A Swedish TV Show Said Chinese Tourists Poop In Public And People Are Pissed

The program also told Chinese tourists that if they "see a person with their dog on the street, this does not mean they have just bought their lunch."

A satirical Swedish TV show has caused an uproar in China after it aired a segment last week mocking Chinese tourists.

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The episode of Svenska Nyheter, hosted by Jesper Rönndahl, aired on SVT on Saturday and included a sketch — dubbed over in Mandarin Chinese — "welcoming" Chinese tourists to Sweden.

In the video, a woman lists a few "tips for Chinese tourists to avoid culture clash," with the first being: "In Sweden, we don't take a shit outside historical heritage sites."

"If you see a person with their dog on the street, this does not mean they have just bought their lunch," the woman goes on.

"We use knives and forks to eat in Sweden," she says. "And we don't take a shit when we are eating."

"The other cultural difference is that you Chinese people are racist," the woman then says.

"But in Sweden, we have black people, Jewish people, Arabs, and even homosexuals," she says.

"Because we support the principle of every person's right to equality," she adds.

"However, we do not apply this principle to Chinese people," she says.

People were pissed.

And thought it was racist.

The TV episode comes after a family of Chinese tourists were forcibly removed by police from a hostel in Stockholm earlier this month, which also caused a controversy in China.

The family are then seen sitting on the ground and wailing.

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That incident caused a debate on Chinese social media, with some people criticizing Swedish police for their treatment of the family while others felt that the family's behavior was embarrassing.

Although the incident happened on Sept. 2, it did not go viral until Sept. 14, two days after the Dalai Lama visited Sweden.

After the incident went viral, the Chinese Embassy in Sweden issued a safety alert for Chinese tourists in Sweden, citing the incident and urging them to take extra precautions as many Chinese tourists have also become victims of theft and robbery.

The Chinese government denied that the government's response to the incident was related to the Dalai Lama's visit.

A Swedish government source told Reuters that Sweden "believed that China was exaggerating the incident" because Sweden had spoken out over the case of Gui Minhai, a Swedish bookseller who has been detained by Chinese authorities since 2015.

"Sweden and the EU have repeatedly called for his release and Chinese authorities don’t like that," the official said.

The Chinese Embassy in Sweden has since issued another safety alert, as well as a statement condemning the Svenska Nyheter episode as "a gross insult to and vicious attack on China and the Chinese people."

A spokesperson for SVT told BuzzFeed News that the goal of Svenska Nyheter is to comment on current affairs by using satire and humor but they made a mistake with the sketch about Chinese tourists.

"The purpose of the short segment was to gather Chinese reactions," the spokesperson said. "This was a mistake as the entirety of our message and ambition was then lost."

"We recognize that this may have been an insult, for which we are truly sorry," the spokesperson said.

They added that the intention for the episode was to "follow up on the official Chinese reaction to the hostel incident, while at the same time covering the the fact that sinophobia hasn't gained the same amount of attention as other forms of racism in Sweden."

BuzzFeed News has reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Sweden for comment.

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