Tourist - the stereotype

This article may be Overly British

Americans may not understand humour, only humor. Canadians and Australians may not understand anything at all. Don't change a thing to remedy this.

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Americans are renowned for their ego and their misguided belief that they are useful in some way. Naw, that‘s just homeless Johnny, he‘s been full of himself ever since he got that oversize refrigerator box. Bad Johnny, BAD!

Tourists. We all have 'em. They infest every corner of the globe. Korea, with admirable common sense, arrests all tourists at the border and nukes 'em. Gives them practice for the biggie - America. Most other nations on Earth, sadly, tolerate them. Some even cater for them with hotels and signs in American (Its english you arse!). This is clearly a practice that should be outlawed by the League of Nations.

The stereotype

'Ooh, they get me maad. Those fat twats with Hawaiian shirts and white shorts and American accents.' These lines are common all over the world, in various different languages. In many cases, when someone says tourist, people don't hear:

'Vhere iss the beach?' or

'Right, old chap, let's pull together and have a jolly good time!' or

'(giggle) tskuynsgtlksdhfw (giggle)'

Oh no. This is what they hear...

Transcript

Bob; Wyell, Maybl, thyis is the Callaseum!

Mabel; Weer's the nearest MacDanuld's?

Bob; I knaw, cyan't gyet a decent meal inywhere eyn thyis stewpid cantry. Shyall we take a peecture af it, Maybl?

Buzzi; Mommy! Mommy! I want to go an a riede!!

Mabel; Huney, I don't thyink theer are iny rides heer. Thyis is Yurop.

Bob (as Buzzi screams); Thiy don't heve inything overr heer. No wonder thiy al keep an imigrading to ewerr cantry. Lang Lyive Amirica!

Mabel; Thyis iys beerly cyizilized. Nobady even speaks praper Eynglish. Thiy dyidn't iyn Eynglend as wyell, remyember?

Bob; I knaw! Eynd thiy spyelt aner rang, thiy spyelt iyt haych-o-in-o-yew-arr! Hew stewpid cen yew gyet? At least in Amirica we cyan spell.

Mabel; Thyis iys barring. I'm gohing beck to thee hotyel.

Tourist policies

Exactly. Oh sorry, didn‘t know feces was your most precious commodity, we flush or bury ours.

• Japan: Quietly and politely isolates them from the general population and then gets in a task force of trained chefs who know exactly how to prepare poisonous sushi. The dying tourists are then sent on a boat trip to where 'the Japanese Government have discovered Atlantis' and their boat is sunk by ninjas.
• France: In the driving test, there is a special section. French drivers are taught to run over tourists on sight. Therefore, every time a tourist crosses a road, they or it is faced with a legion of angry French people programmed to kill.
• Ireland: Create thousands of signposts pointing to tourist attractions. One of these is Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. There, tourists trek around it taking photos and eventually are ushered on through by their Irish tourist guides and dragged straight to hell. Another favourite is the Blarney Stone. Tourists are funnelled up the stairs of the castle, lie back to kiss the stone and are promptly pushed off by the man there for 'safety reasons'. They end up in the castle cesspit (because Ireland still lives in the medieval period).
• Russia: Locks tourists onto trains as they pass the border. The trains then take them north to Siberian labour camps, where they eat each others' fat to remain alive.
• Mexico: Has the most ingenious policy of all. Scientists have developed a strain of flu that is deadly to humans as well as a vaccine to it. They have vaccinated most of the native population with it (although some were left out for authenticity reasons) and then spread it. Tourists now steer well clear of the country.
• North Korea: LOL!

Strains of tourist

I know this is about one stereotype, but even within that there are different strains.

• The Family Group. This is probably the less common phenomenon, because few tourists have children. They have sons and daughters who are already out in the world and have divorced themselves from such sad relics of the former age as their parents while slowly becoming them. Alternatively the tourist could have six small children under five who will instantly annoy the hell out of everyone by crying or screaming incessantly.
• The Tour. The true meaning of tourist. These tourists are picked up by a ginormous bus at the airport and then whisked around seeing the sights of the country. In a group, this sort of tourist is very dangerous because they can overcome all enemies except Satan with their nauseating accents. On their own, they're sort of pitiful. Whatever you do, however, do not adopt-a-tourist. They need constant maintainance and subsist only on Big Macs.

Adopt-a-tourist

Some unfortunates get coerced by the charity Expanding Horizons into adopting a tourist, or, due to the shortage of gullible fools, a bus full of them. These are known as 'tour guides'. Within weeks they find themselves stripped of all dignity by the grinding accents and constant demands of their charges. Another charity has grown up to help these poor victims; its name is This Charity Does Not Exist.

And in conclusion...

Doesn't that sound familiar? Remember it all took place at the top of their voices, and Bob was fat and had huge man boobs and Mabel was even fatter and was wearing a pair of giant white shorts and that they were all three shoving pizza down their necks and spilling Coke everywhere and that they were shoving poor hapless Italians and Japanese and French and British and Chinese and German and Finnish and Polish and Russian (this on purpose) and and and people into the gutter and that they spent the rest of their holiday trying to find a MacDonalds without moving a step and that they thought the Vatican was a painting and that they didn't know Italy was a country and that they thought they could see America from the tip of the boot and and and and and and and and and

And were generally total fuckers their entire visit.

Bob; Wyell, Maybl, how dyid yew like thyat haliday?

Mabel; Iyt was harrrible!!