Japanese island tells tourists to stop farting in public
Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, welcomes millions of visitors each year to its hot springs and ski resorts. But it would really like it if all of you stopped burping, farting and talking so loudly in public.
The Hokkaido Tourism Organization has a tourist brochure downloadable from its site [pdf], that aims to curb some bad behaviour it's noticed from visitors, which includes littering, queue-cutting and soiling public toilets.
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An original version of the guide -- printed only in Chinese -- came out in August last year, but attracted criticism for being "condescending," and the tourism board revised its tone in a new version that was published in March in both English and Chinese, the Japan Times reports.
The publication also notes that hotels in Sapporo, Hokkaido's capital, said they were reluctant to host visitors from China, because of cases in which they dirtied rooms or were rowdy.
In an earlier version of the brochure, examples of bad behaviour were marked by a large X. The mark was placed over an illustration of someone ripping open an unpurchased item's packaging, for example. In the new revision, it now says: "It’s forbidden to open the packaging of a product until you’ve purchased and paid for it."
However, it also adds: "Japan is a world leader in production technology and quality control, and it’s common sense that consumers don’t need to open packages to check for defects."
Here are some other notes from the brochure:
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Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
