Wall Street Journal highlights ‘dodging Chinese tourists’ as biggest challenge of SG’s uni students

SINGAPORE: It’s not unusual for Singapore’s top-ranked universities to be featured in the international media, but Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore made the Wall Street Journal this week for a very unusual reason.

“Singapore College Students’ Toughest Test Is Dodging Chinese Tourists,” was the title of a piece by Chun Han Wong earlier this week.

This, of course, is not news to Singaporeans.

Stories about foreign visitors, mostly from China, descending on NUS and NTU have been in pieces in TODAY, CNA, and other local media sites from the beginning of the year, after students complained of being disturbed by tourists, some of whom came in large numbers.

There were even incidents of tour groups entering lecture halls and listening in on lessons.

On Feb 1, NTU announced that travel agencies that intended to bring groups to the campus would need to seek approval first. It added that it would be charging an entrance fee to help with maintenance costs.

NUS, meanwhile, has upped its security staff to help make sure only students and staff rode the internal shuttle buses.

On r/NUS, one Reddit user posted about three tourist buses containing between 30 and 40 people each arriving at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) within a 15-minute period. The volume of visitors made it difficult for students who needed to use the canteen, libraries, and other campus facilities.

“Toilet situations are terrible too. Imagine having 10 minutes between classes and you not only have to fight with the students but the huge group of tourists,” the post author wrote.

The WSJ quoted a recent graduate from one of the universities as saying of the tourists: “I think to them it’s like observing zoo exhibits.”

Visitors to the universities include prospective students and their parents, attracted by the high academic standards at NTU and NUS.

But visitors also come, especially to NTU, because of its beautiful buildings. The Hive, in particular, draws tourists in “to see the famed “dim sum basket building.”

The Hive has grown in popularity on China’s social media sites, and WSJ reported that “busloads of Chinese tourists” have been arriving daily, especially after a post-pandemic boom in the number of tourists from China.

A spokesperson for NUS told WSJ that it will be implementing additional measures by the beginning of next year, ahead of peak Lunar New Year travel, to keep visitors in check

“NUS is first and foremost an academic institution and not a tourist destination,” the spokesman said.

The featured image above is from Supanut Arunoprayote (Wikimedia). /TISG

Read also: Singapore leads the rest of the globe in the number of Chinese tourists