR Chinese tourists-NOT the Chinese race- are appallingly bad mannered.

[Roseformeplease]

Don't they only turn up in Thursday? I think that is what I read. So, they might have to wait until next week.

[corythatwas]

Isn't there a hint of condescension in the OP's suggestion that the locals should call out an interpreter (or that local Chinese people should somehow be on hand to deal with the situation) instead of laughing at people who are, quite frankly, behaving badly? Would she feel the same about a bunch of Brits behaving the same way in Asia: that the onus is on the locals to solve the problem because the poor foreigners are clearly completely naïve and helpless? If she does not feel that, what exactly does that say about her opinion of Chinese people?

[fastdaytears]

As a local (but not from Kidlington) it's been amusing a lot of us because Kidlington is so, so non-descript. There is nothing of any interest.

Initial theories were all to do with TV stuff that might have been filmed there.

Speculation and mystery is more fun than tourists-get-a-bit-ripped-off-on-their-way-to-Bicester

[TheRealAdaLovelace]

I do see what you mean Jessie. I am quite sure that some of those Chinese tourists do speak English, so why not just ask them?
The problem is that a great percentage of the British public do not have the time or inclination to persevere when communication is difficult, or perhaps someone has a 'funny' accent.

[JessieMcJessie]

What are you talking about louisa? Jessie was my late Dad's nickname for me and I'm Scottish.

[louisagradgrind]

JessieMcJessie I find your user name 'a bit' racist and 'a bit' homophobic as well!

[Hamishandthefoxes]

Kidlington isn't remotely picturesque that's bonkers. They must mean Woodstock or something.

[Hamishandthefoxes]

I know a number of people who live there and the general view is puzzlement. Of course there are people of Chinese origin who live there but they have jobs and lives - they're not there to hang around trying to translate for pensioners.

The main reason for the bafflement is that it is a not very attractive small town mostly built in the 1960s with lots of badly planned ribbon development and the Thames valley police headquarters. It's like having tourist trips to any other suburb in the uk - day out on a residential street in Croydon anyone?

[MumOnTheRunCatchingUp]

Who would 'pay' this £50 for an interpreter then??

[Just5minswithDacre]

The thing that I find racist is that the residents and media are making a huge fuss about speculating about what they are doing there instead of just asking them to explain via an interpreter. A bit like you might speculate why a dog is behaving in a certain odd way.

It's a local press story that's been picked up nationally. Those puff stories are always an exercise in over inflating some minor point of gossip.

It would have been exactly the same for any usual occurrence no matter who the protagonists were.

[PinkSparklyPussyCat]

Racist? Odd yes, racist no.

I was be very pissed off if I kept finding strangers in my garden or wanting to use my toilet and they would soon learn a couple of words of English!

[Queenbean]

The thing that I find racist is that the residents and media are making a huge fuss about speculating about what they are doing there instead of just asking them to explain via an interpreter. A bit like you might speculate why a dog is behaving in a certain odd way.

That isn't racist. Haven't you ever read a local paper? They specialise in guessing about why something is the way it is without ever researching it properly!

[JessieMcJessie]

I'm not sure if there are any more ways I can say this: the behaviour of the Chinese tourists is definitely a bit odd and British people finding it odd is not in any way racist.

The thing that I find racist is that the residents and media are making a huge fuss about speculating about what they are doing there instead of just asking them to explain via an interpreter. A bit like you might speculate why a dog is behaving in a certain odd way.

[EveOnline2016]

Op I agree it is racist because if this have been a group of white English football fan going into people garden and using kids toys like the trampoline the police would have been called.

[Katiepoes]

That depends where you live - my best friend lives in a particularly attractive part of Amsterdam, everyone there is so used to random tourists climbing their garden fences to take photos and knocking on their doors to 'take a peek inside' it's an annoyance that is simply part of living there. She has to keep her blinds closed permanently in summer time otherwise she has people peering in and taking photos through the window. Apparently mostly Italian and Japanese tourists, although that could be just because here at least they both tend to tour about the place in great obvious packs.

In Dublin there is a permanent group of Spanish students hanging around Bono's house. Nobody knows why it's only ever Spanish, it is a mystery.

Which I guess is my way of saying people are peculiar. Don't see how wondering about them makes anyone racist though.

[Just5minswithDacre]

However I am annoyed that it portrays the Chinese tourists with their funny ways as so "other" that nobody could possibly work out a way

People walking into your garden to have a bounce on your trampoline or pick nettles IS unusual/noteworthy/outside of the norm Jessie

Isn't good humoured bemusement a pretty, mild and good-natured response?

[JessieMcJessie]

Thank you FTW63.

piemernator, contrary to numerous assertions on this thread I am not "determined to be offended" by this story. It doesn't offend me at all actually; it annoys me. However what most certainly DOES offend me is your statement that by starting a thread on this story I am "giving real racism a chance". Have you never heard of the zero tolerance approach, or the everyday sexism project?

At no point have I said anywhere that this is up there with serious race hate (nb my choice of "a bit racist" in the thread title for a start). However I am annoyed that it portrays the Chinese tourists with their funny ways as so "other" that nobody could possibly work out a way just to bloody ask them why they are visiting. This approach is used, as others have said, to string out the mystery for the sake of a very lame story that, astonishingly, was deemed worthy by Sky News of the expense of sending a reporting team to cover it and which has, I understand, now gone global.

And as for asking why I posted in AIBU and then refused to accept that my interpretation of this was unreasonable, since when was there a rule that said that AIBU was some sort of majority voting system? I find others views' interesting, so thanks for posting, but I don't have to accept them.

[BillSykesDog]

Last night when the thread was posted the story didn't have the bit about Kidlington being marketed by Chinese agencies, that's an update.

[BadLad]

I would not be impressed if I had strangers knocking on my door wanting to use the toilet, play on my children's toys, trespassing through my gardens and offering to cut the grass.

There have been threads on here in the past about knocking on strangers' doors to use the loo. I was surprised by how many people said they would be perfectly willing to knock on doors for this reason.

[BertrandRussell]

Someone asked a friend from China. "Kidlington is apparently being marketed by Chinese tourist agencies as a beautiful English village on the way to Bicester Village shopping centre," he said."

So not so mysterious after all.