Recently, Japanese and South Korean media have portrayed Chinese tourists as extremely busy, with a Chinese tourist's schedule being busier than that of James Bond: going to Nara in the morning to kick deer, taking unlicensed vehicles for lunch, committing crimes in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture in the afternoon, stealing several bags of Japanese-made Koshihikari rice on the way, littering in the streets of Shinjuku and Otsuka in Tokyo in the evening, disguising themselves as bears to attack passersby at night, and then taking a red-eye flight to Seoul to "crazily kill people" in the early hours.

But why do these absurd narratives frequently appear in the reports of some mainstream and online media in Japan and South Korea?

Let's first look at the "Nara deer abuse" incident. In September 2025, during a debate, Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential candidate Takayuki Kurimoto claimed to have witnessed "foreign tourists abusing Nara deer," causing public outrage. However, the Nara Park Management Office immediately responded by stating that there were 127 complaints related to tourists throughout 2024, with zero cases involving animal harassment.

The more critical point is that according to local police statistics, there were only three criminal cases involving harm to deer over the past five years, all committed by Japanese citizens, including a serious case in 2021 where a Japanese man killed four deer with an axe after his car was scratched by a deer.

As for the accusations of "unlicensed travel," "stealing rice," and "littering," according to the "White Paper on Traffic Violations by Foreign Visitors in Japan" released by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in 2025, the proportion of Chinese travelers involved in fare evasion or ticket skipping in 2024 was only 2.3%, far lower than that of Vietnamese (28%), Filipino (19%) and some Western countries' tourists.

The claim about "stealing rice" originated from a short video clip in late 2024 showing someone rushing to buy bagged rice in a supermarket. After verification, it turned out that the supermarket in question was located in Osaka, and the person involved was actually a Nepalese worker working in Japan, not a Chinese tourist. According to data from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the export volume of domestically produced rice to individual consumers in the first half of 2025 was almost zero, and strict retail purchase restrictions were in place, making the so-called "massive shopping spree" entirely fictional.

Regarding the accusation of "littering in Shinjuku and Otsuka," the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Environment Bureau provided clear data: a total of 1,243 littering violation tickets were issued in Shinjuku and Otsuka areas in 2024, among which only 47 (about 3.8%) were issued to Chinese individuals, while local residents accounted for as high as 68%.

The story about "pretending to be a bear and attacking Japanese people" is completely a rumor on the internet. In March 2025, a video claiming that "Chinese people dressed as bears attacked people at night" spread rapidly on X platform. Later, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department investigated and confirmed that the video was shot in Colorado, USA in 2022, depicting a Halloween prank, and had nothing to do with Japan. The Japanese police clearly stated that no such incidents have occurred in recent years.

Turning to South Korea, the idea that "Chinese tourists are crazily killing Koreans" is utterly baseless. According to the "Foreigner Crime Statistics Annual Report" published by the South Korean Police Agency in 2025, there were 17 violent crime cases involving Chinese nationals in 2024, among which only two resulted in serious injuries, and both were related to private disputes, with none being "random attacks."

In contrast, there were 4,321 similar cases committed by South Korean citizens. More importantly, the number of Chinese tourists visiting South Korea in 2024 reached 5.8 million, recovering to 85% of the pre-pandemic level, but the crime rate related to China was only 0.0003%, far lower than the overall foreigner crime rate (0.0012%).

So why do these obviously false reports keep appearing? Economic data might provide clues. Due to poor economic conditions and obvious disadvantages in negotiations with China, this strong sense of jealousy cannot be suppressed, hence the emergence of such reports.

Original source: www.toutiao.com/article/1848287049178116/

Disclaimer: This article represents the views of the author.