The behaviour of a group of Chinese tourists has been criticised after a video showed a group frenziedly using plates as shovels to gather up shrimp at a hotel buffet in Chiang Mai, with subsequent photos revealing that a large amount of food went wasted.

In the video, which became widely shared on Chinese social media in 2016 but is thought to date from a year earlier, the hungry tourists are seen jostling each other to get at the food and walking away with several plates overflowing with shrimp.

Much to the dismay of the hotel staff, much of the food which was carried away was left uneaten, prompting netizens to deride the behaviour of the greedy tourists.

A netizen from Fujian wrote, "Us mainlanders act like locusts abroad, no matter where we go, not a blade of grass grows."

"Are we sure that they're not Japanese?" wrote another, apparently in reference to an incident earlier this week where Chinese tourists were mistakenly identified for a Japanese tour group frolicking naked on a beach in Thailand.

Others have joked about the situation, arguing that the behaviour of the tourists was driven by the expensive price of shrimp in Qingdao after a story broke last year about one unsuspecting man being charged 2,700 yuan for a modest plate of prawns.

The behaviour of a group of Chinese tourists has been criticised after a video showed a group frenziedly using plates as shovels to gather up shrimp at a hotel buffet in Chiang Mai, with subsequent photos revealing that a large amount of food went wasted.
In the video, which has been widely shared on Chinese social media since it came to the attention of state media, the hungry tourists are seen jostling each other to get at the food and walking away with several plates overflowing with shrimp.
Much to the dismay of the hotel staff, much of the food which was carried away was left uneaten, prompting netizens to deride the behaviour of the greedy tourists.

zx11xz1974 wrote, "What on earth? Have you never eaten shrimp before? Could you lose any more face abroad?"

A netizen from Fujian wrote, "Us mainlanders act like locusts abroad, no matter where we go, not a blade of grass grows."

"Are we sure that they're not Japanese?" wrote another, apparently in reference to an incident earlier this week where Chinese tourists were mistakenly identified for a Japanese tour group frolicking naked on a beach in Thailand.

Others have joked about the situation, arguing that the behaviour of the tourists was driven by the expensive price of shrimp in Qingdao after a story broke last year about one unsuspecting man being charged 2,700 yuan for a modest plate of prawns.